calendario eventi  :: 

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24/6/2004

Score

White Columns, New York

curated by Marisa S. Olson

Score is meant to ask questions about the object in relation to performance, while poking fun at our romance with the hand of the artist. The title of this thematic exhibition is premised on a double entendre, referring to a line etched, or a composition for a performance. In contrast to traditional "action drawing," this show implicates the figure of the artist in drawings that are somehow related to a performance-whether the drawing is the fruit of the action or a scheme for one. "Drawing" is loosely defined, and the materials, surfaces, and "lines" presented in the exhibition vary widely, ranging from works on paper to painting, installation, video, and sound art.

Matt Volla's Bartology is a series of drawings and recordings mapping people's movement on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transportation). Each drawing has an accompanying sound composition in which musical elements correspond to the actions annotated by the drawings. While formulating new characters for his tragicomic performances, James Bewley makes hundreds of sketches, fleshing out the figures' identities, gestures, costumes, and histories. Bewley will exhibit a group of drawings associated with his newest character, "The Bat." Lee Walton's drawings record actions according to an invented system of action-classification that determines the color, quality, and location of each responsive mark. Here Walton will show a group of performative drawings documenting a series of New York Yankees baseball games. In his video Glass, Bob Linder "draws" on windows with his camera, scratching them with his lens in a work that is simultaneously performance and performance-documentation. Through an elaborate use of paint and textiles, Heather Johnson's site-specific wall drawing refers to the gridded map of an unidentified city.

Johnson's work is concerned with the ways in which individuals experience public spaces, and this project seeks to construct a personal, performative landscape. Amanda Hughen's sculptural anomalys result from a series of carefully-considered abstractions of drawn marks. Using a variety of unconventional objects and methods, Hughen employs a line of disposable goods associated with the landscape of consumer culture, inverting the templates of vernacular representation (screenprinting, spraypainting, and blob-loving industrial design) to perform a synthetic drawing. Jennifer Kaufman's work is as much drawing as it is performance. Her non-representational work transposes meditative etchings, paintings, and photographic prints. Invoking the corporeal backbone of action-art, Kaufman relies on a full-body approach to the drawing, asserting her figure as she creates rigorous pieces sized in accordance with the body and reflecting the extreme extension of the hand. Tommy Becker combines drawing and musical performance in his video, Behind the TV He Keeps A Diary. In a precarious infusion of 8-bit computer drawing systems and Photoshop palettes, Becker's absent hand draws color-coded lines over video stills in a narrative about a man, a television, and a virtual sketchbook. Marching through Brooklyn and NYC in a parade-style fashion, with a HyperSonic speaker Jeff Karolski "drew a line of sound" by projecting the sounds of a full street parade at the unsuspecting. His video reveals that the speaker used is extremely directed, so that only a single person can participate in Karolski's "one man parade," at any time. While not originally posited as performative, Dawn Clements's drawings have conceptual, body-intensive, and often endurance-oriented underpinnings. In this case, her panoramic drawings aggregate the interiors of three film sets depicting Connecticut interiors, exploring the way in which this location has become symbolized in the world of Classical Hollywood cinema. Lyle Starr's playful drawings feature lacy renderings of people "licking" each other in witty send-ups of "action drawing." Gesturing fervently with their tongues, his line-drawn portraits of faces are beset by fuzzy, abstract nests of looping, vivid-color airbrush lines. These two styles of mark-making and gesture coexist uneasily within the picture space, as a kind of gestalt, where the whole overwhelms its parts.

Opening reception: Friday June 25, 7 - 9 p.m., featuring a performance by Margaret Tedesco.

About the curator: Marisa S. Olson has curated exhibitions at a number of museums and alternative spaces, including SF Camerawork, where she is Associate Director. She contributes regularly to Flash Art, Afterimage, Mute, Wired, Artweek, and a number of other publications. Her own performance and installation work has been exhibited internationally.

WHITE ROOMS (solo exhibitions for artists unaffiliated with a New York gallery):

Kate Gilmore's videos present unusual scenarios in which a woman struggles against seemingly impossible odds. The videos' central character, played by the artist, often seems to be attempting to execute an indeterminate task, and at times seems to be struggling for her very survival. These situations can be so precarious, that her very safety is called into question. In her White Room, Gilmore shows On My Way to the Prom the World Collapsed on my Head, a new piece in which a woman dressed in formalwear is digging her way out of a pile of rubble. The accompanying soundtrack, "Islands in the Stream," provides a familiar and quintessentially cheesy prom song that hints at the heroine's ultimate isolation. The video will be presented within an installation perilously built of the same materials under which its protagonist is buried. Gilmore is a graduate of Bates College and the School of Visual Arts. Her work has been recently exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Bronx Museum of Art, among other venues. This is her first solo exhibition.

Nancy Hwang's work grows out of concerns both social and personal. Described by the artist as "transaction-based," many pieces have been focused on the idea of personal service, in which she engages the audience in an intimate manner. Recent projects have included 2, S, and N - all named after New York City subway lines - in which she provided participants with beverages, a shampoo, and a manicure, respectively. These pleasant and rather luxurious experiences were delivered to viewers free of charge. In these pieces, Hwang probes the role of art and audience engagement, questioning the relationship between user and provider, and how that relationship is affected when the transfer of money has been removed from the equation. Hwang will transform her White Room into a comfortable space for lounging and watching movies. Hwang's projects have been presented in conjunction with such organizations as Ise Foundation, The Kitchen, Apex Art, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Storefront for Art and Architecture. She has exhibited at alternative spaces and museums including Artists Space, The Bronx Museum and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center. This is her first solo exhibition in an institution or gallery.

Nancy Hwang's "White Room" is presented with support from John Friedman, New York Chair Co., Section-A Alan Bruton Architect, west elm, and World of Video.

White columns
320 West 15th Street
New York

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