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2/7/2007

Renee Petropoulos

Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica

Social Arrangements

Petropoulos has for ten years exhibited single projects. In this exhibition, Social Arrangements, she is bringing together components of five ongoing projects each defined by particular aesthetics and conceptual choices with each informed by the other. Painting, sculpture and audio are presented to question perceptions of the world and create a direct interaction with the viewer.

Through various objects and extensive sound recordings and transmissions; Petropoulos creates an environment that weaves together history and physical experience. She poses questions regarding the representation of ideas and the repetition of historical practice and narrative. Cinema, fables and reportage contribute to her narrative constructions. Abstaction is employed in several manifestations including the use of cartography and mass produced building materials. Displacement as an idea underlies much of this work.

Entering the gallery two large "plaid" flags and a grouping of black and white paintings line the walls. The paintings are in fact portraits or representations of countries in two states - one at the present time and one within conversational memory. The flags refer to a journey through several countries that is continued in the large paintings in the next gallery. They also flank the office of the gallery .

In the next gallery, a fixed object such as a painting is catapulted into the position of a time-based work through the precise construction of a 'soundtrack'. In the two large paintings, "Trip Through the Gulf States (by air)" and "Trip From Sri Lanka to Zanzibar (by boat)", soundtracks recall a particular journey as the viewer physically moves from speaker to speaker (hanging above the painting) forming a new narrative via the movement and choice of the viewer. Sounds of the Arabian Nights, Tales of Zanzibar, The History of Tipu Tip and the song Mustapha are among the accounts of travels and living that move through the gallery. Accompanying the paintings are seating/reclining arrangements placed in the center of the room with headsets creating an opportunity for a prolonged viewing and audio experience that is pronounced from the live audio filing the room.

In the adjacent gallery two woven sculptures lie flat just off the floor spanning the length of the room. These works resembling rugs create a perceptual shift in the physical act of walking by altering the viewers spatial relationship to that simple act. These works are based on a 'walking path" in a city. One is referring to a pastoral waking path in the central park of Berlin and the other to an urban interior walkway in central London.

In the final gallery space, 19 watercolors painted on water resistant paper feature the artists pre- occupation with mass-produced architectural details (such as cinderblocks, iron work, bricks, etc.). These tiny works take up the 19th century convention of "tourist" watercolors, which currently takes the form of the "snap shot" photograph. Observation via photography of visited locations and film are observed through the course of the artists' routine activity. Selection, comparison and routine suggested through the close scrutiny of overlooked details brings to mind the conflicted efforts of colonialism and personalization.

The questions Petropoulos poses take us through history and contemporary action: through systems of belief and their representations. The similarities and difference are set in a relief in which form can never be separate from content. Labor can never depart from action. Although there might be an appearance of something official on the surface, it is quickly understood that each project questions the position and authority of the situation.

Petropoulos has recently completed projects in several areas and cities of the world including El Salvador, London, Berlin and Oaxaca. Her publication Nearly Ten Months has just been released 9 with an essay by Annetta Kapon. For release this fall the publication Is It Possible with text by Chris Kraus.

For more information please contact Lucrecia Roa at 310.828.8488

Reception: July 7th, 5–7pm

Rosamund Felsen Gallery
2525 Michigan Ave., B4 Santa Monica Los Angeles, CA
Gallery hours are 10-5:30, Tuesday-Saturday.
Admission free

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