Tuesday
Oct272009

ONE EVERY DAY


ONE EVERY DAY
A Printeresting Curatorial Project



The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts
323 West 39th St., 2nd Floor
NY, New York 10018


November 5 - December 19
Opening Reception:
Saturday, November 7
6-9 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

EFA Project Space is pleased to present One Every Day, on view from November 5 through December 19, 2009. The exhibition foregrounds the relationship of printed ephemera to cultural and artistic production, and marks the curatorial debut for Printeresting.org.

Launched in 2008, Printeresting.org was coined “The Thinking Person’s Favorite Online Resource for Interesting Printmaking Miscellany.” Recognizing it as exactly that, EFA invited Printeresting to organize an exhibition that would open during New York City Print Week 2009, expanding the discourse about print beyond its fine art boundaries into the “every day”.

From the detritus under the windshield and the debris in our pockets to gig posters mounted on telephone poles, One Every Day attests that all varieties of print ephemera share the following three characteristics: fleeting function, low-cost means of production, and the fact that somebody out there loves them.

Presenting work by twenty-five artists and designers, the curators proclaim: “The universe of ephemera is expansive, and so is the work in One Every Day. The viewer will be treated to books, pamphlets, zines, stickers, merchandise, and other artifacts, but also subtle minimalist explorations, conceptual activism, and post-punk rock promotion. Similarly, the goals of our contributors are diverse: highly personal and comedic explorations of youth culture rest easily alongside overt critiques of consumer waste."

Some artists in the exhibition imitate and glean from existing printed matter, appropriating popular forms of communication to transform their meaning. Stephanie Syjuco’s Color Theory Communication Transference is a re-creation of a community board from People’s Park, Berkeley, CA. Using a process she calls “color averaging, ” the artist color codes the posts based on category, resulting in an isolated color coded object absent from the original content. Kate Bingaman-Burt’s foray into obsessive consumption involves drawing everything she buys, including the receipts and bills, all of which are then compiled in the format of artists books.

Other works are created with the intention of being placed in the public domain, such as Geoff Hargadon’s Cash for Your Warhol, a suite of roadside signs created in the same font as the ubiquitous Cash for Your Houses signs. These signs, reproduced in Warholian colors, were placed in front of major museums. Reversely, Lydia Diemer creates a personal space out of public material. She will build a distinct three-dimensional environment within the gallery, constructed entirely from printed ephemera.

Concerned with public interaction and the act of exchange, the Chicago artist collective Temporary Services will have all of the posters they have produced on display, along with a takeaway stack of posters created specifically for this exhibition. Additionally, Carlos Motta will provide several publications for the taking- including Gigantic, a large sampling of images from popular news media, each image removed off of the top reveals a new image beneath, the only way to experience all of the images in the stack is collectively throughout the show.

Many of these artists create objects for the same reasons ephemera have always been created: an efficient mode of production and distribution allows access to the widest possible audience. This is the goal of anyone with an idea to share, an agenda to promote, a culture to subvert, or yes, even a product to advertise: as seen in Post-Typography's show poster screenprinted on silver mylar balloons, and the work of Gary Kachadourian, who commodifies his art as cheap consumer products sold at bargain-basement prices to maximize distribution.

Printeresting.org is an online resource for all things print related. From “fine art” prints and limited edition multiples to xeroxed flyers and cheap inkjet printouts, they take a broad view of printmaking; all manner of printed matter has a place at Printeresting. Authored by multiple contributors, the site features regular posts on a range of print-related content, including artwork, news, reviews, technology, and critical discourse. While their primary goal is to highlight innovative print work, the site is also a place to keep abreast of developments in the field, and to take note when printmaking intrudes into popular culture. The site’s growing collection of posts form the web’s most comprehensive, searchable database of contemporary print. Printeresting is for artists, designers, printers, curators, collectors, teachers, students, and the generally curious.

The originators of Printeresting.org and the One Every Day exhibition are Amze Emmons, R.L. Tillman, and Jason Urban.

Amze Emmons received his MFA in Print from the University of Iowa in 2002, and a BFA with a concentration in Painting and Printmaking from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1996. He has lived in Brooklyn, Vermont, Iowa City and currently can be found somewhere on I-476 commuting between his job teaching Printmaking and Drawing at Muhlenberg College and his home in Philadelphia.

His artwork has been exhibited at a variety of venues, including (listed chronologically), Aqua Miami, Scoula Internationale di Graphica in Venice, Works on Paper Gallery in Philadelphia, OH&T Gallery in Boston, The Des Moines Art Center, Wendy Cooper Gallery in Chicago, The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Palace of Arts in Belarus, International Print Center New York, The Philadelphia Print Center. He has work in the collections of The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Fogg Museum at Harvard, and the Tama Art Museum in Tokyo.

R.L. Tillman is based in Baltimore, Maryland. He received an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Iowa and a BA in art and political science from The George Washington University, and has studied politics at Oxford University.

