Gristle Springs. New photographic works are comprised of combinations of images shot with a variety of digital and 35mm cameras over a thirty-year period, using the model of multiple-screen surveillance monitors and CCTV cameras as a means to organize dissociated images, insinuating that simultaneity has replaced the linear continuity of visual information.
PARTICIPANT INC is proud to present GRISTLE SPRINGS, the
first New York solo exhibition of Gary Indiana since Extinction at American Fine Arts,
Co. in 2002, featuring works in photography and video. New photographic works are
comprised of combinations of images shot with a variety of digital and 35mm cameras over
a thirty-year period, using the model of multiple-screen surveillance monitors and CCTV
cameras as a means to organize dissociated images, insinuating that simultaneity has
replaced the linear continuity of visual information. Like movie frames, some with
overlaid text, these associative blocks present complex relationships between found,
appropriated, and original images, suggesting narratives not inherent to the individual
images themselves, but generated by association.
The exhibition premieres three videos. Soap (39 min., 2004-2012) is a series of
monologues and stories concerning an object everyone has a relationship to, soap.
Through the vehicle of soap, the actors talk about a variety of other subjects: family
relationships, childhood, AIDS, World War II, love. Inspired by the prose poem by
Francis Ponge, in Japanese, English, French, and Russian. With Alex Melamid, Walter
Steding, Laura Cottingham, Bill Rice, Leslie Singer, Stephen Prina. Plutot la Vie (35
min., 2005) is one of many “scratch films” made specifically to be shown at Cabaret RAF,
a vaudeville and variety show presented at irregular intervals at Passerby at Gavin
Brown Space and Participant, Inc between 2004-2005. Plutot la Vie accompanied an eveningof hypnosis demonstrations and performances by a fakir and a fire artist. Assembled from
degraded prints of Blonde Venus, M, I Walked With A Zombie, Criminal Lovers, Dead of
Night, Triumph of the Will and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Plutot la Vie is a
meditation on the society of the spectacle and mass hypnosis. Unfinished Story (2004-
2005) is an episodic video collaboration between Gary Indiana and the photographer Lynn
Davis, a series of conversations and readings of works-in-progress shot in the artist’s
apartment over the course of a difficult year.
Indiana has organized several events in conjunction with the exhibition, including a
reprising of a group reading from de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom, originally presented
at Simon Watson Gallery in 1989 as a corrective to a reading at Lincoln Center in
defense of free expression in the aftermath of the Rushdie fatwa that year. The writers
at Lincoln Center chose to read exclusively from religious texts that had been banned or
proscribed at one time or another. None read from any books that had been banned for
sexual or political content, in effect the majority of banned texts during the 20th
century. Patrick McGrath will host the event, incarnating Alistair Cooke of Masterpiece
Theater renown. As well, we will host a staged reading of The Torture Garden, a new
play written by Indiana with actors Kate Valk and Jim Fletcher.
Gary Indiana is an American writer, filmmaker, and visual artist, perhaps best known for
his loose trilogy of books based on notorious criminals in the spotlight. Three Month
Fever is presented as an account of Andrew Cunanan, the man who murdered Gianni Versace,
using fictional recreations of undocumented conversations and events to explore
contemporary American obsession with celebrity. Resentment is an account, or speculative
exploration, of the case of California brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, convicted of the
murder of their parents, though names and other details have been changed. Depraved
Indifference makes use of the case of Sante and Kenneth Kimes, mother-and-son con
artists convicted of murdering heiress Irene Silverman. Indiana uses these stories to
explore sexuality, violence, money, the media – contemporary America. These three novels
share aspects of satire and postmodern literary practice with much of the rest of
Indiana’s oeuvre. Indiana had a solo exhibition at American Fine Arts, Co. in 2002, and
is the recipient of a 2008 Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.
PARTICIPANT INC's exhibitions are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of
Governor Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Archiving and documentation projects are supported by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Our programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in
partnership with the City Council.
PARTICIPANT INC receives generous support from the Harriett Ames Charitable Trust; The Blessing Way
Foundation; Bloomberg; The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston; The Lower East Side Ecology Center/ EcoBizNYC;
Foundation 20 21; Foundation for Contemporary Arts; Gesso Foundation; The Greenwich Collection Ltd.; Harpo
Foundation; The Ruth Ivor Foundation; Lambent Foundation; The Daniel M. Neidich and Brooke Garber Foundation;
Puffin Foundation; The Benjamin M. Rosen Family Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; an
anonymous donor of the Community Foundation of Abilene; FRIENDS of PARTICIPANT INC; numerous individuals; and
Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/NYC Department of Sanitation/NYC Department of
Education.
Saturday, April 27, 3pm
The 120 Days of Sodom
Patrick McGrath, host
Readers Clarissa Dalrymple, Richard Hell, Ron Kolm, Margarita Shalina, Lynne Tillman,
Zoe Heller, Jim Fletcher, Kate Valk, Laurie Weeks, Rhonda Lieberman, Alessandro
Codagnone, John Lovett, Max Blagg, and Glenn O'Brien
Sunday, May 12, 10am – noon
FRIEZE Lower East Side Morning
Sunday, May 12, 8pm
The Torture Garden
Reading of Gary Indiana’s new play by Kate Valk and Jim Fletcher
Opening Reception, Sunday, April 21, 7-9pm
PARTICIPANT INC
253 East Houston Street, between Norfolk and Suffolk Streets on the LES.
Subway: F to Second Avenue, Allen Street exit or JMZ to Essex/Delancey. participantinc.org
Gallery hours: Wednesday-Sunday, noon-7pm