About

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CURRICULUM VITAE of:

GREGORY STEEL Born: Detroit, MI

Education

• 2010-2020    Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, PhD.
• 1999-2001     University of Michigan – MFA, Art/New Genres
• 1990-1998     College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI – BFA, with honors, Sculpture

Professional experience

• 2019 to present
  Professor of Art and New Media, Chair of New Media, Art, and Technology, Indiana Univ., Kokomo
• 2012 to 2019
  Associate Professor of Fine Arts and New Media, Indiana Univ., Kokomo, IN
• 2008 – 2012
  Assistant Professor, Fine Arts, Indiana Univ., Kokomo IN
• 2005 – 2008
  Lecturer in Fine Art/Director of Exhibitions Indiana Univ. Kokomo IN
• 2002 – 2005
  Director of Work exhibition space, School of Art & Design, University of Michigan ArtProTem, Board of Directors
• 2002
  Adjunct Assistant Professor, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI (Sculpture and Experimental Media)
  ArtProTem, Board of Directors, Ann Arbor, MI
• 2001
  Adjunct Assistant Professor, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI, (Sculpture II, Sculpture I and Experimental Media
  Lecturer University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
  Guest Lecturer “Public Art”, Ann Arbor Public Library
  Guest Lecturer “Use of Sound as Artistic Media” Ann Arbor Public Library
  Guest Lecturer “Video as Art”, Adrian College, Adrian, MI
• 2000
  Guest Lecturer, Center for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI
  Michigan Mentorship Program, Mentoring Gifted High School Students
  Graduate Student Instructor, Drawing II Teaching Assistant, Figure Drawing, University of Michigan
• 1999
  Teaching Assistant, Drawing II, University of Michigan
• 1980-1999
  Graphic Designer and Photographer, Electronic Data Systems.
• 1998
  June Guest Instructor, Art on the Move Seminars on Sculpture, Welding and Metal Work.
• 1990-present
  Freelance Architectural design utilizing sculptural techniques i.e. casting fabrication etc.
• 1990-present
  Freelance Video Producer/ Editor/ Director, Steel Labs, Carmel and Kokomo, Indiana
• 1989
  Sculpture Studio Tech, Macomb Community College, Mt.Clemens, MI

SELECTED ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS

• 2022 Gregory Steel, Sabbatical Exhibition, Indiana University Downtown Gallery
• 2019 Gregory Steel, Indiana University Downtown Gallery
• 2015 Subject Portrait Internet Project, Ongoing
• 2011 Gregory Steel, “The Sublime 30 Times Per Second”, Galleria Zero, Barcelona Spain
• 2009 Gregory Steel, Galleria Zero, Barcelona Spain
• 2006 Gregory Steel, “ Just Asking” Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI
  Gregory Steel, “ Artifacts” Gallery Penumbra, Indianapolis Indiana
• 2004 Gregory Steel, Studio23 , Bay City MI
• 2003 Gregory Steel, GaleriaZero, Barcelona, Spain
• 2000 Conversations, Media Union Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
  Sculpture Garage Sale, Ann Arbor, MI

