Luke Butler: Group show "Capiltal Jewelers" curated by Glen Helfand in Las Vegas

"...Luke Butler’s collages from the series Leader of Men dominate the exhibition. In the series, vintage gay porn meets Life magazine in darkly funny contemplations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and JFK. The presidents’ heads are grafted onto Herculean bodies, shiny and erect, as they proudly dominate dramatic mountains and crashing oceans. The landscapes call to mind fascist articulations of the natural sublime, and there is an unmistakable thread of propaganda to the work. “Bald Mountain” and “Citizen” are particularly majestic in their depictions of Ford, where the former president emerges as if a Roman god. Sex is part and parcel to power, and myth collides with necessity in the stories we spin around our heads of state..."

Full review: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2008/oct/30/capital-ideas/

Ben Shaffer THIS IS A MYTH, Images Pt. 1

Skinny black alter
Acrylic and spray paint on concrete
2008














Pyramids of infinite detention,3
Acrylic and spray paint on concrete
2008















Motherbeard
Acrylic and magic sculpt on concrete
2008
















Baby beard
Acrylic and magic sculpt on concrete
2008















A creature like us
Spray paint, acrylic, magic sculpt on concrete
2008

Christina McPhee Pharmakon Library Blog is up!

http://pharmakonlibrary.blogspot.com/

Sneak peak "THIS IS A MYTH" by Ben Shaffer

Silverman Gallery @ MAC "ARTISTS LIK ETHE HOLIDAYS TOO"

NOW SHOWING, December 13, 12-5pm @ Silverman Gallery

Please join us for “Now Showing” on Saturday December 13th from 12 - 5. At 2pm Ben Shaffer will be reading from his new book titled “THIS IS A MYTH” a special collection of monthly emails that Shaffer has sent out to a select group of friends for the duration of one year. The book will be available for purchase and there will be homemade moonshine for tasting.*

Come early and stay after the reading to check out our collection of artist produced publications, zines, and magazines of all forms from all over the world. We assure you that this is NOT a myth, we really do sell books, zines and periodicals. All for sale, all the time. Each title is a conversation-starter, and complements the curatorial point-of-view of Silverman Gallery.

Some highlights include: A.R.T. Press, Capricious Magazine, Piktogram from Poland, a selection of publications from artist Alejandro Cesarco, WOUND from London and numerous queer publications. New items include “Black Icebergs” by Leslie Shows, PICNIC Magazine from Israel and lovely zines from interstatial.com

Come to “Now Showing” and receive %10 off your entire purchase. Valid on December 13th only. Recession-proof art and gifts for today's economy.

*Remember Ben Shaffer’s opening THIS IS A MYTH is the night before so be sure not to miss it! December 12, 7-10pm.

twice upon a time at Galerie Andreas Huber, Vienna - Opens November 22, 2008

twice upon a time
Carla Åhlander, Kaucyila Brooke, Tammy Rae Carland, Carola Dertnig, Desiree Holman, Judith Hopf, Christina McPhee and Susanne Winterling.

twice upon a time is a group exhibition organized by Galerie Andreas Huber, Vienna and Silverman Gallery, San Francisco. The two met in Berlin in 2006 and realized they both worked with artists whose practices engaged with conceptual, feminist, political and gender issues. Curating a collaborative show highlights the commonality between the programs of Huber and Silverman. The show first opens in Vienna on November 22, 2008 and then travels to San Francisco in March, 2009. twice upon a time is also a moment for each gallery to interrupt their solo show format, to provide a new context and use the gallery as a hub for a larger network.

The title underscores the fact that the exhibition will happen twice and is also a reference to the history of the fairy tale. Historically women fairy tale writers, also called conteuses, a term given to 17th century French women, were silenced and relegated to a more domestic literary sphere. However the conteuses saw their tales as amusements for sophisticated adults in the salon and not for children. Like the conteuses, the artists in twice upon a time challenge gender expectations, engage with playful techniques, collect and urge us to rethink our conception of storytelling and its history.

Desiree Holman’s playful video, I would do almost anything you asked me to do documents the artist wearing flesh-like suites that allow her to enact the role of male character’s by stepping into new “skin”. By wearing the skin of the male character Holman investigates the dynamics of romantic relationships as well as the male gaze. Like Holman Judith Hopf’s practice defies authorial positioning and investigates both behavior and identity. Romantic relationships often start at seedy bars, clubs and lesbian parties which is the starting point for Kaucyila Brooke’s ongoing body of work titled “The Boy Mechanic” (various media, 1996 ongoing). In this excerpt from "The Boy Mechanic/San Francisco"(2007-200?) she shows drawings (ink on paper) of lesbian bar names from San Francisco's past and present reorganized into her own idiosyncratic and fantasy narrative categories . Tammy Rae Carland’s Photoback works document the back of the photograph. Now the trace; who it was for, when, where, why it was taken and how it has lived its life is the focus rather than the initial image. Carland, like Brooke’s work documents memories produced in public identity and social spaces and allows the viewer to insert his/her own memories like a make up your own story. Through these personal and public memories and narratives twice upon a time explores looking for, the trace and the re-invention of ones self.

Tammy Rae Carland lives and works in Oakland, CA. Photobacks is an ongoing photographic series of found personal photographs from the 1910's to the 1970's

Desiree Holman lives and works in Oakland, CA. I would do almost anything you asked me to do is part of an installation-based project call “Breath Holes” which incorporates video, sculpture and large format photography.

