Month: August 2007

The Innocent Gaze


The Innocent Gaze
August 3 ˆ 26, 2007
Opening Friday Aug. 3; 6-9pm
Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco

The Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco, is pleased to present The Innocent Gaze, a group exhibition featuring artists Hisham Bharoocha, Leslie Shows, Chris Sollars, Erika Somogyi, Ted Riederer and Edmund Wyss and curated by Dina Pugh. The Innocent Gaze examines various ways in which artists are addressing disaster, war, and tragedy by assembling/deassembling information and ephemera from the media. Using art to understand, cope with or connect to disturbing current events, these disparate artists choose to respond with varied aesthetics from the sublime to the fetishized.

In the 2001 article “Welcome to the Desert of the Real” Slavoj Zizek discusses the “innocent gaze” as the current American viewpoint due to our physical and emotional distance from wars waging abroad. The artists in this exhibition represent or critique their own removed position and ultimately reveal the difficult task of attempting to respond to events beyond our full comprehension. While the media is looked to as a source of information, it also shelters us from the harshest of realities. These artists confront difficult, political subjects by sourcing media images and thus flipping the media‚s intermediary gaze to create a personal connection. Many of the images on display are highly aesthetisized, often sublime and nearly void of recognizable political content. On one hand this can be perceived as a sign of escapism, on the other it calls attention to the distance that still exists between our sheltered viewpoint and “the real”.

Hisham Bharoocha, Erika Somogyi and Leslie Shows disassemble images from the media and reassemble them through collaging and painting. Ted Riederer‚s art practice revolves largely around his use of music as a political tool, a coping mechanism and a means of connection with others. Edmund Wyss juxtaposes immaculately rendered photorealistic paintings of outmoded cameras and toy-like war weapons ˆ often indiscernible from one another. Chris Sollars uses a more didactic approach than the other artists in the exhibition, prodding his audience to question the relevance of art in the political arena.

  • Jack Hanley

    • Myne Søe-Pedersen


    It is with great pleasure that peter lav PHOTO GALLERY presents the exhibition

    Myne Søe-Pedersen
    TRANSIENT
    August 9 – September 8

    Please join us on Thursday, August 9, from 17 to 20, for the opening reception.

    The project is sponsored by the Danish Arts Council.

    Bedste hilsner/Best regards

    Peter Lav

    peter lav PHOTO GALLERY
    Carl Jacobsens Vej 16, indg. 6, 3 sal
    DK-2500 Valby
    (+45) 28 80 23 98

  • Pl Gallery

    • FERDINAND AHM KRAG


    FERDINAND AHM KRAG

    ’TURBULENT INFINITY’
    August 9th – September 8th, 2007

    Opening reception, Thursday August 8th, 17-20
    Afterparty at ‘Venners Hjem’ with food, beer and a nice atmosphere
    DJ: Master Fatman

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    This is Ferdinand Ahm Krag’s first solo exhibition at bendixen contemporary art. The show is titled “Turbulent Infinity” and will present a number of drawings.
    In his formalistic drawings Ahm Krag combines various spaces. Landscapes and architectonic or even musical spaces arise from his expansive compositions. The notion of scale is variable and indefinable. We find ourselves asking the question: is this a macroscopic or microscopic world?
    The symmetrical composition of these drawings gives quite a few of them an approximate resemblance to masks. Floating and abstract face-like shapes seem to be charged with waves of energy and musical vibrations. Or are we witnessing the splitting of atoms? Or perhaps science fiction architecture from another planet?
    In his art, Ahm Krag endeavours to capture motifs and figurations in an abstract, indefinable state of ”translation”. The pictorial space stretches infinitely in all directions, while at the same time pulsating between inner and outer, micro and macro, architecture and music, face and landscape. Occasionally the works display a great formal complexity, but Ahm Krag’s drawings originate in quite basic technique. They simply consist of lines drawn with a ball-point pen and a ruler across printing paper. They may resemble works by Sol LeWitt or Agnes Martin, but only at first glance. For Ahm Krag clearly draws upon numerous sources such as constructivism, futurism, psychedelic art, op-art, science-fiction, textile design and computer-generated visualisations of sound. Ahm Krag has articulated the following about his method of drawing: “These are meditative repetitions of the straight line, of the horizon line. One line under another, under yet a third and fourth line, et cetera. Until the entire piece of paper is covered in straight lines, and nothing but straight lines. The world represented as an accumulation of straight lines. And yet this world is far from perfect, for the lines are not quite straight. The surface reveals little discrepancies and smudged displacements. Chance coincidences. These coincidences are crucial, for they fill the space with possibility. Possibility is energy, and – if they may be said to represent anything – the drawings represent how spatial energies are captured by the psychic apparatus and wrapped up in patterns. A drawing is a device for perception.”

    Ferdinand Ahm Krag graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2006. He has been nominated for the Carnegie Art Award 2008 and contributes frequently to the daily newspaper Information as an art critic.

    Opening hours: Tuesday – Friday 12-17, Saturday 11-14

    bendixen contemporary art
    Carl Jacobsens Vej 20, 4th Floor
    DK-2500 Valby
    +45 36 16 03 25

  • Bendixen

    • :: /// :MOGADISHNI CPH: /// ::


    August 9. – September 8. 2007

    MOGADISHNI CPH is proud to kick off this autumn season with two exhibitions:

    A solo exhibition by the Italian artist Ivan Malerba,
    and a group exhibition with the three artists Vera Iliatova, Larissa Bates and Rebeca Raney.

