calendario eventi  :: 

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1/2/2008

Three exhibitions

Raid Projects, Los Angeles

Main Gallery: Mark Dutcher and Brian Bosworth – Ugly On The Inside

North Gallery: Matt Wardell presents
Skip Arnold: Excerpts from the Paris Sessions (2006-2007)

While working as visiting faculty in Paris, Skip Arnold produced numerous short video works on sundry, and usually economical, recording devices. These works stand as a document to Arnold’s time spent in France.

With little care for high production, these vignettes are shot in low lighting, using awkward or grotesque angles, and often with French TV audibly playing in the background. Few details are given beyond the cheap ceiling and bare walls of his Parisian apartment. The viewer’s focus is on Skip and on his ‘relationship to self, place, and particular time.’
Ranging from sweet and whispered crooning, annoying and repetitive children’s songs, and simple growling at the camera, these ‘excerpts’ primarily take the form of song. Rhyme and melody are matched with lyrics of self-loathing, contempt, depression, absurdity, and isolation. In their simplicity and pain, they are reminiscent of slave songs. With a dash of inflated self-worth, they more closely resemble punk rock anthems (or tantrums) or letters of abandonment sent from summer camp. Skip’s work is often humorous and disquieting. We laugh out of Skip’s sense of exaggeration and out of our own discomfort. We are quieted by Skip’s unadorned honesty.

Echoing another exile in Paris, Arnold’s work fits nicely into Antonin Artaud’s ‘Theatre of Cruelty.’ With a desire to shake up notions of comfort and reality, Skip persistently aims to irritate, to goad, to provoke. With a sense of immediacy, Arnold’s work always aims to engage the viewer.

When asked about his thoughts on the French, Skip will tell you that he has a “love-hate relationship; an understanding.” This also may be a good description of Arnold’s relationship to Los Angeles, or Vienna, or Beijing, or wherever Skip might find himself. Arnold is ever aware of life’s dualities.

Skip Arnold’s work has been seen throughout the world. Arnold was included in the Getty Research Institute’s ‘Evidence of Movement’ and will be included in the forthcoming exhibition ‘California Video’ opening in March at the Getty Center. Later this year, Richard Hertz will be assembling Skip’s recent work for a solo exhibition at Kim Light Gallery.

AIR Project Room:Villeroy & Boch – La sindrome di Stendhal
(the adventures and discovery of monopolychrome)

'All we ever wanted was to be able to try things and to make mistakes. And if it didn't work out or people didn't like it it wouldn't matter because Villeroy and Boch are already dead.'
-Villeroy & Boch, interview in Reader's Digest.

In december 2007, Villeroy & Boch first set out on a great expedition to find monopolychrome.

Before going on the expedition they had to find a way to recognize monopolychrome, a way to measure it. After experiments and studies they finally set the standard for color.
.....two hours passed. Their car had moved barely over 30 miles from her original position. 'We are driving about like the Flying Dutchman,'wrote the frustrated Villeroy. Then, just before midnight Villeroy & Boch were violently awakened by a series of earthquakelike shocks jarring their car from stem to stern. Rushing out to the pavement, they saw a small colorfull beam surrounded by a white space of open water. For a few seconds they hoped they might at last have succes, that their assistants 'wearing out their souls like men doomed' could fly home again... On their first great expedition Villeroy & Boch discovered what later became a great succes in exhibitions all over the world.

It was the International 2nd Monopolychrome Expedition that contributed to one of many chapters of misfortune in the 21st Century history of discoveries. After a 20 hours journey the expedition set foot on the grass . By then most of the explorers were coming to the reluctant conclusion that they would never find monopolychrome. Villeroy & Boch were they only ones still destined to find succes so they set out for a journey into the great greens of the park. After three weeks Stendhal and a few men set out to find them. The only one they found was Villeroy in a petrified state.

In his writings Stendhal described possible endings of the lives of Villeroy & Boch. His most accepted theory is that Villeroy found monopolychrome but could not cope with the overwhelming beauty.

Opening Reception February 2, 2008 , 7-10pm

Raid Projects
602 Moulton Ave. - Los Angeles
Gallery hours: By appointment

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