Christina McPhee lives and works in Atascadero, CA. 47 Reds is a series of drawings where the artist presses black paper onto colored pigment left on the floor and draws over them. The drawings on top of the pigment are reminiscent of an illustrator adding imagery to a book that already existed.

Susanne Winterling lives in Berlin, Germany. Winterling applies a method of working that weaves ideas and visual structures, both personal and collective, past and future. Like in lovemindmiddleheart, which layers an image of actress Tilda Swinton and a library in a castle close to Prague in an attempt to capture sensuality, memory and dreams.

THIS IS A MYTH by Ben Shaffer, December 12, 2008, 7-10pm

Silverman Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition of new sculpture and wall-mounted works by Ben Shaffer on view from December 12 – January 17, 2008 with an opening on December 12, 7-10pm. “THIS IS A MYTH” is Shaffer’s second one-person exhibition at the gallery and is themed around the space between chaos and order or rather an attempt to order chaos. “THIS IS A MYTH” embodies Shaffer’s interest in posing questions related to notions of truth, myth, survival and consciousness.

The work produced for “THIS IS A MYTH” contains the artist’s hand perhaps more than ever. Working with concrete, Shaffer sculpts pillar like totems that watch over the room and ouroboros, or serpents swallowing its own tail and forming a circle. Shaffer’s totems are made to live indoor or outdoor and should be treated as sacred, meditative and protective objects. The ouroboros symbolize the cyclic nature of the universe: creation out of destruction, life out of death. The ouroboros has been important in religious and mythological symbolism, alchemical illustrations, and is often associated with Gnosticism and Hermeticism. For "THIS IS A MYTH" the metaphor of the self-sustaining ouroboros foregrounds Shaffer's interest in renewal and mythology.

"Mother Beard" is one of Shaffer's concrete sculptures, covered in colorful triangles and shaped like an upward pointing pyramid which represents the monumental, the ancient and powerful, the spiritual and meditative. Associated with the number three, triangles and pyramids have very complex meanings. For instance, a pyramid pointing upwards can symbolize fire and male power while pointing down; it can symbolize water and female sexuality. Throughout "THIS IS A MYTH", Shaffer highlights the dichotomy inherent in the subtle gesture of turning a shape upside down to change its meaning.

“THIS IS A MYTH” is also the culmination of a monthly email that Shaffer has sent out to a select group of friends. The emails started on December 31, 2007 with this first thought “Written with rainbows all along the bottom a horizon line is now there and the words float above we’re looking all at the same time. This is a Myth.” A collection of all these texts will be available alongside Shaffer’s visual imagery. Spirits made by Shaffer will also be available at the opening.

Ben Shaffer lives and works in Los Angeles. He recently curated the group exhibition “Joy and Misery” in Los Angeles at FIVE THIRTY THREE Gallery.

For further information and images please contact Jessica Silverman at 415.255.9508 or info@silverman-gallery.com.

WISH KEY by Ben Shaffer, November 2008

60

This wish key is 32 years old.

61
All these thoughts that flowed up to this exact point needed to be
written and transferred and released from this maze inside with all
the lights turned out. Couldn't find the way about before because,
it's been so dusty and hard to breathe in here. Hard to touch
anything without leaving a trace behind

The sunsets are wonderful and beautiful all these redpurples,
orangeyellows, lights. Colors you've never seen before or could
imagine ever existing outside of science fiction. Los Angeles has
many sunsets like from all the stuff that floats in the air from what
we burn to move us.

62

With interlocking triangles the smallest shape with lines except the
circle. My favorite shape that is a sound, motion, seen in the sky,
in your eye, and on someone's lips, you can make it with your hands
and make it your life. This movement from here and back to here. I
saw a horseshoe in the sky this morning. This long contrail that came
from infinity and made a turn back from where it came from to
infinity. I use to draw circles with a line through them. I guess I
got it from a Mad Max movie or something. Now I'm making these
shapes. Making them heavy and colorful and something I can leave
outside.

63

Just in one night it all changed. This dramatic shift in
consciousness. People cried involuntarily. They didn't know they
would. It just happened that way and we all felt it in our own
indescribable ways. A realization beyond words. Straight to
emotions. Lived with cultivated grown inside and waiting for a day to
open up. Physical reaction, uncontrollable and completely natural.

So it could all change just like we want it to. Maybe all those fires
don't need to start. Just prisms thrown in the air. Follow the path
to the end and buy all the land there. Put your hands in it and touch
your lips. Crawl to the bottom of a tree and prostrate yourself
however you feel like.

64

what truth is it?
we sit high and look at the sky of the made things being in it
with the home made spirits inside and even more riddles to our lives
coming forth.. . .

eyes and movements seem to say more than anything else
the way it all feels right just a strange everything

sitting here and knowing it will end and start over again. . .
hold those secrets in your hair. . .

65

The Sun came down and weaved itself around me, forming an interlocking
cage of understanding that I couldn't escape from. The earth became
my temple and I prayed to it and saw nothing else but, nothing else.
All those points connected and extended into the visible consciousness
and attainable a pattern of recognition that must have always been
here and when those two sides meet they form something new entirely
with each other. How could all these voices not be heard falling from
above and coming into each of us giving life?

All these new mandalas are going to be introduced. Some of them the
same and some new from dreams I had. Not really what they would look
like more about how to make them. You ever think about what you'll
dream tonight? It's good practice for controlling your dreams.
Projecting to another world within you.

