Issue No. 184: POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT at The Peanut Gallery (Chicago)

Positive Reinforcement is a multimedia group exhibition featuring:

Devin Mawdsley

Anders Johnson

Rachael Lombardy

Kristin Abhalter

Jun-Jun Sta. Ana

Steve Armstrong

Corinne Halbert

Jonah Ortiz

Matthew Schlagbaum

Edra Soto










Peanut Gallery

1000 N. California Ave, Chicago

May 6 – May 29, 2012

Opening reception: Sunday May 6, 5 – 9pm

otherwise open by appointment (but someone's usually here)

Positive Reinforcement is a collection of artwork describing and exploring several different local artists’ personal “happy places”. The exhibition is an opportunity for us to inhabit the fantasies of others and compare the similarities and differences between them. What they have in common is that none of them are literal visions of utopia. In fact, very few of the works are superficially pleasant, and many are aggressively ecstatic, even a bit violent. Motifs within this exhibition span across the board from nostalgia to sex and death, to more abstract, visceral interactions with shapes and materials. Mediums employed are equally diverse – from kinetic sculpture to pen and ink drawings. Peanut Gallery’s trademark sense of irreverent play is present more than ever in this exhibition, and we invite you to visit anytime and let Positive Reinforcement be your happy place for the month of May.

Issue No. 183: Pouring Paint in The Hole (NYC)

Holton Rower
Pour Paintings
April 28th – May 26th, 2012
Opening April 28th, 7-9pm


The Hole is pleased to announce the first New York solo exhibition of pour paintings by Holton Rower. Filling all galleries at the Hole with nineteen enormous pours, Rower will present the variations in technique that produce wildly different effects. From the entrance to the gallery featuring small pours with “hats” as the artist calls them (wood protrusions on which the paint is poured and flows down); to the medium-sized works with hats, some of which flow onto the floor; to the rear gallery where large works both with and without hats feature “exclusions” (where the artist placed obstacles that the paint was forced to flow around then removed); to Gallery Three where he shows five tectonic pours: the variety and intensity of the exhibition is assured.

Rower makes these paintings by pouring fantastic quantities of doctored paint onto plywood: however, the simplicity of this description belies the shocking and unexpected results. The paint flows slowly and determinedly over the surfaces he creates, timed to dry and spread at just the right rate, in color combinations both highly premeditated and fancifully spontaneous. The sloes of paint often fracture, vacillate, clump up, and extrude. Fissures and zigzags abound, as do waterfalls, U-turns, and smears, but always the flow triumphs. The textures of paint, mixed on occasion with reflective elements, opalescent admixtures, and spicy sparkling polishes, vary widely and behave differently. Paint here is truly on parade.

The works have a relationship to color field painting and other formal explorations of abstract and minimal legacies—the most superficial relationship perhaps to Morris Louis’ “Pour Paintings”—but instead of seeking the autonomy of color, these works are physical, aggressive, literal and muscular. They, of course, are process-driven as the paint is given free reign to be itself, and like the heroic works of the last century do pursue the sublime; but there is nonetheless something else happening here. Rower deals not just with gravity but gravitas.

Rower’s pours come closer to the abstracting nature photos of Edward Weston than to the works of De Kooning or Pollock, painters who, even when most abstract, always left behind traces of the movement of their hands. Meanwhile, the breadth of suggestibility in Rower’s hands-off works spans such a huge range: from the geode-type pieces to the brain scannish works, from spaceships to vertebrae to Northern Lights, lace antimacassars, ghoulish masks, surfaces of distant planets, adipose tissue, underwater mollusks, dendrites, coral, sexual bodies, Christian relics, mitochondria and Golgi complexes: it’s hard for the poetic mind not to run amok.

Rower was born in the psychedelic 60s and grew up working in his father’s construction business, where he learned about heft and weight and managing teams of people to do massive undertakings. The grandson of Alexander Calder, Rower was surrounded by a culture of art making and the influence of amazing cultural figures. He has been developing and perfecting these pours in seclusion over the past five years. Recent shows at Pace last summer, John McWhinnie in New York and forthcoming projects at Shirazu in London are just the beginning of sharing these important works with a broader audience. A catalogue will accompany this exhibition.

Issue No. 182: "Institutions by Artists" International Conference (Vancouver)

Fillip & PAARC
Institutions by Artists

October 12–14, 2012
Vancouver, Canada

Conference registration now open at arcpost.ca

Fillip and PAARC are pleased to present Institutions by Artists, an international conference that aims to evaluate the performance and promise of contemporary artist-run centres and initiatives. The three day event will include over 50 speakers from 19 countries.