His artwork toys with visual culture to explore issues in society, politics, and art. Often working in unusual venues, he creates graphic media, installation, performance, and more. His exhibitions include the Baltimore Museum of Art, the St. Louis Center of Contemporary Art, and the Kansas City Art Institute. His teaching history includes three years as Printmaker-in-Residence at American University in Washington and workshops at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Maryland. Tillman’s writing has been published in Graphic Impressions and the Journal of the Mid America Print Council. He is the founding curator of Baltimore's Minstallation Gallery.

Jason Urban lives in Austin, TX where he teaches printmaking and drawing at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned an MFA from the University of Iowa, and a BFA from Kutztown University. He has taught printmaking, drawing, and artist’s books at Tyler School of Art, Temple University (Philadelphia, PA); Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore, MD); and Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Carbondale, IL).

Urban's prints have been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and have exhibited internationally in Croatia, Great Britain, Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, and Belarus. Recently, Urban has had solo exhibitions at Manifest (Cincinnati, OH), Fort Gondo (St. Louis, MO), and Spare Room in (Baltimore, MD); his works have been featured in MATRIX: Contemporary Printmaking at the Florida State Museum of Fine Arts, Multiple X Multiple at the Ewing Gallery at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, and Shazam! Contemporary Artists and the Influence of Comics at the Creative Alliance in Baltimore, MD.

For more information on the exhibition, such as images and a schedule of programs, please contact Michelle Levy, Program Director, EFA Project Space, at 212-563-5855 x 227, or michelle@efa1.org


EFA Project Space is a Program of The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts.
The creative process is essential to shaping society. EFA is dedicated to providing artists across all disciplines with space, tools and a cooperative forum for the development of individual practice. We are a catalyst for cultural growth, stimulating new interactions between artists, creative communities, and the public. www.efa1.org

EFA Project Space, a multi-disciplinary contemporary art venue, encourages creative expression and new interactions in the arts. By collaborating with organizations and individuals to present a variety of programs including exhibitions, performances, screenings, workshops, and conversations, we aim to generate an ongoing dialogue about the creative process.

EFA Project Space is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Private funding for the Gallery has been received from The Carnegie Corporation Inc.


 

Friday
Oct232009

NEVER LATE THAN BETTER

April 11 - May 16, 2009

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Curated by Trong Gia Nguyen

Artists: Julieta Aranda, Peter Belyi, Hannes Bend, Christopher Chiappa, Eric Doeringer, Josephine Wister Faure, Marc Ganzglass, Evan Gruzis, Christopher Ho, Marci MacGuffie, David Maroto, Laura Nova, Yuki Onodera, Rebecca Reeve, Egill Saebjornsson, Luke Stettner, Halldor Ulfarsson, Arnold von Wedemeyer, Mike Womack

at EFA Project Space

EFA Project Space presents Never Late Than Better, on view from April 11 through May 17, 2009. On the centennial anniversary of the Futurist Manifesto, Never Late than Better contends with the questionable boundaries of space, time, and reality. Re-appraising the past and re-fashioning the present, the exhibition foregrounds a “bizarro universe” that counters the time-honored day-to-days of war, speed, and misogyny that F.T. Marinetti forecast in the Manifesto, published in Le Figaro in 1909.

Early or late, Time is above all else a form of adhesive, a correspondence that encompasses both the spoken and unspoken word. Never Late Than Better features artists who tweak the vagaries of reality and consider the laws of time and physics as an aesthetic. The Futurist Manifesto gives us occasion to celebrate the many faceted possibilities of the now, which look forward to the evolved commonplace, things such as universe expansion, collapsible theology, enlightened shadows, irreversible time, and the anti-Futurist whose penchant for prediction flames out with every undying death.

Certain works in the show rely on the time-proven formula of unpredictability, such as David Maroto’s Disillusion, a board game whose very nature tempts repulsion and attraction in its players, and The Box, Egill Saebjornsson’s installation of real objects and animation that conjure up, almost alchemically, a wild and whimsical narrative that seemingly defies all conventional means of storytelling. There are realms of utter predictability, like Eric Doeringer’s two tomorrow paintings depicting the opening and closing dates of the exhibition in the manner of On Kawara’s Today series, hereby beating the latter to the punch. Other works such as Arnold Von Wedemeyer’s fast-moving still-life film Maelzel’s Room and Christopher Chiappa’s Wiper march on rhythmically to the count of their own metronomes. Other re-alities rethink the literal and recognizable in the deer head sculpture of Hannes Bend, made from sparkling candy, and the romantic geological longings of Christopher Ho’s Lesbian Mountains in Love. Likewise migrating from past to present, a chase scene from Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger is re-traced and re-imagined in Marc Ganzglass‘ installation A Bridge of Gold.

