ArtForward

Curatorial

Common Denominator


ABC No Rio presents a group show that examines society's symbiotic relationships with machines.  Three artists subversively eschew traditional ways of making art by inventing devices that exemplify duality as medium and process.  Their works present a profound use of a machine’s intended use by expanding upon its repetition and predetermined mechanisms. This modus operandi of experimenting and altering linear form, monochromatic color and 1 bit sound provides autonomy that is traceable to discerning compositions.

Image:  Tristan Perich, Untitled Triangle, 2007, ink on paper, 44" x 66".

Click here for Press Release

Participating artists:

Peter Edwards, Anton Perich and Tristan Perich

Opening: 
Thursday, November 13 7:00pm-9:00pm

Exhibition runs through December 10, 2008

ABC No Rio
156 Rivington Street b. Clinton & Suffolk Street
www.abcnorio.org
212.254.3697

Metro:  F to Delancey Street /
J,M,Z to Essex Street

Archive of Press Releases on Previously Curated Shows:



PEEKSKILL PROJECT 2008:
When:   September 13-November 24, 2008
Where:  Various locations in the city of Peekskill, NY

 

Public art exhibition features fifty artists who concentrate on the dualistic nature of man’s relationship to the earth. This exhibition will focus on indoor and outdoor site-specific works which use environmental and organic based materials in order to communicate this tumultuous marriage between humans and their habitat.  Using Peekskill as a stage, artwork will be sited throughout the city. The project utilizes Peekskill’s train station and waterfronts, Annsville Circle, St. Mary’s Cathedral, The Hat Factory and Peekskill’s historic commercial district, as well as the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (HVCCA).

Artists affiliated with ArtForward, Elena Bajo, Meng-Yeh Chou, Christopher Lee Kennedy, Stephanie Lempert, Tony Moore, and Joel Morrison.

Special thanks to John Curran, Peekskill Historian.

Participating artists:

Emil Alzamora, Grimanesa Amoros, Brendan Ballengee, Karen Beall,  Al Bersch, Gail Biederman, Jo Ann Brody, Ryan Brown, Charles Butterly, Stefano Cagol, Alana Celii, Meng-Yeh Chou, Zachary Clement, Andrea Cote, Dana DeVito, Lorenz Estermann, Deborah Fisher, Marcy B. Freedman, Asha Ganpat, Johannes Girardoni,  Leslie Grant, Joan Harmon,  Alexander Harrington, Sarah Haviland, Vandana Jain, Carla Rae Johnson, Yael Kanarek, Christopher Lee Kennedy, Grace Knowlton, Miwa Koizumi, Cal Lane, Liz Magic Laser, Stephanie Lempert, Eva Mantell, Maslen/Mehra, Almagul Menlibayeva, Tony Moore, Joel Morrison, Angelo Musco, Michael Natiello, Nick and Keegan, Pamela Sunstrum Phatismo, Michael Peterson, Carolyn Salas, Ryan Schroeder, Gregg Segal, Adam Parker Smith, Christine Tarkowski, Jade Townsend, Ted Victoria, Allison Warminger, Andrew Wilkinson, Grant Willing and Brian Wondergem.

Participating curators include:
Ombretta Agro’Andruff, Evonne M. Davis and Emma Wilcox from Gallery Aferro, Michael Foley for Foley Gallery, Priska Juschka from Priska Juschka Fine Arts, Kelly Lindner from George Adams Gallery , Michael Natiello from Collaborative Concepts, Joyce Manalo of ArtForward, Thomas Werner from Parsons the New School of Design, and Livia Straus from the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art.

Click here for the press release.

IMAGE:  Elena Bajo, "Neither Here or Elsewhere", 2008, mirrors, soil and weeds, 48" x 48" x 36".


 

EMERGENCE:
Creative Pioneers in Uncharted Territory

When:   May 31-July 26, 2008
Where:  Governors Island / Building 14

 
Emergence: Creative Pioneers in Uncharted Territory is a summer exhibition of experimental, participatory art involving more than 30 artists / art collectives working in a variety of media, including, with a strong emphasis on audience and artist interaction. The ongoing exhibits will engage visitors as participants, continually changing and offering something new to see with each visit. The public is invited to visit Emergence on Saturdays and Sundays 11 am to 6 pm from now through July 26, 2008.