Ben Shaffer, 11/20/08

Tammy Rae Carland, One love leads to another

New and amazing boxset edition by Tammy Rae Carland.
One love leads to another
Boxset of 16 digital c-print
Edition of 10 +3ap

Email us for full PDF of all images included in boxset.
*Photos by Kelly Puleio

Obama. Thank you. Congratulations to us all!

NEW EDITION: TRIS VONNA MICHELL

For Tris' exhibitions he has decided to make his Press Release into an edition that also functions as a chapter in a story. As he has more shows he will produce more chapters and add onto the edition and/or make more editions.

It is a stunning piece produced on the Heidelberg Press, the first press in London. He keeps a collection of all the plates he makes for the works. So eloquent, well written and it comes with a nice photo inserted into the second part/chapter.

NY Art/Book Fair, 2008

New show: Yuval Pudik, "Naked Crinolines"

Yuval Pudik, "Naked Crinolines" @ Gavlak Projects, West Palm Beach

Pharmakon Library by Christina McPhee

Pharmakon Library is an ongoing series of graphic folios created and curated by Christina McPhee. The folios comprise a series of open works by artists who address, through image and/or text, the principle of critical reversibility, or proximity of poison and cure. "Pharmakon" in Greek may mean antidote, recipe, poison, drug, spell, remedy, drug, talisman, gift and paint. Each folio consists of a series of between 8 and 12 digital pigment jet archival prints by a single artist or a small group / collective of up to 3 artists. Each folio is produced as an edition of three. The scale of each folio images is 13 x 19 inches each (Super B). Print stock is Epson exhibition photographic paper and/or Hahnemule German Etching archival paper; archival inks, with, in some instances, hand drawings.

A list of initially participating artists is TBA soon in connection with the project debut at the New York Art Book Fair in late October 2008 http://www.nyartbookfair.com/about.php (A related speculative architectural installation brief for a possible library with a new media component, involving transcoding of Twitter messages into a sound space at the center of a temporary structure, is explored in a text online here, together with pharmakon images: http://christinamcphee.net/pharmakon_library/index.html )

The project is produced in association with Silverman Gallery, San Francisco.

La Superette 2008 OPEN CALL

La Superette 2008 OPEN CALL

La Superette 2008 is looking for:
Survival crafters, conceptual product makers, DIY game producers,
micro distributors, fashion hackers, electro-gadget inventors

We want to see what you've got!

++La Superette IS:
An annual hybrid event mixing art, shopping, music, and community spirit
---La Superette is NOT:
An ordinary exhibition or craft fair

La Superette WANTS:
++ To promote and sell commodities made by artists and designers of
all career levels
++ To offer shoppers unique superettenly affordable items
++ To incite and inspire participation, collaboration, and conversation

La Superette 2008 is happy to announce that this year's event is
supported by LMCC

Deadline for online submission is November 10
All products must be delivered to La Superette by December 1

La Superette will be held on December 13 and 14

Please visit our website http://lasuperette.org/call.php to complete your
application and carefully read all guidelines.

Joy and Misery, curated by Ben Shaffer

Joy and Misery
Christopher Badger, Jackson Fledermaus, Sarah Lowing, Center for
Tactical Magic, Anna Mayer, Deirdre McConnell, Karthik Pandian, Devon
Tsuno, and Conrail Twitty
October 25 to November 22, 2008
Opening Saturday October 25 from 7-10pm

Five Thirty Three is proud to announce Joy and Misery, curated by Ben Shaffer, as a continuation of their exhibitions focusing on contemporary art crafted by young and emerging artists.

Joy and Misery are emotions that exist together, both in contradiction
and collaboration. The work in this exhibition creates a space in
which these dualities simultaneously emerge. It poses questions,
raises possibilities, and meditates on the current state of
contemporary events and individual views.

The exhibition subconsciously addresses the human ability to manifest
and regard how opposites create a contradictory understanding of the
center of existence, and questions what that center is.

"Whenever one moves out of the transcendent one comes into a field of
opposites. One of the problems of life is to live with the realization
of both terms, that is to say, I know the center and I know that good
and evil are simply temporal aberrations, and that in God's view,
there is no difference."-Joseph Campbell

Artists presenting work in the show are Christopher Badger, Jackson
Fledermaus, Sarah Lowing, Center for Tactical Magic, Anna Mayer,
Deirdre McConnell, Karthik Pandian, Devon Tsuno, and Conrail Twitty.

Five Thirty Three is located at 533 Los Angeles St., 2nd Floor in
downtown Los Angeles between 5th and 6th Streets. The exhibition
opens on Saturday October 25 and runs until November 22. An opening
reception for the artists will be held on Saturday October 25 from
7-10pm. The Gallery is open from Monday to Friday from 7-10pm and
Saturdays from 11am-5pm. Phone: (213) 627-1541.
www.fivethirtythree.org

The opening will also feature live performances by Fresher Flesh,
Telematique, and Squarepeg Roundhole.

Joy and Misery, curated by Ben Shaffer

Joy and Misery
Christopher Badger, Jackson Fledermaus, Sarah Lowing, Center for
Tactical Magic, Anna Mayer, Deirdre McConnell, Karthik Pandian, Devon
Tsuno, and Conrail Twitty
October 25 to November 22, 2008
Opening Saturday October 25 from 7-10pm

Five Thirty Three is proud to announce Joy and Misery, curated by Ben
Shaffer, as a continuation of their exhibitions focusing on
contemporary art crafted by young and emerging artists.

