Opening Thursday, August 9, from 17-20

Afterparty at Venners Hjem from 20.00 pm, with pig roast and Dj. Master Fatman

EXHIBITIONS

Summer in the City – MAP Group Show
10 August – 1 September 2007

New works by artists of the gallery.

Looking very good, the works are big and will be more awesome out side a house.

A old house, with graffiti all over.

Found some old stuff, but still cool.

THE POOR MAN, THE RICH MAN AND THE MOSQUITO

I

A poor man once lived opposite a rich man. Everyday, through his window, he saw how poor he really was. He said to himself:
“What have I in common with this man?”
The poor man, rapt in his devising, was all but dying of poorness. One can eat badly for one, two, and even four days, but no more, not without losing strength and falling ill, specially when one works. Which is exactly what happened at this poor man’s home, where everyone started falling ill. Without money for medicine and no longer able to get anyone to loan them anything, some deadly fevers started claiming their lives one by one. The poor inventor first lost his wife, then his daughter and finally his son.
Now he was dying.
And the rich man across the way who saw him every day said to himself:
“What have I in common with this man?”
And the poor man was dying. Dying.
He was hated by everyone, for to everyone money he owed. He was feared by everyone because everyone, afraid of the fever, feared his physical approach. He was languishing, no flesh and only bones, unable so much as to bear his own weight. He sweats and sweats, trembles and trembles. He was dying, thinking of his inventions, raving about strangely, blazing forth numbers and then more numbers.
He was dying, alone as can be.
And the rich man across the way saw him every day from his window and, stingy, he once again said to himself, “What have I in common with this man?”
But then that same night one of the millions of mosquitoes that lived in a swamp bit the dying man.
Later, flying at the mercy of the shadows, it gained entrance to the home of the rich man, who was sleeping, and bit him too.
As the mosquito bit him, it passed on the disease of which the poor man was dying.
And the rich man was no longer able to see the poor man from across the way from his window.

II

Both men died of the same affliction, both died practically at the same time, unaware of what the one had in common with the other. Underground practically at the same time, they were left to the worms practically at the same time, alone as can be. And, to this day, those worms remain unaware of who was the rich man and who was the poor man.
And what about the mosquito? Whatever happened to the mosquito? Whomever else did it bite? Whomever else will it bite?
One can’t really say. One can’t follow a mosquito into the shadows. Maybe it still flies along at night, buzzing its eternal jest. Filling up on all sorts of blood, it injects one man’s blood into another. One can’t really say one way or another.
The only thing set in stone is that there will never be a shortage of the thousands of types of mosquitoes whose singular mission is to show us that it is not in our best interest for there to be wretches amongst us, that to help them in due time means to help ourselves. It means that whichever mosquito bites them in the future will not in turn ruin our lives.
The only thing set in stone is that there is never a shortage of mosquitoes, nor of even more minute beings, there to violently remind us of that which men of the heart should already know, that we all have much, very much in common with our neighbours, particularly when our neighbours are dreadful wretches.

TOMAS MEABE.

The Innocent Gaze
August 3 ˆ 26, 2007
Opening Friday Aug. 3; 6-9pm
Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco

The Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco, is pleased to present The Innocent Gaze, a group exhibition featuring artists Hisham Bharoocha, Leslie Shows, Chris Sollars, Erika Somogyi, Ted Riederer and Edmund Wyss and curated by Dina Pugh. The Innocent Gaze examines various ways in which artists are addressing disaster, war, and tragedy by assembling/deassembling information and ephemera from the media. Using art to understand, cope with or connect to disturbing current events, these disparate artists choose to respond with varied aesthetics from the sublime to the fetishized.

In the 2001 article “Welcome to the Desert of the Real” Slavoj Zizek discusses the “innocent gaze” as the current American viewpoint due to our physical and emotional distance from wars waging abroad. The artists in this exhibition represent or critique their own removed position and ultimately reveal the difficult task of attempting to respond to events beyond our full comprehension. While the media is looked to as a source of information, it also shelters us from the harshest of realities. These artists confront difficult, political subjects by sourcing media images and thus flipping the media‚s intermediary gaze to create a personal connection. Many of the images on display are highly aesthetisized, often sublime and nearly void of recognizable political content. On one hand this can be perceived as a sign of escapism, on the other it calls attention to the distance that still exists between our sheltered viewpoint and “the real”.

Hisham Bharoocha, Erika Somogyi and Leslie Shows disassemble images from the media and reassemble them through collaging and painting. Ted Riederer‚s art practice revolves largely around his use of music as a political tool, a coping mechanism and a means of connection with others. Edmund Wyss juxtaposes immaculately rendered photorealistic paintings of outmoded cameras and toy-like war weapons ˆ often indiscernible from one another. Chris Sollars uses a more didactic approach than the other artists in the exhibition, prodding his audience to question the relevance of art in the political arena.

It is with great pleasure that peter lav PHOTO GALLERY presents the exhibition

Myne Søe-Pedersen
TRANSIENT
August 9 – September 8

Please join us on Thursday, August 9, from 17 to 20, for the opening reception.

The project is sponsored by the Danish Arts Council.

Bedste hilsner/Best regards

Peter Lav

peter lav PHOTO GALLERY
Carl Jacobsens Vej 16, indg. 6, 3 sal
DK-2500 Valby
(+45) 28 80 23 98