At the Convention a world congress of artists, curators, critics, and academics will deliberate, explore, and advance the common interests of artist-run centres, collectives, and cultures, creating a catalyst for new as well as divergent assessments and perspectives on artist-run cultures today. Using experimental formats, performative frameworks, and participatory vehicles, the three day series of events is designed to challenge and generate new thinking about artist-run culture globally, examining their urban and rural, fixed and mobile, local and virtual dimensions among others. Inspired by the many artists wrestling creatively with building, using, shaping, and deploying institutions by artists, we will explore economies of exchange and knowledge; institutional time and space; material and virtual intimacies among other critical interrogations.

Throughout the Institutions by Artists week, Vancouver artist-run centres will present special projects that link to the themes of the Convention. From internet art pioneers, to grassroots cinema collectives, to media pirates and institutional revisionists, this week-long series of events and activities will invite the public to meet visiting artists, and to examine the many phenomena impacting and defining artist-run culture globally. Experimental tactics include re-enactments of key histories from the annals of artist-run culture, radical forms of distribution, the re-purposing of data and systems for new outcomes, as well as DIY models of education in an in-depth exploration of the innovation, critical thinking, and irreverent spirit of artist-run initiatives.

Speakers:
Mounira al Solh, Chumpon & Chantawipa Apisuk, "Walter Benjamin", Matei Bejenaru, Anne Bertrand, Vincent Bonin, AA Bronson, Tania Bruguera, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Brad Butler & Karen Mirza, Jennifer Cane, Fulvia Carnevale & James Thornhill, Biljana Ciric, Christopher Cozier, Tim Dallet & Adam Kelly, Jeff Derksen, Sean Dockray, Chris Fitzpatrick, Dirk Fleischmann, Andrea Francke, Corinn Gerber, Bastien Gilbert, Sam Gould, Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet, Candice Hopkins, Jakob Jakobsen, Virginija Januškeviciute, Marie-Josée Jean, Ola Khalidi & Diala Khasawinh, Deirdre Logue & Allyson Mitchell, Jaleh Mansoor, Gabriel Menotti, Jonathan Middleton, Gabi Ngcobo, John O'Brian, Isabelle Pauwels, Matthew Post, Peta Rake, Al Razutis, Patricia Reed, Scott Rogers and Justin Patterson, Gregory Sholette, Hito Steyerl, Pelin Tan, Claire Tancons, Slavs and Tatars, Anton Vidokle, Eva Weinmayr, Pauline J. Yao.

Issue No. 181: Rita Ackerman at Journal Gallery (Brooklyn)

 

Rita Ackermann
"Fire By Days"
May 2 - June 3, 2012
Opening:  Wednesday May 2  6 - 9 PM
Viewing Hours: Tuesday - Sunday  12 - 6 PM
168 North 1st Street  Brooklyn  NY 11249

"...Like the Guston work, Ackermann’s painting, Fire by Days XX (2012), is ugly too. But I hate it. The large work resembles a bloody diaper and has all the charm associated with a soiled undergarment. Ackermann, unlike Guston, does not compose elements as much as she vomits in the direction of a canvas. From the puke, I could detect what looked to be an elfin head in profile with a Pinocchio nose. Or, I detected a headless figure groping its crotch (maybe it’s both). But who cares. It’s all surface, no style.

As I mulled over the show, I had to ask myself why I find the pairing so outrageous. Both artists' work can be described as grotesque. Why is one grotesque more appealing than another grotesque? Is it just a matter of personal taste or preference?

What is intriguing about this show and format is it forced me to reconsider an artist that I have often dismissed as a hack, or trash-collector-cum-painter. It also forced me to think about what it is that I admire about Guston, and why it is I admire his work. With Ackermann’s amorphous red-stain looming over my shoulder, Guston’s sense of composition never seemed tighter, more controlled and dramatic. His icons have a depth and weight. I can see and feel the world he is depicting. Plus, they seem to simultaneously emerge and recede from the pink abyss of his backgrounds.

If it were not for Franklin Parrasch Gallery, I would have never have thought to utter Guston and Ackermann in the same breath."
— Brendan S. Carroll, Hyperallergic, 3/26/2012

In her second solo exhibition at The Journal Gallery Rita Ackermann presents five works on paper from the series "Fire by Days," her sole ongoing subject since December, 2010. The works are based on a single composition that is executed in two primary colors: red and blue.