Joy and Misery are emotions that exist together, both in contradiction
and collaboration. The work in this exhibition creates a space in
which these dualities simultaneously emerge. It poses questions,
raises possibilities, and meditates on the current state of
contemporary events and individual views.

The exhibition subconsciously addresses the human ability to manifest
and regard how opposites create a contradictory understanding of the
center of existence, and questions what that center is.

"Whenever one moves out of the transcendent one comes into a field of
opposites. One of the problems of life is to live with the realization
of both terms, that is to say, I know the center and I know that good
and evil are simply temporal aberrations, and that in God's view,
there is no difference."-Joseph Campbell

Artists presenting work in the show are Christopher Badger, Jackson
Fledermaus, Sarah Lowing, Center for Tactical Magic, Anna Mayer,
Deirdre McConnell, Karthik Pandian, Devon Tsuno, and Conrail Twitty.

Five Thirty Three is located at 533 Los Angeles St., 2nd Floor in
downtown Los Angeles between 5th and 6th Streets. The exhibition
opens on Saturday October 25 and runs until November 22. An opening
reception for the artists will be held on Saturday October 25 from
7-10pm. The Gallery is open from Monday to Friday from 7-10pm and
Saturdays from 11am-5pm. Phone: (213) 627-1541.
www.fivethirtythree.org

The opening will also feature live performances by Fresher Flesh,
Telematique, and Squarepeg Roundhole.

Bailout Biennial - call for submissions

Bailout Biennial

Call for Submissions

The first (and perhaps only) Bailout Biennial will be held at Golden Belt – www.goldenbeltarts.com – an extraordinary site of artists' studios, exhibition spaces, loft apartments, creative office and retail spaces – all housed in 6 old tobacco buildings in downtown Durham, North Carolina. Bailout Biennial seeks work that addresses the current economic "crisis" or "scandal", the 700 billion dollar bailout, capitalism, global economy, post-industrialism, greed and profit. All media will be considered. Bailout Biennial will be curated by elin o'Hara slavick and Jeff Waites. Planned exhibition dates are January 15 – March 15, 2009.

Please note: All shipping and insurance costs must be covered by the artists. While there is a security guard at the main entrance where every visitor must sign in before going to the gallery, the gallery is open to the public during regular building hours and there is no security guard inside.

Please submit via email: 3-5 jpegs of examples of your work (if you plan to make new work for this show, that is fine, but curators reserve the right to exclude it from the exhibition if it does not "fit".); a brief statement about how your work addresses the above-mentioned issues (please include in this statement any descriptions of new work you plan to make for this exhibition.); a 1-2 page resume; and an acknowledgement that you are willing to cover the cost of shipping both ways for this exhibition. DEADLINE for submission is NOVEMBER 21. Please email all of the above requirements to BOTH curators:
elin o'Hara slavick eoslavic@gmail.com
Jeff Waites jwaites@meca.edu

Other Than History: Torreya Cummings, Patricia Esquivias and Airyka Rockefeller

Other Than History
Torreya Cummings, Patricia Esquivias and Airyka Rockefeller
October 17 - November 22, 2008
Opening, Friday, October 17, 7-10pm

Silverman Gallery presents Other Than History featuring new work by Torreya Cummings, Patricia Esquivias and Airyka Rockefeller that will be on view from October 17 – November 22, 2008. Other Than History deals with issues of representation and appropriation that exist in anthropology, art and documentation. Themes of fictionalization that come from sourcing from real and imagined artifacts, people and places will be presented through a variety of media.
Each artist evokes the material residues of history in order to suggest how fictions and fantasies emerge out of actual artifacts, archives and collections.

Torreya Cummings, lives and works in San Francisco. Cummings will present new sculptural works, which include “Mail Order Tumbleweeds”and “Bearsuit”. Given that a tumbleweeds job is to travel, Cummings has ordered these from an online website and they travel to her but not in the way one might expect. Tumbleweeds move through the landscape, a path that is dictated solely by the weather and therefore have no clear destination or history. “Bearsuit”
is a mythical creature from the West that never existed. For Cummings it is part of her desire to propose a queer takeover of what is known as the Wild West. For Other Than History it also functions as a kind of relic that invites the viewer into the new West, filled with fur, costuming, glitter and fantasy.

Patricia Esquivias, lives and works in Spain. Esquivias will present a new video work that investigates measures of time and sculptural works with Spanish sayings that deal with measures of physical space. In these works Esquiviasdescribes in a detached and utterly convincing manner.

Airyka Rockefeller, lives and works in San Francisco and central and eastern Europe. For Other Than HistoryRockefeller will present two new bodies of work. "Honza's Diary (Skazka/Legend)" is a series of re-photographedphotographs from the Czech Republic, whose quietly monumental self-portraits ask what a personal archive conveysonce removed from its original context and catapulted into the realm of skazka/legends or skanzens/museums. "The Castle That Started It All" investigates the ongoing transformation of castles, from the functional to the vestigial,
and from the mythical to symbols of contemporary kitsch. In both bodies of work, recontextualization brings the viewer's attention not to fact or history, but to the gaps between experience and representation, a story and it's storyteller, between reportage and memory.

All three artists relate to certain geographical places, making work which emerges out of their own experiences in particular landscapes. Other Than History questions how we look at our collections, chronologies and archives, and how through sorting and re-presenting we often speak more to our hopes and longings than to the actual histories they are derived from.

For more information please contact Jessica Silverman at Jessica@silverman-gallery.com or visit Silverman-gallery.com.