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

• 2023
  • Artlink Mid-West Regional, Artlink Gallery, Fort Wayne, IN
• 2022
  • KaatsBaan Cultural Center, Tivoli NY
  • Actual Size Detroit Contemporary Gallery, Detroit, MI
  • Artlink Mid-West Regional, Artlink Gallery, Fort Wayne, IN
  • Mid-South Juried Exhibition, Easter Tennessee State University, Slocumb Gallery
• 2021
  • KaatsBaan Cultural Center, summer season
  • Sculpture Exhibition, The In Art Gallery, Online Exhibition
  • The Little Sculpture Show, International Sculpture Center, Omaha, NE
  • From the Reject Files, Mid-South Sculpture Association, Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park, Hamilton Ohio
  • Small Wonders, Fine Line Arts Center, Kavanaugh Gallery, St. Charles, IL
  • Henley Festival, Oxfordshire England
• 2020
  • Purely Abstract, Fine Line Arts Center, St. Charles, IL
  • City of Russiaville Indiana, sculpture commission
  • House on Fire, Pam Miller Art Center, Lexington Kentucky
  • Gallery Attaché, London, Great Britain
  • Monaco Art Fair, Monte Carlo, Monaco
• 2019
  • Hoosier Salon, Indiana State Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana
  • 13th Annual Juried Sculpture Exhibition, Rosewood Art Center, Kettering, Ohio
  • Monaco Art and Yacht show Monte Carlo, Monaco
  • Scope Miami, Miami Beach, FL.
  • Open Source, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA
  • Art Monaco, Monaco Contemporary Art Fair, Monte-Carlo, Monaco
  • Art Expo New York, New York, New York
  • Gallery Attaché, London, Great Britain
• 2018
  • New York Art Expo, Pier 94, New York NY
  • Open Source, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA
  • Electron Salon, Los Angeles Center for Digital Arts, Los Angeles, CA
  • Art Expo New York, New York, New York
  • ArtUpClose, Monte Carlo, Monaco
  • Artifact, Yukyung Art Museum, Geoji, South Korea
  • Red Dot Miami, Miami, FL
  • Finding Peace, Kokomo, Indiana
• 2017
  • Anima Mundi, Palazzo Ca’ Zanardi, Cannaregio, Italy
  • Electron Salon, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA
  • Alchemic Body, Laura Graber Gallery, Buenos Aries, AR
  • Monaco Yatch Show, Monte Carlo, Monaco
  • Listing in Art in America
• 2016
  • Electron Salon, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA
  • Spectrum Miami, Miami Art Week, Miami, FL
  • Snap to Grid, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA
  • Art Expo New York, Pier 94, New York, NY
  • Fragmented Identities, Bahcesehir University, Rome, Italy
  • Electron Salon, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA
  • Actual Size, Detroit Contemporary Gallery, Detroit, MI
  • Electron Salon, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, December2016
  • Featured Artist, New York Art Expo, sponsored by ArtUpClose Gallery
  • Listing in Art and America
  • Electron Salon, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, March2106
  • Snap To Grid, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art
• 2015
  • Selfie Show, MONA, Detroit MI
  • GZBASEL, Galleria Zero, Basel Switzerland
  • Identities, Venice Italy
  • Electron Salon, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles CA
  • Video Mind Freak Tour, First Friday, Kokomo IN
• 2014
  • Border Body, Almeria ,Spain, at MECA Mediterráneo Centro Artístico and Palazzo Barone Ferrara in Bari, Italy
• 2013
  • Mixing Cities, Gydnia InfoBox, Gydnia Poland
  • Identities, Istanbul Cultural Center, Istanbul Turkey
  • Mixed Hybrids, Carnival of Venice, Scoletta di San Giovanni Battista e del SS. Sacremnto,Bragora Venice, Italy
  • Art of Liquid Modernity, Castello Svero(Swabain Castle), Santa Teresa dei Maschi and Sala Murat, Bari, Italy
  • Art Metting 2103, Galry, 41 Rue de Verneuil, Paris France
  • Hybrids, International Video Festival, Edinburgh Scotland
  • Hybrids, International Video Festival, Camaguey, Cuba
• 2012
  • Identities, International Video Festival, Istanbul Turkey, Koza Visual Culture and Arts Association
  • Liquid Identities, Scoletta di San Giovanni Battista e del SS. Sacramento in Bragora, Venice Italy
  • Hidden Cities, International Media Exhibition, Rome, Italy
  • Smart Cities, Carnivale of Venice, Venice Italy
• 2011
  • Fluxfest, New York City
  • Actual Size, Whitdel Arts, Detroit Michigan
• 2010
  • Limo Video International, London England
  • After the Pedestal, Sculpture Center, Cleveland Ohio
  • Shanghia International art Fair, Shanghia China
  • Tokyo International Art Fair, Toyko, Japan
  • Line Art, Brussels, Belgium
• 2009
  • Ritual & Repition, National/International Travelling Exhibition
