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

Gossip from back in the day: Kevin Killian

--> Posted by Kevin Killian @ February 19, 2008 at 4:45 pm

I’m at the Silverman Gallery and Larry Rinder has just done his best to make Poland’s Pavel Kruk seem fascinating in their onstage interview, but Kruk, who looks so commandingly Olympian in his videos, keeps reminding me of the posts in a fence I once had to plant on the prairies of Manitoba. Afterwards in a dark corner of the cellar space I ask Marc Arthur and Job Piston their ideas on the box. First thought best thought, I urge them. “Off the record?” “Yes,” I lied. “In that case how about The Cell with Jennifer Lopez?” asks Marc. Job nods enthusiastically, adding, “And you know what was my favorite—Cube!” I hadn’t thought of horror movies, how the box permeates horror cinema. My brow frowns as I try to recall what The Cell was about. I think it was to save the life of a kidnapped girl, brave Jennifer Lopez goes to a desert laboratory where she gets strapped into the “cell” and virtual memory electrodes are taped to her temples and she relives the horror of the other girl’s ordeal. I know I saw it, but not during my formative years unlike Marc who must have been an extreme version of nine or ten. And what about Boxing Helena, I intersperse, but neither boy seems to know that film, despite the enormous furore of its production when its lead, Kim Basinger, dropped out due to the disgustingness of the material. If I remember right, weird stalker scientist Julian Sands captures the heroine, cuts off her arms and legs, and keeps her in a box because he loves her so much, yuck. It was made by David Lynch’s daughter—case closed—get it? Job’s still talking about The Cube and how everyone wakes up and they’re all in a cube and each of them represents something else and they have to figure out what. “Story of my life,” think I.

Pavel Kruk at Silverman Gallery

Kevin Killian and Job Piston, photo by William E. Jones

Photos and Press: PDF show, 2008

Link for press in Norway: http://oslopuls.no/kunst/article2551421.ece

Plus, images from Silverman Gallery installation:

Vanessa Albury @ Ox-Bow

Vanessa Albury finished a three weeks residence at Ox-Bow. She made a series of polaroid-studies capturing the light in her studio and experimented with film projections in the woods.

Ox-Bow, school of art and artists’ residency, has served as a haven for visual artists since 1910. Founded on the shores of Lake Michigan as an escape from the city, Ox-Bow’s campus encompasses 115-acres of pristine natural forests, dunes, a lagoon, and historic buildings. It is both defined and protected by the landscape that inspires the artists who live and work here.

Review: Tammy Rae Carland, Shotgun-Review.com

Shotgun Review: An Archive of Feelings - Tammy Rae Carland at Silverman Gallery by Jano Cortijo "Things belong to those who need them", my grandmother used to say, meaning you would hardly ever find clothes or appliances lying around her house indolently collecting dust. Life had taught her about precariousness and she had learned to share and give away things that somebody, anybody, else might need. Just as clothes and school books went from older to younger to youngest daughter, a worn chair or a chipped pot quickly found a new home when they were replaced by newer items, their life span extended well beyond their average life. Still, she held on to a few things until her last day: a wooden trunk, a hand knit bedspread, a clear acrylic cube holding 5 pictures on each of its exposed sides. These three items probably witnessed a lot more than could have ever been observed by any of her daughters or grandchildren. After she passed away, my mother kept the wooden trunk and to this day it is inevitable -Spielberg-ish corny as it sounds- to be immediately transported to the endless afternoons I or any of my cousins spent sitting on top of it or to the evenings when we stared at the small color TV on top of it watching whatever soap opera was in fashion. All this textual foreplay is -hopefully- an introduction to Tammy Rae Carland's austere and magnificent photography exhibition "An Archive of Feelings" on view until July 26th at Silverman Gallery in downtown San Francisco. Carland has slightly steered away from photographing herself and her surroundings to focus on a series of objects that, engulfed in a sea of white as we see them in the show, form a very intimate cabinet of personal curiosities, the items both offering sufficient information and barely hinting at the anecdotes and stories behind and around them. A literal installation of all these carefully conserved items would not be as beautifully effective as their current presentation, like immobile prehistoric remains captured in amber, their sentimental value exponentially augmented by the pristine conservation of their meaningful patina. While keeping some of these mementos' tactile qualities, the photographs create the necessary distance for the viewer to wonder and wander in what we can only speculate are Tammy Rae's archived feelings. The larger pieces on display in the gallery may be more effective in threading what seems like clear, almost explicit narratives; but the smaller, single or double item photographs are none less persuasive in transporting us to the time(s) and place(s) when they started to become important for the artist, slowly and serenely accumulating a history that is now made tangible by the wear and tear they proudly flaunt, almost infinite memories gradually seeping into each and every corner of these vessels of affection. I've read that the show's title has been borrowed from a book I am not familiar with so instead of futilely trying to figure out the intellectual aspect of Tammy Rae Carland's project, I will just relate it to my own experiences, even at the risk of cornering it in the niche of subtly female artwork rooted in the domestic universe. I just can't think of any male artist caring as much to keep vestiges like these (my limited art history knowledge only brings up Felix Gonzalez-Torres' name) and enshrining them to such delicate and potent effect. Carland's achievement lies in both referencing and transcending a sort of housekeeping aesthetic by elevating the immaterial qualities of apparently banal items to convey the resonance of relationships past.