The Colony Room in San Francisco this Saturday, 18th.

The Colony Room

Anne Colvin and Guests

Bar 7pm - 11pm

Event starts at 8.30pm

Saturday October 18th: Marc Arthur, Mike Kuchar.

The Undead is a performance event developed in Berlin by Marc Arthur. Multiple and contradictory performers will journey through a hypnotic landscape of video, poetry and subconscious scenarios where time has been destroyed and identity demolished. Featuring Vaginal Davis on screen, this performance spectacle based on the epic of Morpheus in Ovid's Metamorphoses will be documented and later made into its own piece by filmmaker Mike Kuchar.

Marc Arthur has been produced by and in residency at the Emily Harvey Foundation, Venice; the Living Theater, Dixon Place and LaMama, New York; and the Poets Theater, San Francisco.

The Garage at New Langton 1246 Folsom Street SF CA 94103: 415 626 5416

Art for Obama, check out your options!

#1 http://artforobama.net/
ART FOR OBAMA is an online auction of photographs to benefit the Obama Campaign. Fifty of the country's most prominent artists and photographers have donated their work for this cause. The auction will launch on October 1st and will run for one week. All proceeds from the auction will go to the Obama Campaign, to the Democratic National Committee and to non-profit organizations such as MoveOn.org, which are currently devoting their energy to helping the Obama campaign. Proceeds will be distributed in strict accordance with Federal Election Commission regulations.

Or

#2 http://www.geminigel.com/
Here are 13 artists who seem likely to go Democratic: John Baldessari, Jonathan Borofsky, Frank Gehry, Ann Hamilton, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, Julie Mehretu, Ken Price, Susan Rothenberg, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra and Richard Tuttle. All of these blue chip stars have created new limited-edition prints to support the presidential campaign of Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee . The portfolio of artworks was assembled by Sidney Felson and Stanley Grinstein, the principals in L.A.’s Gemini G.E.L. They reached out to the artists, though the fundraiser is run through the Obama campaign, which is giving away the portfolio in exchange for a donation of $20,000

News on Silverman Gallery artists plus more!

Christina McPhee in: "War as a Way of LIfe," Saturday, September 27, through December 19, 2008, at the 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica, California. Curated by Clayton Campbell, with new project work by Susan Crile, Binh Danh, Barry Frydlender, Hometown Baghdad, Marty Horowitz, Cindy Kane, Ronald Lopez, Christina McPhee, Catherine Opie, Stacey Peralta, David Reeb, Sinan Leong Revell, Daniel Ruanova, Larry Scarpa, and Mark Spencer, as well as “Threshold of the Innocents and Martyred,” an installation in the project room by Amitis Motevalli.

Desiree Holman presents: "The Magic Window," opening Saturday, October 11 @ 8pm - November 2, 2008 at Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado Street (just north of Sunset Blvd.) Los Angeles, CA 90026

Job Piston has begun his MFA at UCLA - congratulations Job!

And

Bid Now: New project by Darius Miksys:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=300259467714

Other Certainties: Curated by Summer Guthery and Amy Owen

Other Certainties

Curated by Summer Guthery and Amy Owen

September 19th - October 24th, 2008

Opening September 19th, 7-9pm

October 24th Closing Performances by Melissa Brown, Carla Edwards, Pablo Helguera, and Rachel Mason

For more information: www.summerguthery.com/othercertainties.html

New York Center for Art and Media Studies

44 West 28th Street, 7th Floor. Between 6th Avenue and Broadway

Gallery Hours - Thursday through Saturday 1-6pm and by appointment 917.574.8365 or 917.968.1831

Tyler Coburn - Catherine Czacki - Patricia Esquivias

Tommy Hartung - David Maljkovic - Rachel Mason

Paulina Olowska - Lisa Oppenheim - Walid Raad

Other Certainties presents nine international artists whose diverse practices question accepted histories through alternative accounts of the distant and not so distant past. Here, history is retooled, or sometimes even invented, to reveal slippages in authenticity, often proposing an arguably more accurate and nuanced chronology. The artists' malleable approach to narrative, at times bold in motive, audacious and absurd, is infused with intimacy and humor through a hyper-personalized voice.

The works presented take many forms, including homemade history lectures, a film that examines the past through a makeshift time-traveling car wrapped in foil, and a raw animation of an imagined historical figure made from found objects and knick-knacks. These pieces, while wide ranging in subject matter, are linked by their shared embrace of farce and fabrication through low-tech or transparent means, revealing their process to gain credibility while also highlighting the assumptive and approximate elements of history making.

By taking an authorial role, these artists complicate and disrupt traditional methodologies of archival documentation. The seemingly fixed realm of fact becomes the basis of dialectical inquiry, opening the door to new possibilities. The works presented here expose complex circumstances that beg for further analysis, prompting us to become speculative readers of the histories that shape us. In this way, they suggest that known or documented accounts are never the last word, rather they are slippery, mutable, and hence, open to revision.

The exhibition will close on October 24th with a night of lectures and performances that blur the boundaries between past, present and future including: Rachel Mason, Pablo Helguera, Melissa Brown, and Carla Edwards.

About the works:

Tyler Coburn's photographs Chroma Blue/Chroma Green examine the process by which individuals construct and assume political identities and cast themselves into the annals of history. Here, the artist modifies two images from the New York Times taken on the day when Tony Blair left his prime minister post at 10 Downing St., and current prime minister, Gordon Brown, assumed this post. By hanging chroma blue and chorma green screens (commonly used in feature films and broadcasting) in the foreground of the photographs, the artist alludes to the often fabricated nature of the political realm.