  • Borders+ Segments, Florean Museum, Baia Mare, Romania
  • Digital Art L.A., L.A.Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA
  • Video Art Festival, National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
  • Green Box #1, Hidden Noise Art Space, Indianapolis Indiana
  • Square, Hidden Noise Art Space, Indianapolis Indiana
• 2008
  • Liquid Cities, Micro Museum, Brooklyn, NY
  • Urban Identity Video Art, Monkey Town,Brooklyn NY
  • Textual Evidence, Hidden Noise Art Space, Indianapolis, Indiana
  • International Art Experience, Gallery Zero Barcelona Spain
  • “Reading Action” Hidden Noise Art Space, Indianapolis Indiana
  • “View from the passenger window/ Landscape” Indiana University Northwest, Gary Indiana
• 2007
  • After Urban Video Art, Brooklyn NY
  • Artcite 25th Anniversary Exhibition, Artcite Inc. Windsor Ontario, Canada
  • White on White, Fortworth Center for the Arts, Forthworth TX.
  • International Art Expo at the NOMAD, Bucharest Romainia
  • Video Festival, Spainish Cultural Center, El Salvador.
  • Repition & Ritual, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
  • After Urban, Videofestival University of Pennsylvania, Philedelphia, Pennsylvania
  • 10th Annual Detroit International Video Festival, MONA, Rochester MI
  • Liquid Room, International Video Festival, Cultural Communications Centre, Klaipede. Lithuania
  • Brooklyn Artists Gym, Small Works Show, Brooklyn, New York
  • Liquid Room, International Video Festival, New York NY
  • Attitude, experimental film & photography Festival,Magza Cultural Center,Bitola Macedonia
  • International Group Exhibition, Gallery 27, Cork Street, London England
• 2006
  • Whitewater Arts Competition, Indiana University East
  • Xiamen International Exhibition, Xiamen University, Xaimen China
  • Fujan International Show, Fujan Province, Chinav
  • Omma Center for Art Group Show, Hiana, Create, Greece
  • Rivers Edge Film Festival, Paducah, Kentucky
  • Indiana University Kokomo Experimental Video Festival, Kokomo, Indiana
  • Temporary Cities, International Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
  • International Festival of Electronic Arts, Santa Fe, Argentina
  • Snap to Grid 2006, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art
• 2005
  • International Video Festival, Carnubari, Romanian
  • Snap to Grid, Los Angels Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA
  • Detroit International Video Festival, MONA, Rochester, MI
  • Meeting With China, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
  • Contrasts, Zero Project, Berlin
  • International Video Art Festival, Ferrara, Italy
  • 2nd International Independent Video/Filmfestival, Vienna, Austria & Mainz, Germany
  • Videofestival, Kaliningrad Branch of the National Center for Contemporary Arts, Kaliningrad, Russia
  • Profiling, 555 Gallery, Detroit, MI.
• 2004
  • Summer 2004, Galeriazero, Barcelona, Spain
  • A History of Conflict-A Future of Hope, Frazier Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
  • Staff@ Work, Work Exhibition Space, Ann Arbor, MI
• 2003
  • Santa Show, Warren Robbins Center Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI
  • All Area Show , Bay City MI
  • Actual Size, Detroit Contemporary Gallery, Detroit MI
  • Florence Biennial. Florence, Italy
  • International Group Exhibition, OMMA, Center of Contemporary Art, Hania, Crete Greece.
  • Double Vision Work Exhibition Space, Ann Arbor, MI
  • Playground Warren Robbins Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
• 2002
  • Third Dimension, Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, Birmingham, MI.
  • Hear, Hear, ArtProTem, sound works show, Ann Arbor, MI
  • Summer 2002, Galeria d’Art Zero, Barcelona, Spain
• 2001
  • Artists Take on Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit MI, Collaboration, J. Wesner
  • Annual All Media Exhibition, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor, MI
  • October International Competition, Armory Art Center, West Palm Beach, FL.
  • Actual Size, Detroit Contemporary Gallery, Detroit, MI.
  • Storefront Studios, Holland, MI
  • Street Art, Ann Arbor, MI
  • MFA Thesis Exhibition, Jean Paul Slusser Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
• 2000
  • Haunt, Robbin Center Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
  • Hydra, Jon Paul Slusser Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
• 1999
  • Noah’s Underground Show Ann Arbor, MI
• 1998
  • Polk Art and Technology Competition, Birmingham Bloomfield Arts Association, Birmingham, MI
• 1996
  • Scarab Club, Gold Medal Show, Detroit, MI