Mini Market, August 1 & TIGER BEER

We are thrilled to have sponsorship from this amazing company:

Thanks to Marco and Shannon!

Staying open late: July 19, 2008

We will stay open until 8pm in honor of PDF:

GROUP SHOW OPENS IN 14 CITIES INTERNATIONALLY

(July 14, 2008 New York, NY) TKTKTKTKTK in partnership with Why + Wherefore is pleased to announce PDF, a one-night-only show co-curated by Summer Guthery, Lumi Tan, and Nicholas Weist that will be held simultaneously in 14 cities internationally and each of the 5 boroughs of New York City on July 19 from 6 to 8pm. The show includes commissioned works from Fia Backström, Bozidar Brazda, Brian Clifton, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Rachel Mason, Sean Raspet, and Jordan Wolfson, and a contribution from Dexter Sinister.

For the PDF show, the curators asked each of the artists to respond to their medium, PDFs—specifically how digital work can be infinitely and exactly reproduced. Each was also invited to interrogate the idea of worldwide, collective action—connected to the simultaneous, international openings. Select artworks are currently available for download at http://www.whyandwherefore.com/pdf, and the complete show will be available on July 19.

PDF will also open at the following commercial, alternative, and artists-run galleries and institutions on July 19:

SELECT VENUES

Please contact for opening details; for a complete listing of venues please visit whyandwherefore.com/pdf

Atkinson Space, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA
Bastard, Oslo, Norway
Brown Gallery, London, UK
La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain
Circus of Books, Los Angeles, California, USA
Golden Age, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Hiromi Yoshii Gallery, Osaka, Japan
Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA
Galleri Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden
Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon, USA
Showroom, Hamburg, Germany; Leipzig, Germany; Zurich, Switzerland
Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, New York City, USA
Vox Populi, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Y Gallery, Queens, New York City, USA

ABOUT WHY + WHEREFORE
Why + Wherefore is an online curatorial project co-founded and -directed Summer Guthery, Lumi Tan, and Nicholas Weist. Since December 2007 they have presented work by over 100 artists, in experimental group shows that explore the structure of curatorial practice and the expanded field of internet-based curation. Why + Wherefore is seen by thousands each month, visiting from across North and South America as well as Africa, Asia, and Europe. http://www.whyandwherefore.com

KQED Art Review : Tammy Rae Carland: An Archive of Feelings

July 10, 2008
Art Review : Tammy Rae Carland: An Archive of Feelings
POSTED BY VICTORIA GANNON

When my dad died last year, my brother and I inherited everything. Not money, but things: toothbrushes and oak boxes and expired prescription bottles. Sorting through it all, I was struck by each object's ability to conjure a scenario, and with it, a piece of my dad's personality. A worn duffel bag with a travel agency logo on its front, filled with headphones, a book of crossword puzzles, and a pair of flip-flops, still packed from his last trip to the beach, reminded me how much he loved the ocean. Each tangible object referred to an intangible memory or quality. Rather than meaningless junk, the mundane contents of his apartment became a stand-in for all that was immaterial: his impulses, motivations, losses, and loves.