    MOGADISHNI CPH looks forward to see you at the opening Thursday August 9, 5-8 PM,
    followed by afterparty at “Venners Hjem”, Trekronergade 143, Valby. DJ MASTER FATMAN

    Best regards/venlig hilsen MOGADISHNI

    MOGADISHNI CPH
    Carl Jacobsensvej 16 opg. 6 3.sal
    2500 Valby/Copenhagen
    Denmark
    Tel 0045 32543535
    Fax 0045 32543545
    mail@mogadishni.com

  • Mogadishni


    • ”NEW JOURNAL”


    ”NEW JOURNAL”

    Trine Søndergaard, Nikolaj Howalt, Johnny Jensen, Kine Ravn, Nan Na Hvass og Signe Vad

    Møstings Hus, Andebakkesti 5, 2000 Frederiksberg

    4. august – 2. september 2007. Tirs.-søn. Kl. 11-16

    Fernisering fredag 3. august 2007 kl. 16-18

    LISA KLAPSTOCK

    Depiction

    For the past ten years, Toronto artist Lisa Klapstock has investigated visual perception and the role of the camera in affecting and challenging the way we see and experience our surroundings.

    Depiction is a photographic series that uses depth-of-field to investigate the fragmented nature of human vision and the artifice of pictorial construction. These panoramic photographs of domestic gardens and house facades were shot with a single stationery camera that captured multiple views of the same space broken down into shallow focal layers, from the immediate foreground to infinity. These layers were then composited digitally into a single continuous picture in which the foreground, mid-ground and background appear together as components of a single image, but are clearly different layers of the same pictorial field. Elements of the picture move in and out of focus, revealing its composite layers and reflecting the way that we see. As the eye moves over the image, the pictorial field opens up, revealing its spatial depth. The Depiction images represent both a composition and a deconstruction.

    Depiction refers to the artifice of constructing a picture. The camera has the capacity to render images with a large depth-of-field, in which the foreground, mid-ground and background are simultaneously in focus. Paintings display this same condition. The human eye, however, does not see like this, as it has a limited depth of focus and is constantly in motion. This series simulates the way the human eye sees, moving over and through a space, pausing to focus on one fragment/thing at a time, rapidly framing and re-framing a scene, unconsciously constructing a complete picture from multiple views. The photographs elongate time, slowing down the eyes’ movement and making us conscious of the way that we see.

    LISA KLAPSTOCK bio
    Lisa Klapstock is a lens-based artist living in Toronto. She holds a Communications
    degree from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. With a focus on everyday places and
    their human occupation, Klapstock’s practice investigates mechanisms of seeing and the
    role of the camera in affecting and challenging the way we view and experience our
    surroundings. Her photographs and videos explore the liminal zone between abstraction
    and realism, revealing the complex relationship between photographic depiction and
    visual perception. Early work examined the hidden environment of Toronto’s urban
    laneways, drawing attention to the fragile and mutable interface separating public and
    private realms. Recent subject matter ranges from private gardens to both man-made
    and natural landscapes to populated tourist sites.

    Senko Studio
    Sct. Mathiasgade 35D
    WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT METAPHOR
    Signe Vad (DK)
    18.08 – 9.09.2007

    Galleri Signe Vad
    Nansensgade 47
    DK-1366 København K
    tlf: +45 20730567
    åbent onsdag og fredag 16-18 og lørdag 13-15

  • Galleri Signe Vad

  • Signe Vad

    • Rachel Rampleman`s "Poison"

    Poison
    (My Sister F*cked Bret)

    a video by Rachel Rampleman
    will be screened at
    Socrates Sculpture Park

    LIC, NYC VIDEO
    (Presented in conjunction with the exhibition L.I.C., NYC )

    FINAL SCREENING : 08.05.07

    other partipating artists include:
    Kate Gilmore l Timothy Hutchings l Sara Jessie Kane
    Karsten Krejcarek and Matthew Ronay l Qing Liu
    Ivan Monforte l Clifford Owens

    Videos will be shown on a large theatre screen – bring your own refreshments and picnic blanket

    32-01 Vernon Boulevard at Broadway
    Long Island City, NY 11106

    Rachel Rampleman’s 30-minute video Poison (My Sister Fucked Bret) documents her sister Sarah candidly telling the story of her intense infatuation with Bret Michaels, frontman for the band Poison, and what happened when she actually hooked up with him. Sarah had been kissing posters of Bret for years. Being with Bret was her ultimate fantasy: she imagined it constantly, but never imagined it would actually happen. Her story of the encounter is humorous and heartbreaking, and the intimate details take on a universal scope as her rockstar fantasy turns into anxiety, self-consciousness and ultimately disenchantment as she discovers that the real-life experience was not what she’d imagined.

    Rachel Rampleman, b.1975 in Cincinnatti, Ohio, received her MFA in Studio Art at NYU in 2006. She has been in numerous shows primarily in New York and Cincinnatti, and Poison was recently featured at Crawl Space Gallery, Seattle. Her trailer for Poison on youtube.com has had over 22,000 viewers and continues to generate a strong response.

  • Socrates Sculpture Park

  • Cynthia Broan

    • www.cynthiabroan.com/frameset_Rampleman.html