The Futurist Manifesto Is Whenever, a supplementary guide, will evolve with the duration of the show. Altering the traditional audio-tape guide, a selection of curators, critics, artists, and musicians will walk through the show before it opens and record their immediate responses, speaking into an old-fashioned cassette recorder. Each side of the tape will contain the voice of a different ‘critic.’ The audio-guides will be available for checking out, and viewers themselves are also encouraged to record their own take on the show, which will be left behind for subsequent viewers. At the exhibition’s conclusion, the collection of tapes will together form the ‘exhibition catalogue.’ Initial contributors include curatorial team Metro Color Collision (Julie Fishkin and Matt Lucas), musician Montgomery Knott (Stars Like Fleas), and artist and writer Mary Walling Blackburn.

Additional programs created in conjunction with Never Late Than Better include:• A Panel Discussion on The Future of Panel Discussions. A 100% participatory event in which the spectators are rotated into the seats of the panelists every few minutes for the whole duration and all questions are fair game. Shut up or speak up, anything goes nowhere or somewhere.• A tarot reader, a psychic, and a palmist walk into the EFA Project Space… They each divinate the future of individual viewers, who compare and contrast the triumvirate accuracy of these true futurists.Date TBA

Trong Gia Nguyen is an artist and curator based in New York City. After earning an MFA in Painting from the University of South Florida, he worked as the associate director of Zabriskie Gallery from 2000-03. Later, Trong established New General Catalog (2005-07), an alternative exhibition space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. A selection of curated shows include By Invitation Only (Kinz, Tillou, + Feigen), The Guy Debord Show (New General Catalog), amBUSH! (Van Brunt Gallery), Eleven Nguyens and the Thirty Year Loss (PH Gallery), From New York with Love (Covivant Gallery), and Who? Me? (Zabriskie Gallery). Trong currently serves on the Fashion in Film Festival advisory board and has previously lectured at Location One, School of Visual Arts, New York University, Columbia University, Icelandic Art Academy, and Catalyst Foundation. An occasional writer and critic, Trong blogs for Art:21 and contributes reviews and interviews to Artslant as its New York City editor. He recently finished writing a “lost chapter” to “The Da Vinci Code” based on the secret love life of Marcel Duchamp.

 

Friday
Oct232009

Post Memory

February 21 - March 28, 2009

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Curated by Yaelle Amir

Participating artists: Binh Danh, Joseph DeLappe, David Maisel, Bradley McCallum & Jacqueline Tarry, Emily Prince, Benjamin Tiven, Anna Von Mertens

EFA Project Space presents Post Memory: A Collection of Makeshift Monuments, on view from February 21 through March 28, 2009. Curated by Yaelle Amir, the exhibition features artists investigating alternative approaches to the process of memorializing, representing “various outcomes of remembrance through a mediated history.” Using vicarious experience as their source, the artists enlist a variety of disciplinary practices such as performance, intervention, and mapping, to redefine the act of commemoration of people and events that have faded from collective consciousness.Opening reception sponsored by Magic Hat Brewing Company

 

Friday
Oct232009

Beyond a Memorable Fancy

October 30- December 20, 2008

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Curated by Michelle Levy

Artists: Glen Baldridge, Robert Buck, Benjamin Cohen, Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Ian Cooper, Jenelle Covino, Alex Dodge, Rachel Foullon, David Gatten, Dylan Gauthier, Graffiti Research Lab, Lynne Harlow, Adam Helms, Wennie Huang, Matthew Day Jackson, Heidi Neilson, Evan Roth, Jennifer Schmidt, Peter Simensky, Mary Temple, and Stephan von Muehlen. 

EFA Project Space presents Beyond A Memorable Fancy, an exhibition about print, perception, and artistic intervention.Focusing on the transformative aspects of printmaking, Beyond a Memorable Fancy explores the current trend of artists experimenting with print techniques in order to appropriate and manipulate information—be it from text or image sources, cultural symbols, or nature. The art in the exhibition spans a range of unconventional formats, including experimental film, laser stencil graffiti, vinyl signage, cast shadows, and boat-making paraphernalia. Even the more common print techniques present are used to achieve an unexpected result.

 

Friday
Oct232009

IN RESIDENCE: Recent Projects from Sculpture Space

September 6 - October 18, 2008

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A Collaboration betweenThe Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and Sculpture Space, Utica

Curated by Christa Erickson and Patterson Sims

Where else can you sink your teeth into frosting covered poetry, peek into hanging microcosms, observe nature work against itself, and witness sound waves transform into rippling light?

Artists: Jae Hi Ahn, David Bowen, Carlos Ferguson, Abe Ferraro, Wennie Huang, Takafumi Ide, Las Hermanas Iglesias, Beth Krebs, David McQueen, Sterz, Jina Valentine, Maria Velasco

Curatorial Consultants: Michelle Levy, Program Director, EFA Project Space; Sydney L. Waller, Executive Director, Sculpture Space

Sponsors: CONMED Corporation, Karen A. and Kevin W. Kennedy Foundation, with additional support from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (US)

Special thanks to Saranac Brewery and the Cupcake Cafe