Phantasmania examines a distinct new undercurrent in contemporary artistic consciousness, brought on by today’s pervasive climate of war, disaster and globalization, along with the rise of mediated information and experience. Displaying a proclivity towards escapism and a return to materiality, the 17 emerging artists collected in Phantasmania revert to interior worlds by creating narrative works influenced by fairytales, dreams, mythologies and personal and collective memories. Within these alternate realities, the artists merge representational imagery with elements of fantasy and the bizarre, of beauty and violence, thus creating a place to refer to and understand a world dominated by fear, strangeness and social unrest. Artists include Dan Attoe, Jules de Balincourt, John White Cerasulo, Anna Conway, Angela Fraleigh, James Benjamin Franklin, Wendell Gladstone, Robert Gutierrez, Adam Helms, Elizabeth Huey, Kelly McLane, Shiri Mordechay, Robyn O’Neil, Lamar Peterson, Jon Pylypchuk, Matthew Ronay and Andrew Sendor. Catalogue includes a foreword by Rachael Blackburn Cozad, essay by Elizabeth Dunbar and plates with artist entries by Christopher Cook, Elizabeth Dunbar, and Becca Ramspott. The exhibition Phantasmania was organized by Elizabeth Dunbar at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, where it was on view June 1 - August 19, 2007. Hardcover: 96 pages Publisher: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (2007) Language: English ISBN-13: 978-1891246159 Dimensions: 9.8 x 8.8 x .5
