Tag: 2010

Andreas Hofer

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Metro Pictures will open the Fall season with Andreas Hofer’s exhibition ON TIME by Andy Hope 1930 on Thursday, September 16th. The framing of spaces, images and time links the rooms of the new show to the fictional, time-traveling persona of Andy Hope, Hofer’s alter ego and signer of his paintings, in the critical year 1930. One gallery room extends Hofer’s 2008 Phantom Gallery in Los Angeles and Zürich. Both exhibitions were site-specific installations, empty but for the ghostly exposure of bright patches where once-framed pictures hung on walls that now appear discolored and grimy, and worn and dirty carpet with the original color exposed by the shapes of chairs and bureaus. The Phantom paintings, in tones of cream and beige and in discarded frames, bring value to the devalued or discarded decor of the Phantom rooms. In another room, adding further distance and remove, Hofer’s paintings are shades of gray that are representations of the black and white photographs of his Phantom paintings.

Andreas Hofer was born in Munich in 1963 and lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include the Charles Riva Collection, Brussels; The Freud Museum, London; and Sammlung Goetz, Munich. His work has recently been included in exhibitions at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg; Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany; and the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe.

Metro Pictures Gallery

Weight Perception

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Imagined weight can be heavier than real weight, sometimes to the point where our perceptions apply more pressure and gravity than what can actually be accounted for. How does this happen? In today’s world, where environmental disasters of tragic magnitude have practically become the norm, where ongoing wars are being fought simultaneously on multiple fronts, and where we’re in the midst of the worst economic catastrophe since the great depression, it’s apparent that we are living in “heavy times”.  In some way or another, each of us carries the weight of our times, if not in a physically tangible way, at the very least in the mind.  How are we dealing with all of this? What is the current state of contemplation surrounding it? Where does the resulting energy find a resting place? Can bad things actually be transformed into good?

It is not the intent of this exhibition to address any of these issues directly, as much as it is to address the individual’s unconscious and conscious responses to the current state of affairs that dominates our political and social landscape. Oftentimes, we attempt to escape the heaviness, through expressions of laughter, serenity, or even music. Sometimes, we attack the weight head-on, using pent up energy that inevitably needs to find its release somewhere. In this exhibition, eleven artists address this placement, both definitively and abstractly, and in the two-dimensional and the sculptural.  Featuring new work by Ben Venom, Casey Jex Smith, Glen Baldridge, Harley Lafarrah Eaves, Kevin Taylor, Kyle Ranson, Laurie Steelink, N.Dash, Shelter Serra, Thomas Øvlisen, & Vanessa Blaikie.

Guerrero Gallery

Miki Yui

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July 16 Japanese artist Miki Yui presents her brand new work Strøm made for the exhibition space Phonebox at the artist-run gallery IMO. Phonebox is located in a phone cabin, which now serves as an intimate exhibition space with room for only one person at a time.
In Miki Yui’s work Strøm Phonebox becomes a unique place that is auditively connected to remote locations. The Danish word Strøm used in the title refers to the electrical nature of the telephone technology as well as an idea of sound as something streaming. The audience steps into a stream of sounds that likewise seem to flow into the phonebox. This happens due to speakers installed in the phonebox and special piezzo speaker-elements mounted on the pages of an old phonebook. The pages are set in motion so as to function as sound-emitting membranes.
Miki Yui is a Japanese artist based in Düsseldorf. In her work she investigates what she calls “small sounds”. Small sounds are sounds that result from minimal movements in the periphery of our auditory experience. Miki Yui’s work – whether it be large scale installations or audio-works on CD – combines the fragile and fluctuating with the concrete and tactile. She has recently developed the “acoustic survival kit 01” with artist Felix Hahn, which is a media body suit with built-in piezzo-speakers that generate sound. Whereas other media-suits used in virtual reality isolates the user from his or her surroundings, the survival kit connects its user through small speakers to his or her immediate environment. In this way her work calls attention to otherwise imperceptible “small” sounds and movements so as to connect the body to the world.
Miki Yui’s work is the last in a series of 12 sound-based works presented in Phonebox at IMO in the first half of 2010. The series is titled Sounds Up Close #1-12 and is curated by Kristoffer Akselbo and Rune Søchting. It is the intention of the series to present a number of important artists who work with sound as medium. The series reflects a number of different approaches to sound. Over a period of six months a total of twelve pieces have been presented each for a fortnight. Earlier artists presented in Phonebox are Stephen Vitiello (US), Ursula Nistrup (DK), Ultra-red (US), Jio Shimizu (JP), Camille Norment (US/N), Morten Skrøder Lund (DK), Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas (US/ES), Marc Behrens (DE), Dani Gal (IL), Steve Roden (US) and Don Ritter (CA).
Phonebox has earlier served as a phone cabin for the employees at Carlsberg. During the last six months the space, which is acoustically isolated, has been functioning as a unique frame for display and reception of sound-based works. Moreover, the space itself has played an important role in the conceptions of many of the presented works.

IMO

Chad Person // Surviving the End of Your World

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Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to announce the first Los Angeles solo exhibition for contemporary artist, Chad Person.

In his newest body of work, Person utilizes his trademark fascination with the confluence of economy and societal power structures through innovative installation, sculpture and performance. Surviving the End of Your World will feature several collages from the artist’s “TaxCut” series, and the debut of “Thirst” – a fifteen-foot inflatable sculpture depicting the Mobil Oil Pegasus lying in a glossy black acrylic pool of its own crude. Person’s use of iconographic signifiers related to American capitalism and consumerism are juxtaposed with notions of sheer Darwinist survival featured in his “RECESS” project, which will be featured in the gallery’s Project Room. In addition to a live video feed of the artist’s performance in his self-made “apocalypse bunker” in Albuquerque, New Mexico, “RECESS” includes functioning installation works to spotlight cultural intervention, critique of corporate enterprise and the myth of self-reliance in the face of essential conservation.

“New Mexico-based multimedia artist Chad Person creates beautifully crafted, ironic indictments on society’s most dangerous flaws.” – Shana Nys Dambrot, Flavorpill (2010)

Chad Person (born 1978, Marinette, WI) received his MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico. His work is included in the public collections of The West Collection (PA), Frederick R. Weisman Foundation Collection (CA) and The University of New Mexico Art Museum (NM). He has had solo exhibitions in Albuquerque, Marfa and River Falls, and been featured in PULSE Miami Contemporary Art Fair.

Mark Moore Gallery