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Arts & Entertainment

'Contain, Maintain, Sustain' Opens at the Artisphere

A new exhibit, focused on sustainability, opened Thursday at the Artisphere in Rosslyn.

"Contain, Maintain, Sustain," an exhibit featuring art from two dozen local and international artists, opened Thursday with a public reception from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Artists long-accustomed to creatively re-purposing materials to realize their vision on a very tight budget brought that creativity to this exhibit.

The Contain, Maintain, Sustain exhibit is a joint venture of the Artisphere, Washington Project for the Arts and Washington Sculptors Group. The Artisphere's newest exhibit represents an opportunity for Arlingtonians to see and interact with art focused on our relationship with the built and natural worlds.

The large, high-ceilinged exhibition space needed a mixture of large and small pieces to both adequately fill the space and to also provide different and unique perspectives on broad concepts.

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The curators issued a call for submissions and then chose a number of pieces from those submitted. They also requested other artists to add their pieces to the exhibit.

The result is a mixture of styles and viewpoints in the works of new, local artists and those of more established and international artists.

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Some of the pieces were designed specifically for this exhibit, including Ronit Eisenbach's Ground Covers, casts made of a New Hampshire winter landscape that were incorporated into the patio adjacent to the Terrace Gallery exhibit room.

To curator Ernesto Santalla, “art is an opportunity to create social commentary” and in many of these pieces, he sees the idea that humanity "doesn't have the capacity to deal with our overproduction.”

Each of the pieces brings a unique vision and often, a tactile sensation as well. Lina Vargas De La Hoz's Blue and Red Space has a very different view from the outside from what you see through one of the openings; it is certainly something that cannot truly be experienced by looking at pictures on the Internet.

Artists need an audience to complete their work through the audience's presence and interaction, and the Contain, Maintain, Sustain exhibit gives Arlington residents the opportunity to do just that.

The exhibit runs until July 17 and is free to the public.

For more information: http://www.artisphere.com

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