20/4/2006
Mathieu Briand
Redcat, Los Angeles
Ubiq: A Mental Odyssey. Briand's exhibition takes its title from the Philip K. Dick's novel, Ubik, and explores perception, presence, and utopic expectations of the future. Contemporary the performance art band My Barbarian combines music, theater, dance and visual.
Ubiq:A Mental Odyssey. Contemporary the art band My Barbarian with Double Future
Ubiq: A Mental Odyssey
The Gallery at REDCAT presents the work of Marseilles-based artist Mathieu Briand in his first solo exhibition in the United States. Briand works in various installation forms with computers, electronic music, robots, video and technology to explore systems of stimulation, play and perception. Briand's use of new technologies requires active participation and engagement, playing with the viewer’s point of view and questioning the reality of his/her perceptions. His extraordinary output engages users and mechanisms, technology and anarchy while responding to informal movements in consumption, particularly techno or rave culture and the constant struggle to enhance everyday experience through technology.
Briand’s exhibition at REDCAT takes its title from the Philip K. Dick sci fi novel, Ubik (1969), and like the novel, explores perception, presence, and utopic expectations of the future. Ubiq: A Mental Odyssey will include the work SYS*05.ReE*03/SE*1\ MoE*2-4, four customized helmets that house small cameras and display monitors that gallery visitors can wear to view the installation. A switching device connected to the helmets allows visitors to exchange visual perspectives with each other. SYS*011. Mie>AbE/SoS\ SYS*010 (The Spiral) is an installation of speakers, turntables and a mixing board connected to a vinyl cutting machine that visitors can use to manipulate existing sound samples, cut a new record, and thereby create new source sounds. Visitors can also combine their own electronic compositions with the artist’s source tracks to etch new vinyl. Vinyl dubs will be available at cost in the gallery. Ubiq also features the premiere of a new video installation that allows viewers to observe a real-time simulation of the rotation of the earth--part of Briand’s new body of work that investigates the fantastical future promised by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Mathieu Briand has participated in numerous exhibitions at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; 2001 Istanbul Biennial; ICC, Tokyo; Bloomberg Space, London; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; and Muse'e d'art Contemporain de Lyon. Briand will be in residence at REDCAT during the spring semester of 2006 to work with graduate students from CalArts’ Schools of Art and Music and The Center for Integrated Media.
The opening reception features a collaborative performance with choreographer Prue Lang and Briand at 8pm.
Ubiq: A Mental Odyssey is made possible in part by the generous support of Etant Donne's, the French-American Fund for Contemporary Art; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; The French Cultural Service in Los Angeles; and 2K by Gingham. Additional support provided by Campari.
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April 20-22, 2006
My Barbarian: Double Future
Los Angeles premiere
"A My Barbarian catharsis is that of seeing the sun rise after a night at the disco theatrical, glamorous, and poignant." Flash Art, Jan-Feb 2006
"Incorporating epic storytelling with harmonious, hook-filled tunes, along with jazz-hands choreography, wild costumes and oversize props, a My Barbarian show will put a goofy smile on your face faster than a bong hit." Ann Magnuson, Paper Magazine, April 2006
The Los Angeles-based performance art band combines music, theater, dance and visual art in sublime sexy songs, surreal scene-stealing and phantasmagorical feats of pure fantasy fun. My Barbarian presents a radically inventive double bill of musical adventures: Silver Minds, a sci-fi, new-wave pop fable of time-travel, ghost stories, and eco-tourism, and the Los Angeles debut of You Were Born Poor & Poor You Will Die, a mini-epic rock opera set in an ancient world of masked dancers, High Priestesses and Bull God worship.
Image: Mathieu Briand, SYS*05.ReE*03/SE*1\ MoE*2-4 (2000), Installation view: Egofugal 7, 2001 Istanbul Biennial
Redcat
Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater 631 West 2nd Street Los Angeles
Gallery hours: noon to 6 pm or curtain, closed Mondays
Admission to the gallery is always free