Catherine Czacki's installation Ineffectual descriptor )1937( juxtaposes an array of seemingly unrelated objects and texts that investigate both personal and impersonal histories: tapestries bleached beyond recognition, a handmade stool that has circulated amongst friends and returned home for a time, a ghostly image of two silver pendants, a time capsule. The relationships between Czacki's "curated" items pose more questions than they answer, challenging the viewer to fill in the gaps, cobble together the story, and slow down to examine the multiple layers of history present in her collage of material things.

Patricia Esquivias' videos Folklore 1 and Folklore II present deadpan lectures on Spanish History that combine vernacular culture with subjective readings of "textbook" history. Embracing a DIY aesthetic, Esquivias captures these on-the-fly presentations through a focused view of her own hands, often schizophrenically grabbing at an amalgam of collected imagery, ephemera, and handwritten notes. As she displays these props to the viewer, her extemporaneous narration crafts a tapestry of unrelated facts, a revised history that oddly becomes believable through its embrace of the absurd.

Tommy Hartung's video work and sculptural installation, The Story of Edward Holmes, uses modest materials and low-tech animation to tell the chaotic adventures of fictional protagonist Edward Holmes. An omnipresent narrator weaves the tale of Holmes traveling by sea and eventually becoming shipwrecked on a small island inhabited by native people. In the style of Jules Verne, the story is told from the perspective of Holmes with a mock authorial voice. Hartung's social critique becomes clear as the reliability of the narrator fades with the whirling absurdist animations and dramatic play in scale.

David Maljkovic's filmic trilogy Scenes for a New Heritage takes a step into the future to gain perspective on the past. Each segment takes place at a different time over the next one hundred years at the same location, the foot of a modernist monument in Croatia's Petra Gora Park, which is dedicated to the victims of the Second World War. Unaware of the loaded history of the undulating metallic monument, young visitors at first speculate on the building' function and meaning. As time moves forward, interest in the building's significance is lost as it becomes an ominous setting.

Rachel Mason's sculptural installation and performance is an extension of a larger ongoing project initiated in 2005 entitled The Ambassadors. The work features small ceramic busts of political figures that correspond to the leaders of various international wars and conflicts that have taken place during each year of the artist's life, including self-portraits of the artist herself as an ambassador to each war. This aspect has led to Mason's eventual attempt to inhabit the minds of each of the political figures she depicts, writing and performing songs in their own words. Nodding to the portrait busts of Honoré Daumier, her caricatures and musical performances imbue these figures with humor, questioning who and how such individuals enter a historic canon.

Paulina Olowska's collage, Sketch for Nowa Scena, is part of a body of work by the same name that explores the complicated relationship between the US and the Soviet Bloc as seen through the lens of propaganda and pop culture imagery received by Soviet youth. Beginning with references to the multi-faceted and swift political changes in her native Poland, Olowska weaves together a new subjective history by redefining objects of culture. Her materials are gathered from politically biased culture magazines, punk aesthetic, and commercial imagery to form a new collage fore-fronting women protagonists as well as Olowska's own subjective interests and history.

Lisa Oppenheim's photographic series Killed Negatives, After Walker Evans, conceptualizes the missing visual information of a series of unpublished 1938 photographs by Walker Evans for the Farm Society Congress. "Killed" photographs refer to rejects of the film rolls through which holes were punched in the negative to prevent publication. With visual acuity Oppenheim reconstructs the missing information with one or more possible scenarios, simultaneously repairing history and revealing the archive as an opportunity for subjective reinterpretation.

Walid Raad's ongoing project The Atlas Group, documents, presents and critiques the contemporary history of war and violence in Lebannon through film, video, photography, and essays. Questions are posed on the representation of physical and psychological trauma within archival documents and photographic evidence as well as the role of the subjective versus historical accounts. The two works included here from the series Notebook Volume 72: Missing Lebanese Wars show documentation of the unusual gambling habits of a group of Lebanese historians who, at horse races made bets not on the winning horse but the accuracy of the finish line photograph. Cryptically detailed, these works exemplify Raad's nuanced investigations.

Susanne Winterling: Current projects/shows/curation

Open until August 29, 2008 - "A Member of the Wedding" curated by Susanne Winterling: http://www.danielreichgallery.com/

Upcoming:

