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