SHOWS (CURATOR)

• 2016
  • Stewart Green, A Retrospective, IU Kokomo Art Gallery, Kokomo, IN
• 2015
  • U-Shop, Kokomo, IN
• 2013
  • Fluxus Intervention, IU Kokomo Art Gallery, Kokomo, IN
• 2009
  • Al Hebert, Indiana University Kokomo, Kokomo IN
  • Margaret Dolinsky, Indiana University Kokomo, Kokomo IN
  • Ken Friedman, 73 Events, Indiana University Kokomo
• 2006
  • Body in Question, Indiana Univ. Kokomo
  • International Video Festival, Indiana Univ. Kokomo
  • Contemporary Drawing, Indiana University
  • New media exploration, Indiana University
• 2001
  • U-Shop, Ann Arbor, MI

PUBLICATIONS

2020

• The Sublime, an existential and ontological alliance with mystery. (Dissertation)

2013

• Using Virtual Online Environments for Synchronous Online Courses with Scott Jones, PhD and dean of Humanities and social sciences.
• Published in JoOTL Journal of Teaching and Learning Technology, Volume 2 Number 1 July of 2013.

2008

• Natural Born Fluxus
• White on White Catalog, White on White Exhibition
• International Contemporary Masters 2008

2007

• Best of America, Photography

2006

• New Art International NUVO Magazine, Indianapolis Indiana Current in Carmel

2004

• Bay City Times, review
• Ann Arbor News, review

2003

• Dizionario Enciclopedico Internazionale d Arte Moderna e Contemporanea

2002

• Ann Arbor News, Hear Here, April 23, 2002
• Detroit News, Hear/Here, May 24, 2002

2001

• Ann Arbor News, U-Shop

GREGORY STEEL

By Robert Mahoney

In his recent work, Gregory Steel continues to exhibit, both in video and in small sculpture, conceptual conundrums that intend to break down the boundary between art and life. A maker of videos, installations, books, drawings, and various objects of conceptual art ranging from the sculptural to the purely intellectual, Steel peppers life with every media in order to make a case for this delirious interpenetration into the world. In addition to his multimedia stratagems, one must also mention that much of Steel’s art is highly personal, thus entering his art is also entering his life.

In a recent series of tiny sconce-top maquettes for unattainable monuments, Steel has funneled former sculptural impulses into a quest to answer fundamental conceptual questions. In Pretending to See and Peril, In Anticipation of, Steel calls up the ghost of Claes Oldenburg by presenting a tiny vision of a monument for a local park, served up on a gilt baroque wall-sconce with all the pomp of a waiter lofting a tray of hors d’oeuvres. In these scenes tiny Laurie Simmons-type toy figures, emblematic of middle-Americans, confront the alien presence of what must look like, to them, a crustily-surfaced meteor having fallen into their paradise. But the alien object is quite recognizable to our supersize nation as a mouth-watering turkey leg, and so the scenario also dissolves into a picnic prank. Though it may be that, like Oldenberg, Steel proposes a gargantuan Pop icon as an idea for a monumental sculpture, the stereoscopic scale of the object more likely offers a hallucinatory answer to the nervous souls of bland cityscapes, who seek worlds in grains of truth in order to escape from daily life. That Steel has made Mid-America his home base means that his version of the nondescript is everywhere, as he lives in a “what you see is what you get” culture that may have led him to question the immortality of even reputedly great cultural icons. For example, in an additional piece entitled Trip to the City, all that the artist brings back with him, from the land of lavish MOMA logos and the hoopla of the Big Apple is a plastic museum bag commandeered to haul home fresh apples. Once again, the inflated is deflated, the simple is made precious and, again, everything is food for thought.

Another recent video of the artist’s reveals more clearly some of Steel’s sculptural concerns, though in stripped-down form. When I’m Not There is admittedly not an upbeat meditation, in the landscape of the literal and the minimal, about one’s mortality and the relationship of consciousness and mind to body and its presence in time. In his version of the eternal philosophical conundrum, “if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a noise?” Steel has left his video camera at home, running, while he leaves for work. When he is not there, what does the video camera see? Does anything happen, can anything be said to happen, when the eye and mind of the beholder is not there? Three vignettes retreat from a fantasy that something might happen – a full glass of milk, left on a kitchen counter, empties itself – to a mysterious wondering if what really happened did happen – a page of a coffee table book turns itself, though it might have been the wind and not some ghostly reader – to a sad realization that maybe nothing, or much, happens, and it all goes on in any case without me. These worries are raised by a long take of a corner of tile floor, where a nearly unnoticeable draft whirlpools up dust, and this microscopic riot continues long after one has resigned oneself to the fact that there must by now be no one behind Steel’s camera either. Flirting with the zero degree of perception laid down by existentialists and minimalists, Steel is really exploring life after death, and demands a visionary capacity in his viewer. As one wonders what is going on, or at what scale something is meant to be taken, or in what sense – literal or figurative – one must approach a work by, one thinks more of early Duane Michals or even the film director Roman Polanski (as, for example, in the film Repulsion) than the absolute literalists of mainstream American minimalism. Thus the sconces serve the recent sculpture not as metaphorical quotation marks, but as reminders that, in this new century, reality is constructed by how the perceiving mind frames, mounts, stages or presents it, even when that perception is merely implied in the art and technology we leave behind.

