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8/9/2009

Two exhibitions

DCKT Contemporary (old location), New York

castaneda/reiman
sculptures of paintings of places we’ve never been

castaneda/reiman here unite their mutual fascination with found landscapes and their ongoing concern with the relationship between the natural landscape and the desire for its representation in domestic spaces. At first glance, the installation appears to include these traditional landscape paintings. However, upon closer inspection, the installation is revealed as a collection of ersatz replicas constructed from plywood panels, drywall mud and other materials commonly found on construction sites - a methodology that has been consistently associated with castaneda/reiman’s art-making practice throughout their nearly twenty year collaboration.

These replicas use the landscape imagery literally and conceptually as a foundation by printing them directly on the drywall surface. Just as landscape paintings function in domestic spaces as stand-ins or reminders of places or horizons, the representations in the installation serve as stand-ins for the paintings themselves. In the greater installation, oak hardwood details serve as symbols of how elements of the natural world are placed into the service of interior domestic landscapes. Units of stacked drywall are framed in oak, subtly and ambiguously suggesting the fabrication of a home or the framing of a painting.

These most recent sculptures and objects demonstrate a fundamental shift in castaneda/reiman's process. While still considering the architectural environment, their concerns have moved from the rigid structures that support a space to the residuum of materials reflected in those spaces. Through these sculptures, they rebuild and reinterpret the subjects of their collection into awkward and informal depictions of landscape collage.

castaneda/reiman are collaborative artists who live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2004 they were awarded the Fleishhacker Foundation Eureka Fellowship and have since been included in group exhibitions at the Oakland Museum of California and the Berkeley Art Museum. Their work is included in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This is their third solo exhibition with DCKT Contemporary.

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Josh Azzarella
Untitled #100 (Fantasia)

AZZARELLA’s source material here departs from his well known use of historical news footage to the realm of historic popular culture. AZZARELLA assiduously scavenges, modifies and rewrites, frame-by-frame, Michael Jackson’s iconic Thriller video, directed by John Landis. Devoid of the title song and emptied of all figures, including the late King of Pop himself, the viewer has no choice but to take notice of the lush, vivid landscape.

Deserted streets, a foggy graveyard and a vacant movie theater become potential sites, waiting movie sets on which innumerable scenes could be played out. They remind us of our own projected fantasies and our desire to imagine ourselves inside popular culture. In noticing the emptied surroundings, we also question how the topography of a landscape affects the events within it and in turn how events affect the landscape.

This work also marks AZZARELLA's first foray into sound. The landscape that was once the backdrop to the song Thriller has been imbued with a full surround sound mix of ambient, localized and constructed atmospheres based on sound from the original video.

AZZARELLA lives and works in New York City. He was the recipient of the 2006 Emerging Artist Award and a solo exhibition from The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (Ridgefield, CT). Previous solo and group exhibitions include Kavi Gupta Gallery (Chicago, IL); Academie der Kunste (Berlin, Germany); Sean Kelly Gallery (New York, NY); Catharine Clark Gallery (San Francisco, CA). His work is included in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This is his second solo exhibition with DCKT Contemporary.

Image: Josh Azzarella

Opening September 9 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

DCKT
195 Bowery - New York
Free admission

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