We often cling to heirlooms left behind by a past relationship or loved one, aware but unfazed by their failure to fully recapture the experience or person they represent. Our sentimental attachment and its inevitable failure is the subject of An Archive of Feelings, photographer Tammy Rae Carland's current exhibit at the Silverman Gallery. The title refers to a seminal text on queer identity and trauma by Ann Cvetkovich. It also refers to an impossible task: the preservation and organization of emotion. Carland knows this impossibility, and so she presents us with an archive of photographed objects, a series of purposely imperfect substitutes for feelings and memories.

I thought One Love Leads to Another and My Inheritance were the strongest pieces in the exhibit. The former is a collection of mix tapes photographed against a white background. The tapes face us like artifacts in an archaeological exhibit, and we mine their labels and song lists for meaning. The collection of obsolete technology points to a bygone community of givers and receivers. Titles and playlists convey emotion and meaning. The network of cassettes also references Carland's history in the music business as one of the co-founders of the Mr. Lady record label. But the tapes also fail. We can't hear the music, and we can't see the faces of the tapes' makers. We can't experience the long hours Carland spent with her friends listening to the tapes. Like an incomplete body of evidence, the cassettes hint at a world that has already happened, a place we can't visit or recreate. Does anyone even still own a tape player?

Maybe I liked My Inheritance so much because it related so directly to my own experience. In it, Carland has gathered together and photographed objects left after her mother's death. The materials suggest a life interrupted, a task started and left unfinished. We see the frayed knot of a "Born to Bingo" cross-stitch project, a box of stationery with numbers and equations written on its front. Inside, a recipe for holiday fruitcake and a receipt. An unfinished crossword puzzle and the beginnings of a quilt. The objects capture her mother's motions, her jotted down thoughts and scribbles, her intentions and activities. More than death, the objects in the photograph reference her mother's life. But they are also unsatisfactory. The collection feels paltry. That's it? That's all that's left? The loss is amplified by the objects' inability to represent the deceased in all her complexity and humanity.

Carland uses photography to great effect in this exhibit. The photograph is a trace, Roland Barthes famously wrote, a document of something that has already happened. It is always in the past tense. By photographing, rather than displaying, these artifacts, Carland further removes them from the present tense. She multiplies the sense of loss on display. A folded broadsheet of My Inheritance is available at the exhibit. Printed on its backside is the question, "Who will record the history of tears?" It has no answer, but the asking reflects a natural urge -- to hold and quantify the intangible. That impulse underlies all the works in this exhibit.

An Archive of Feelings is on display at Silverman Gallery, 804 Sutter St., San Francisco, through Sunday, July 27, 2008.

Desiree Holman @ Mineral Park, presented by Alex Hetherington during Garlands

Just in: Ari Marcopoulos, "Corpus"

Corpus - Ed. 50, Silkscreen
Thanks to Peter Kirkeby for beautiful production/packaging.

If Love Could Have Saved You, You Would Have Lived Forever

July 10th - August 8th, 2008 Opening Reception: Thursday, July 10th, 6-8PM

Vanessa Albury, Tanyth Berkeley & Todd Chandler, Tammy Rae Carland, Patricia Cronin, Amrita Das, Leela Devi, Rob Hauschild, Paa Joe, Joss paper effigies, Roy Kortick, Lisa Ross, Victorian hair wreaths, Marc Swanson & Joe Mama-Nitzberg

Curated by Becky Smith

If Love Could Have Saved You, You Would Have Lived Forever is an exhibition of art and objects that reference the aesthetics, material culture, and traditional gestures surrounding death and remembrance.