Susanne Winterling, "Isadoras Scarf" at http://www.parrotta.de in Stuttgart

and

THE KRAUTCHO CLUB / IN AND OUT OF PLACE

allsopp&weir, Markus Amm, Reza Aramesh, Julieta Aranda, Sue de Beer, Tjorg Douglas Beer, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Guy Ben-Ner, Olivia Berckemeyer, Eva Berendes, Michael Beutler, boyleandshaw, Ulla von Brandenburg, Candice Breitz, Laura Buckley, Susanne Bürner, Ruth Claxton, Tobias Collier, Michael Conrads, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Björn Dahlem, Amie Dicke, Graham Dolphin, Hannah Dougherty, Vito Drago, Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez, Tracey Emin, Haris Epaminonda, Doug Fishbone, Ian Forsyth & Jane Pollard, Ryan Gander, Ludovica Gioscia, Andreas Golder, Tue Greenfort, Brian Griffiths, Eva Grubinger, Beate Gütschow, Alban Hajdinaj, Neil Hamon, Eberhard Havekost, Mathilde ter Heijne, Alexander Heim, Jeppe Hein, Sophie von Hellermann, Uwe Henneken, Gregor Hildebrandt, Susan Hiller, Myriam Holme, Andreas Hofer, Karl Holmqvist, Olaf Holzapfel, Judith Hopf, Julia Horstmann, Graham Hudson, Volker Hueller, James Ireland, Lisa Junghanß, John Kleckner, Gustav Kluge, Rachel Kneebone, Daniel Knorr, Karsten Konrad, Alicja Kwade, Tonico Lemos Auad, Kris Martin, Eline McGeorge, Isa Melsheimer, Mark Melvin, Alexej Meschtschanow, Laurent Montaron, Frank Nitsche, PaulMart, Julia Pfeiffer, Magnus von Plessen, Bettina Pousttchi, Bernhard Prinz, Henrieke Ribbe, Damien Roach, Kirstine Roepstorff, Pamela Rosenkranz, Karin Ruggaber, Yorgos Sapountzis, Dawn Scarfe, Thomas Scheibitz, Hanna Schwarz, Norbert Schwontkowski, Daniel Silver, Andreas Slominski, Florian Slotawa, Peter Stauss, Dirk Stewen, Matt Stokes, Jack Strange, Katja Strunz, Mark Titchner, Charlie Tweed, Malte Urbschat, Paloma Varga Weisz, Richard T Walker, Corinne Wasmuht, Nicole Wermers, Claudia Wieser, Susanne Winterling, Johannes Wohnseifer, Haegue Yang

Invited by Anna-Catharina Gebbers and 176/Zabludowicz Collection, London

30 August 2008, 18:00-22:00

FORGOTTEN BAR PROJECT, Berlin

Schönleinstr. 28, 10967 Berlin Kreuzberg, Germany

www.galerieimregierungsviertel.org

11 September - 14 December 2008

(Community Preview: 7 September 2008; Preview: 8 September 2008)

PROJECT SPACE 176, London

176 Prince of Wales Road, London NW5 3PT, UK

www.projectspace176.com

Christina McPhee: Take note "War as a way of life"

WAR AS A WAY OF LIFE
Curated by Clayton Campbell
September 27 – December 19, 2008
Reception: Saturday, September 27, 6:00-9pm
Main Gallery

War as a Way of Life, concludes our four part series, The Future of Nations, a year long conversation about important election year issues. Presenting a stellar group of international and Californian visual artists, War As a Way of Life examines the phenomenology of how people who are exposed to long term effects of war or conflict are transformed. Using photography, video, mixed media, and painting, the artists look at how war which is either abroad, in our own neighborhoods, or even in our families, is affecting future generations perceptions of themselves and their communities.

Artists Include: Susan Crile, Binh Danh, Barry Frydlender, Hometown Baghdad, Marty Horowitz, Cindy Kane, Ronald Lopez, Christina McPhee, Catherine Opie, Stacy Peralta, David Reeb, Sinan Leong Revell, Daniel Ruanova, Larry Scarpa, Mark Spencer, and: Amitis Motevalli , 18th Street Artist Fellow

The exhibit will open on Saturday September 27, 6 to 9PM.- that night the entire center will be open (all studios) in addition to the gallery exhibition. Plus, Azatlan Underground will be playing a free concert. There will be a 36 page catalogue with the exhibit.

Job Piston & Vanessa Albury: BAD MOON RISING special

BAD MOON RISING ^special

Vanessa Albury, Diana Artus, Richard Ashcroft, Elena Bajo, Kelie Bowman, Greggory Bradford, Bettina Cohnen, Emily Coxe, James De La Vega, Liam Everett, Lonnie Frisbee and David di Sabatino, Tony Garifalakis, George Hennard, Annegret Hoch, Pamela Jue, Paulus Kapteyn, Richard Kern, Clayton Patterson, Job Piston, Luther Price, Lee Ranaldo, Max Razdow, Yoji Sakate, Jan Serych, Philippe Vandenberg

Curated by Jan Van Woensel

September 12^th, 2008, 7PM

Live performance by Glass Ghost: 8PM

ISCP www.iscp-nyc.org

Designed for ISCP's Picture Parlor 2, Bad Moon Rising ^special focuses on a sociological and anthropological observation of contemporary life. Bad Moon Rising ^special exposes some examples of how the contemporary human navigates through unstable environments.

We've lost the center in our culture. There's no common ground any more. The horizon has been lost. There are no boundaries any more. You know, everything's been transgressed. For the last forty years, if you're really smart, and you're part of the intelligentsia—whether you're in the media, whether you are making movies, whether you are writing books, whether you're teaching school—the thing that this culture rewards you for is doing what? Transgressing every boundary you can find. (From J. Ligon Duncan III)

Press: Stark Guide

Silverman Gallery: Shades of Fluxus

Mini Market through August 30, 2008; Silverman Gallery; 804 Sutter Street at Jones; San Francisco; 415.255.9508; Tuesday–Saturday, 11am–6pm; http://www.silverman-gallery.com/; jess@jessicasilverman.com

Click here for images: http://look-boutique.blogspot.com/

This is a great time to visit Silverman Gallery. "Mini Market," on view through the end of the month, brings “the art of shopping and shopping for art” under one roof. It follows in the summer tradition of a group show, which is timed to give the gallery and its loyal collectors a respite after a spring season of solo exhibitions, as well as to take advantage of a city-tripping audience.