Born in Hungary, Rita Ackermann lives and works in New York, NY. Ackermann's solo exhibition is currently on view at MoCA North Miami, FL, and her work will be included in the forthcoming group exhibition "Mix / Remix" at Luhring Augustine, New York, NY. Her recent solo exhibitions include "Bakos" at Ludwig Muzeum, Budapest, Hungary (November, 2011 - March, 2012); "Shadowfux" with Harmony Korine at Swiss Institute, New York, NY (2011); "WARFILMS" at The Journal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2011); "Last Exit to Poitiers" at Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France (2010) and "Marfa/Crash" at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX (2009). Ackermann's work has been included in group exhibitions including "Rita Ackermann + Philip Guston" at Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, NY (2012) "Tableaux," Le Magasin, Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Grenoble, France (2011), "Looking at Music: 3.0" at MoMA, New York, NY (2011); "Street and Studio" at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria (2010) and the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of Art, New York, NY (2008). In 2011, Rizzoli published Ackermann's self-titled monograph. "Shadowfux," her collaborative work with Harmony Korine, was published by Swiss Institute, New York, NY.

The Journal Gallery  168 North 1st Street   Brooklyn  NY 11211
Telephone 718 218 7148 
www.thejournalgallery.com

Issue No. 180: "Sense & Sensibility" at Golden Gallery (Chicago)

David Malek

Jessica Labatte

Sense and Sensibility
April 26 - June 9, 2012
Reception:  Thursday, April 26, 6 - 9pm
Chicago

Golden Gallery is excited to announce Sense and Sensibility, a two-person exhibition with Jessica Labatte and David Malek that highlights their respective relationships to color, value and opticality.

Jessica Labatte introduces a new series of cross-processed photographs of paper compositions. These photographs are without a naturalist representation of color as the chemical mistreatment of the film brings attention to anticipated, but unexpected, visual results.

Alternately, David Malek presents a series of gray to white hexagonal paintings that, executed with bands of specific tint, generate a general gradient, or modeled form. The colored bands shift at a rate that corresponds to Albert H. Munsell's color system, creating effects simultaneously eerie and equitable.

This exhibition situates both artists between previous solo exhibitions at Golden Gallery, Chicago and Spring 2012 solo exhibitions at Golden Gallery, New York.

Taken from Golden Gallery's press kit.

Issue No. 179: ACT UP Action Tomorrow!

Join ACT UP's 25th Anniversary Direct Action

ACT UP and OCCUPY
TAX WALL STREET!
END AIDS!

April 25, 2012
At 11am
Massive demonstration and march.
Starts at City Hall (Broadway and Murray Street)
Ends at Wall Street.

ACT UP is calling for a small tax (0.05%) on Wall Street transactions and speculative trades in order to raise the money needed to end the global AIDS epidemic and provide universal healthcare in the US.

More info: 212-966-4873 | www.actupny.com | info@actupny.com

Facebook ACT UP NY Page | www.facebook.com/actupny

Twitter: @actupny | #taxwallst | #endaids

How can a Financial Speculation Tax help end AIDS?

- THE SCIENCE: The scientific community and AIDS activists agree: we now know how to break the back of the epidemic. New evidence shows early HIV treatment can reduce sexual transmission of the virus by 96%.

- THE REALITY: HIV treatment is needed to save lives, prevent illness, and reduce new infections, but there is a huge TREATMENT GAP and WAITING LISTS are growing in the U.S. and abroad.

-IN THE U.S.: 3,840 people who qualify for federal ADAP assistance to pay for HIV treatment are still on waiting lists. In addition, people with HIV and vulnerable communities in the U.S. need support and social services. Due to budget cuts, these essential services have been rolled back. Funding from the tax could also help pay for universal healthcare in the U.S.

- WORLDWIDE: Only 44% of people who need HIV treatment have access – more than 8 million do not. Revenue from the FST could bail out the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, which cancelled its last round of grants to poor countries due to a lack of resources. Funding the Fund can help to make good on the global agreement – signed by the U.S. – to treat 15 million people by 2015, up from 6.6 million now. It will take around $22 billion a year between now and 2015 to finance the global HIV fight to save millions of lives and stop the HIV epidemic in its tracks.

- WHAT'S AT STAKE: AIDS has already claimed over 30 million lives. ACT UP is calling for an FST to help raise the money needed to close the gap in access to life-saving HIV treatment, and to END THE AIDS CRISIS.

The FST demonstration is linked to a global Robin Hood Tax campaign to fund
global health, global public goods, jobs, and to tackle climate change.

Issue No. 178: "My Patented Silkeena: Feels Like Spun Silk" Performed by Heather Marie Vernon, Erik Peterson, Zach Parsons & Sarah at SPRING FLING (March 25. Peanut Gallery. Photos by John Kramer.)

Issue No. 177: Saturday at THE HOMOCCULT SHOW, the Party & Easter Sunday

Sunny restored a Tiffany lamp.

Jonathan Sommer

Armando Lozano (center) & companions

Allan Vandever

Sofia Moreno (right)

Josh (left) & Chris Andrews

"Bestiary"

Daniel McKernan

Danny playing musick.

S.M.

going home (about 6 am)

Curator Talk on Easter - 1

Curator Talk on Easter - 2

Curator Talk on Easter - 3 (Amy Moreth)