On view is Vanessa Albury’s Funeral (Projection), in which a darkened room is filled with a single-slide projection of a still image taken by Albury at her grandmother’s funeral. Tanyth Berkeley and Todd Chandler will present a video made in memory of their friend Brad Will, an anarchist and documentary filmmaker who was shot and killed during a teacher’s strike in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2006.

Tammy Rae Carland has photographed a range of idiosyncratic items taken from her childhood home after the death of her mother, creating a poignant portrait through quotidian objects. Patricia Cronin will exhibit a bronze sculpture from her Memorial to a Marriage Series, in which she created a grave marker for the Woodlawn Cemetery plot she has reserved for herself and her partner Deborah Kass.

Ghanaian fantasy coffins are constructed in shapes that reflect the lives, careers, and aspirations of their inhabitants – cocoa beans, pineapples, airplanes, boats, and Bibles are common forms. We are pleased to present a coffin replica of a slave castle by Paa Joe, the foremost maker of figural coffins. The anonymous nature of mourning will be addressed through disposable-camera snapshots of impromptu roadside memorials, taken and collected by Rob Hauschild.

Joss paper effigies are burned at Chinese Taoist funerals as a way of sending gifts and comforts to loved ones who have crossed over to the spirit realm. This age-old tradition has become heavily influenced by Western pop culture, creating a new market for paper replicas of luxury objects like LV wallets, Rolex watches, credit cards, sneakers, and beer. Rob Hauschild and Becky Smith accumulated this collection for a forthcoming book, Funny to Burn.

Roy Kortick, an artist working in ceramic and mixed media, has made a memorial for his beloved dogs K and Sammy, which also addresses the communal trauma of living in New York during 9/11. Paintings by Leela Devi and Amrita Das, from the Mithila region of Southern Nepal/Northern India, will be exhibited in New York for the first time. The paintings depict the devastating effects of the tsunami in Sri Lanka, and a long-distance tribute to the victims of 9/11. Lisa Ross photographs the adorned burial mounds of the Uyghur people from the Xinjiang area of Western China, a tradition of ornamenting twigs and branches in the desert to venerate local saints and mystics.

Victorian hair wreaths, a memento mori tradition that became popular after the death of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert, makes use of the hair of a loved one to create intricately woven floral tableaus. Marc Swanson and Joe Mama-Nitzberg have collaborated on a series of photographs of floral arrangements designed in memory of gay icons Darby Crash, Anna Nicole Smith, Sam Wagstaff, and Halston.

Finally, Becky Smith will exhibit her personal collection of photographs of blank grave markers, which are used to sell headstones – a macabre reminder of the inevitability of everyone’s future demise.

BELLWETHER is located at 134 Tenth Avenue, between 18th and 19th Street.
*Summer hours are Monday – Friday, 11 AM – 6 PM.

Review: Loaded and subtle discourses in Queer Artists’ exhibitions

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IF YOU COULD CALL FOR ENTRIES

G&B DIARY 2009

Hello,

After a long wait, we are very pleased to announce a brand new ‘If You Could’ open call for entries for our third publication.

We’ve teamed up with G&B Printers to bring you the ‘If you could do anything tomorrow, what would it be?’ Diary 2009.

On the same theme as their two previous sold out books and limited edition print series, 2009 will see a third publication printed, in the shape of a year long diary. Drawing responses from the same question ‘If you could do anything tomorrow, what would it be?’ artists will get free reign on one of the 52 weeks of 2009, embellishing a double page spread template.

More information at: http://www.ifyoucould.co.uk/contribute

SUBMISSION DEADLINE AUGUST 11TH

Alex and Will

www.ifyoucould.co.uk

Thomas Jeppe - Serps Press

Today I met with Thomas Jeppe who owns www.serpspress.com.
Thomas Jeppe was born and raised in Perth. He is founder of Melbourne-based publisher Serps Press. His book 'Home Made Tattoos Rule' was released in 2006. Photography projects on the horizon include the HMTR followup 'Old Men's Tattoos'. He is co-editor of Now Now Gallery, and so on.
Here is a sampling of his beautiful work: