Select Media Festival 8

Reuben thinks this might be the best show he's seen at C-PS in years.
Select Media Festival 8 features super bad ass video, art, performance and hypnotism.
Visit the website.

Reuben binging Radar Eyes print show to Space LIC

Seripop rocked out

.. an installation show at BALTIC Center for Contemporary Arts in Gateshead , UK .

Tales from the bubble @ Co-Prosperity Sphere Sept 25

Proximity Presents Exhibition Series:

Tales from the Bubble
September 25, 2009 through October 11, 2009

Opening reception: Friday, September 25 6-9pm
Extended hours until 1 am during performance program

Co-Prosperity Sphere
3219 S Morgan St
Chicago Il 60608
Tel : 773.837.0145

Exhibition hours: Open during events and by appointment.

Tales from the bubble is the working title Berry Sanders has chosen for his participation in an art project of the Public Media Institute in Chicago. This project includes a solo exhibition and a residency for three weeks in one of the studios of the institute.

For his exhibition the artist created a series consisting of twelve stories painted in oil on paper. The works are painted only in black and white, with as another striking feature the use of a wide range in size of the brushes. This produces significant differences in detail and that adds to the dynamics of the image. Peacefully observing these images is a challenge. The eye is constantly torn between the immediate surface and the suggested depth. Perception pinches, because there is a clear tension between the different layers in which sometimes a single swipe can suggest a painted space. 

This tension in observing adds in processing the narrative element in his work. The stories are not to be interpreted at a single glance. The painter shows us persons in action in a constructed, not appropriate world. The pictures are confusing, the action seems pointless. In Recital no4 soldiers are pushing a piano through a forest. In TV-nation cameramen are filming a person behind a desk in an otherwise empty landscape.

The artist forces us to look at human activity with a distance. In F-side, for example, he shows us the needs of man to merge into a massive, almost religious devotion to soccer, complete with its rituals and symbols. The supporters or hooligans are ready to fight for their team, just as fanatical as believers do to protect their faith. Intrusively the artist shows us the struggle of modern man in facing an uncertain future, outside the previously so familiar religious inspired existence. Apparently life in the void is no option for this crowd. 

In these images the bubble is a key to the story. It is used as a metaphor for the accumulation of hopes and dreams of man. It is not clear whether the bubble is still beautiful and complete or already splashed.

The characters are placed in beautiful atmospheric landscapes. The often overwhelming nature of the mountains in Vietnam or the American wilderness, contributes to the international impact of his work. It also gives us the possibility for a different interpretation. He is not afraid to paint cliché landscapes. They seem to be picked from a postcard, and, by the lack of colour, they refer to a distant past. A past that is forever gone.

The beholder can make his own choice between being numb by comfort in the bubble, or cope with the harsh reality after the burst.

The artist is fascinated by Albert Camus (1913-1960). With existentialism as a starting point, this philosopher shows us the meaninglessness or absurdity of human life without faith in God or Salvation.

- essay by Elisabeth Schreuder, Art Historian, August 2009

Rhetorics of memory @ Eastern Expansion

Retórica del recuerdo
Rhetorics of memory
An installation by Jorge Miñano Ramírez
September 5 – Sept 22, 2009

Opening Reception: Saturday September 5 6pm to 9 pm

Eastern Expansion Gallery
244 W 31st St 
Chicago
El: Red to Sox/35th. 
Bus: 29, 35

Artist Statement:
The exhibition is a starting point for a reflection about the concept of cultural memory and how it has overcome a binary opposition between the individual and the collective experiences. This reciprocal relationship came across my mind when I had to leave my own country; and experience a completely different place with a new community of friends. The feeling becomes more obvious when a visiting person has to go back home.

New concepts are related with the perspective of familiar history, memory and gender; colonial, postcolonial, and transatlantic studies; museums, monuments, and memorials, as well as the practical implications for heritage industries. It is also a skeptical way to leave one’s mark and prolong the virtual existence of a person in a specific place with techniques other than photography. The show is composed of graphic, writing, mail correspondence and actions in the city which were created for the exhibition as a tribute to Chicago. The artist also is going to take a group photo of friends and assistants during the opening in the gallery.

About the Artist:
Jorge Miñano Ramírez is a Spanish artist working with experimental narrative in film, video and photography. He documents actions about personal and collective experiences related to food, family and friendship. Using archive, reconstruction or performance, he creates different images to reflect our personal desires and the influence of one’s surrounding. He studies at the Academy of Fine Arts of the Complutense University of Madrid and in 2008 received a fellowship from this university and the Bancaja Foundation to study at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

For more information visit:
www.jorgeminano.es

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Freakie Outie @ Eastern Expansion

Freakie Outie @ Eastern Expansion

freakieoutie

Eastern Expansion is pleased to host Freakie Outie for a one night only performance August 14, 2009 from 7-9pm

Referencing peep shows and iPod commercials, Freakie Outie is a window-based performance installation which ties together personal electronics, affect, pop music and sensoral memory. Four performers at a time are contained within the boundary of a storefront window, with sets of headphones dangling from the top of the exterior. Each performer wears a uniform consisting of a green sensible sweater and khaki slacks. Each pair of headphones, one for the performer and one available for a viewer, is connected to one audio source playing a pop song selected by the performer. The performer rocks out to the pop song they have selected in a manner normally only practiced in a private space, as he or she would do in front of a mirror or in their bedroom at home. Viewers are welcome to listen to a set of headphones along the performance boundary for as little or as long as they like, or not at all. Freakie Outie is a study in personal connectivity to pop music which discusses the fine line between what makes one rock out and what doesn’t.

Eastern Expansion
244 W 31st Street

Freakie Outie at Eastern Expansion

Eastern Expansion is pleased to host Freakie Outie for a one night only performance August 14, 2009 from 7-9pm

Referencing peep shows and iPod commercials, Freakie Outie is a window-based performance installation which ties together personal electronics, affect, pop music and sensoral memory. Four performers at a time are contained within the boundary of a storefront window, with sets of headphones dangling from the top of the exterior. Each performer wears a uniform consisting of a green sensible sweater and khaki slacks. Each pair of headphones, one for the performer and one available for a viewer, is connected to one audio source playing a pop song selected by the performer. The performer rocks out to the pop song they have selected in a manner normally only practiced in a private space, as he or she would do in front of a mirror or in their bedroom at home. Viewers are welcome to listen to a set of headphones along the performance boundary for as little or as long as they like, or not at all. Freakie Outie is a study in personal connectivity to pop music which discusses the fine line between what makes one rock out and what doesn't.