A plywood booth dominates the gallery floor, crammed with hard-to-find items: canvas totes branded with the word “shoplifter” by exhibition collaborator CITIZEN:Citizen ($27); lace jewelry from Airya Rockefeller’s May in December line ($40–$60); and ceramic butt plugs by California College of the Arts MFA and MA grad Eric Scollon ($100), whose work is also featured in Yerba Buena Center for the Art’s Bay Area Now—if you have to ask, you don’t need one. Acrylic on panel cereal boxes by '08 CCA MFA grad, Luke Butler, are a steal at $800 each. Mini Market was co-curated by Carolina Aramis, Silverman’s partner on this project and in life.

Jessica Silverman is serious about curating. She has had art on her mind since she was a kid hanging out with her grandparents, renowned Fluxus collectors Gilbert and Lila Silverman. Her exposure to the most important private collection of Fluxus art in the world gave her a big head-start among her art-world peers.

The Fluxus movement is advanced stuff—not found in Art History 101 like Impressionism or Cubism. This arcane yet influential conceptual art movement was active from 1962–1978. Fluxus artists often blended different artistic media including music and literature, in fact, the name implies movement and a flow of ideas. Fluxus work is simple, short, and often humorous. Note to civilians: Yoko Ono, John Cage, and Joseph Bueys are identified with this movement.

Silverman’s exhibition program is unique in that she often borrows important works from private collections and encourages her artists to create new work for their Silverman Gallery shows based on the influence of these pieces. New work is then displayed side by side with the inspiration piece, an art history lesson for the viewer, and for the artist it's a chance to grow from the exposure to important historical work. Silverman also has relationships with galleries abroad and sponsors an exchange program of sorts, introducing emerging international artists to San Francisco and facilitating the same for her artists in other countries.

When Silverman moved her gallery from edgy Dogpatch to the border of Union Square earlier this year, it was as much a political statement as a business decision. Artists and curators loved the old location for being underground—literally—but there was simply no foot traffic. So Silverman relocated to this upper block of Sutter just four short blocks away from Sak’s, where the Academy of Art students fade out and a hipster crowd fades in for HUF’s sneakers and Canteen restaurant.

Silverman’s c.v. proves that she’s been using her time wisely since entering L.A’s Otis College of Art and Design (class of ’05) as an undergrad majoring in painting. In 2004 she spent the summer at flashy Deitch Projects in New York as the curatorial assistant dedicated to electroclash performance art band Fischerspooner. In 2005 she was the assistant to Andrea Feldman Falcione, curator of the art collection of entertainment mogul Michael Ovitz.

She arrived in San Francisco in the fall of 2005 for the Masters in Curatorial Studies program at California College of the Arts. Armed with an introduction to Steven Wolf, she guest curated “International Waters” in his gallery in June 2006, mining her connections to borrow work by Nam June Paik and Ed Ruscha for the exhibition. Now, just two years later, Silverman sits on the board of venerable non-profit New Langton Arts and the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. This summer she is guest curating a show called “A trip down (false) memory lane” at Lexington Club, “your friendly neighborhood dyke bar.”

In her own gallery, Silverman works with a few queer artists exploring queer themes, but this is a coincidence. As a professionally successful, queer, female gallery owner, she is often approached by artists who may not feel welcomed by more conservative curators. Silverman artists include critically acclaimed Bay Area based artists, including Desiree Holman who won this year’s SFMOMA SECA award; and Mary Elizabeth Yarbrough, ‘08 SECA finalist.

Silverman’s mix is a dynamic, intellectually challenging program—San Francisco art history in the making.

URL: http://starkguide.blogspot.com/2008/08/jessica-silverman-gallery-shades-of.html

If you missed Tammy Rae Carland's show - heres your chance:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=d53TB6w1MrE

Job Piston: I WANT A LITTLE SUGAR IN MY BOWL @ ASS

I WANT A LITTLE SUGAR IN MY BOWL @ ASS

ASS (Asia Song Society) has a HUGE group show -- I WANT A LITTLE SUGAR IN MY BOWL -- opening this Saturday 08.09.08, but unless you've received an invite, I can't tell you the address or the time, because you're not invited.

The show is curated by Anat Ebgi, Terence Koh, and Jenny Schlenzka, and was inspired by the Nina Simone song of the same name.

I want a little sugar in my bowl
I want a little sweetness down in my soul
I could stand some lovin' oh so bad
I feel so funny and I feel so sad

I want a little steam on my clothes
Maybe I can fix things up so they'll go
Whatsa matter Daddy Come on, save my soul
I need some sugar in my bowl
I ain't foolin'
I want some sugar in my bowl

You been acting different I've been told
Soothe me
I want some sugar in my bowl
I want some steam on my clothes
Maybe I can fix things up so they'll go
Whatsa matter Daddy
Come on save my soul
I want some sugar in my bowl
I ain't foolin'
I want some - yeah - in my bowl.

Let's not forget the artists. Here's a super abbreviated list, as there are close to 100 artists in the show.

Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Tim Barber, Jean-Michael Basquiat, Dan Colen, Jules de Balincourt, Patrick Ervell, Rachel Feinstein, Kathy Grayson, Brian Kenny, Sophia Lamar, Slava Mogutin, Yoko Ono, Rick Owens, Jack Pierson, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, David Wojnarowicz, and many many many more.

The show's up till 08.24.08. If you'd like to try your luck at getting in for a private viewing, first you have to find them. Thank GOD some things in New York are still a secret.

Today: MINI MARKET

Installation images: Tammy Rae Carland "An Archive of Feelings"