Sculptor Gregory Steel: Putting Ideas into Practice

By Jonathan Goodman

Born and raised in Detroit, Gregory Steel has been a working artist long before receiving his advanced academic degrees in art. He also has a doctorate in philosophy, making him a man of ideas as much as a master of construction. We are living in theoretical times, which sometimes dominate and erode art’s capacity for visual pleasure. But Steel, despite forty years of study of both Western and Asian philosophy, knows that the primary impact of art is visual. One of his most striking sculptures is called Iki (2018), a Japanese term meaning stylishness. It consists of two sets of rods, steel blue in color, set on the edge of a thin limestone slab, nearly white in hue. The elegance of the sculpture cannot be denied, and this, it seems, is what Steel is after: a pronounced poise created from the virtuous use of materials, along with an intellectual orientation informing the solid construction of simpler shapes.

The tradition of steel sculpture is highly evident in Steel’s art. On seeing his work, one often thinks of the precedent structures of David Smith and Anthony Caro. But the Japanese elegance of Iki also informs Steel’s work. Steel’s formalist abstractions often seem to chart philosophical concepts which make him an artist of greater import than if he were just describing visual structures. In Spirit Path (2018), also made of steel and limestone, a circle consisting of steel rods is attached to two flat panels of steel which in turn, suggest two ascending paths. The panels, in turn, are joined to a roughly contoured boulder, indicating a living presence outside the one we know. At the base of the panels are two circular disks–such shapes have often signified unlimitedness. Binary ideas permeate this work, as well as Steel’s other sculptures, pointing the way to visual choices that ultimately support one another and lead to the same conclusion.

Still (2020) might be described as an abstract still life. It consists of two groups of steel rods, wrapped tightly by metal bands. These two groups are supported by vertical ovals of steel; one set rises above the ovals while the other goes no further than the oval’s highest point. Everything is colored a rust-red. The title might just as easily be directed toward the mind’s stillness in contemplation. But with Still we are not reading philosophy- we are experiencing a state of being. In Still Standing (2020), Steel has set up two dark, vertical steel beams, with another, shorter beam crossing both near the top of the work. The title refers to the angle downward of the two verticals, which makes them seem as if they were about to tip over creating a delicate balancing act.

Yuugen (2018), a Japanese term meaning a deep awareness of the universe, is indicated in Steel’s welded-steel work, which is composed of slightly curving steel-blue planks with rims rising on both edges of the steel planes. It is another beautiful piece about balance. The artwork consists of a curving piece of steel, and another curving beam steel beam crosses it toward the top. At the bottom of the sculpture is another beam, very near which a couple of steel disks occur. The color of all the components is an exquisite gray-blue. The notion of balance and equanimity, achieved by long stays in meditation is central to Zen Buddhism.Yuugen embraces the awareness that comes from the contemplative mind. Like most of Steel’s works, it embodies a quiet that is as much Asian as it is Western, although the language of Western abstract sculpture is predominant. Ultimately, Steel is a master of sculpture that describes the delicate balance between space and being.

GREGORY STEEL: ARTIFACTS ***** Galerie Penumbra.

Smart and witty, Gregory Steel’s video and assemblage work critiques the status quo with 1960s conviction. Borrowing from the traditions of Marcel Duchamp, Steel uses everyday objects to construct works that comment on contemporary events and politics, cause and effect, lost and abandoned. Things such as glass containers, miniature plastic fagurines and old photographic portraits are placed on freshly painted white wood shelves, pedestals or compartments. White doilies,.sand and casting leftovers are often included – think museum specimens or grandma’s covered sills. Several works reference Apocalypse Now and comment on war,. fear or surrender. In “Fearism,” a glass box contains a miniature landscape of sand, white plastic toy People, and an actual preserved scorpion. Inside the box the toy People .. stand crowded on a dosed scaffolding tower and happily gawk at the poised scorpion as if viewing a bullfight. This spectacle shows no means of escape, but the irony is lost on the crowd. Are we notable to recognize the dangers that may be of our own making? Steel presents this question and other’s in a thoughtful, humorus and aesthetically pleasing manner.