NEW YORK – On Saturday, May 31, 2008 Governors Island's will officially open for the season, in tandem with FIGMENT's project, "EMERGENCE".  The exhibition will include 25 artists groups and collaborative projects. The focus is on the history and significance of Governors Island and revealing it through participatory art.

Artists and art collectives: Anne Arden McDonald, artcodex, Asha Ganpat, Avant Car Guard (South Africa), Chris Jordan, Casper Electronics, Christian Nerf/Barend de Wet/Douglas Gimberg (South Africa), Damon Hamm, Dana Salisbury, Erik Fabian, Eugenia Yu, Friendly Falcons & Their Friend the Snake,  G-77, Jason Van Anden & Nate Hawks, John Krill (South Africa), John Walter,  Michael Alan, Monica Muller, Peripheral  Media Projects, Pornj Diamond Cell, Sarah Phillips, Saviour Scraps, Tara Parsons, Tim & Martin Dockery, Triangle Project (Denmark, Istanbul), and Urban Homesteading Project. 

The EMERGENCE Curatorial Committee:  Johan Kritzinger, Joyce Manalo, Elke Dehner and Audrey Boguchwal. 

Click here for the press release.

IMAGE:  "Summer Homestead" by Urban Homesteading Project


 

The Ides Of March
When:   May 31-July 26, 2008
Where:  ABC No Rio

The 6th Biannual Ides of March in 2008 also marks the 30th anniversary of Collaborative Projects (“Colab”). The objective of Colab is to “function as a group of artists with complementary resources and skills providing a solid ground for collaborative work directed to the needs of the community-at-large”.  The founding elements of Colab are the resonant theme of this year’s group exhibition; the process of collaboration among existing collectives and artist groups.

Today, individual aesthetic is the most common practice known for artistic contribution and appreciation.  However, it is important to note that collaboration among artists have existed as early as the 17th century.  Although it is not new, the attention on artistic collaboration is becoming more conspicuous.  Furthermore, it is contributing a profound effect on new practices in art making.  Technological advances and use of image editing software, e-mail, photo and video sharing websites, and live video feeds, elevate the rise in cross-border virtual communities where collaborations become more accessible, transparent, efficient, and familiar.

Challenges are considerably intensified when working with multiple individuals as opposed to working on one’s own.  Despite the fact that this process is ridden with ego, criticism, and undefined boundaries, the reward is great, a tangible piece of creative amelioration begot through vision coalescence and beneficial compromise.  Upon execution, a collaborative piece achieves a radical status when it fluidly sustains the integrity of each artist’s perspective and visual language.  The outcome is less predictable but nevertheless more anticipated by both creator and audience.

Ides of March 2008 has over 30 projects with reverberating themes that include the impact of the real estate industry on an art community; immigration and the de-objectification of people, ecological and biological sustainability; global transfer of experience and knowledge; and Doomsday destruction in terms of war, patriotism, community mobilization and escapism.    The hope is to cultivate the consciousness of our current political, economic, and social state and to inspire future artistic mobilization and participatory autonomy.

Ides of March Artists:  artcodex / Bartolomeu, Catbagan, Dunne, Ksel & Horton / Berenbaum, Ciarleglio & Haske / Broadthinking / Collective Gesture / Cueva & Wells / E.Y.E. (Erase Your Ego) / Endless Love Crew / Flux Factory / G-77 / Genefree / Greenwald, et al. / Harrah & Kipp / it/EQ / JustSeeds/Visual Resistance / Kokoronis, Heller & Weeks / Kretschmar, Brown & Mayton / Liz-N-Val / Mail/Art Global Collaborative / Matles & Baracz / Mcgill, Harrington & Edison / Mcternan & Goldstine / PerfectEight / Porter & Bautista / Porter & Suma / Ridge Street Gallery / Shepperson, Stein & Radford / Shit TV / Subject To Change / The Friendly Falcons & Their Friend the Snake / The Pipeline Project / Three Wise Goats / Zuvuya Collective

The Ides of March Curatorial Committee:  Michael Cataldi, Steven Englander, Michael Estabrook, Vandana Jain, Vikki Law, Joyce Manalo, and Scott Seaboldt.

Click here for the press release


Image:  "What Makes an Artist Collaborative Start Fires?", 2008, Subject to Change, mixed media, various dimensions

 


 

Logistics of Space
When:   February 9 - March 5, 2008
Where:  Collective Gallery 173-171

 
“Logistics of Space” is a group show of photography, mixed media art and video by Leah Oates, Virginie Sommet and Pierre St-Jacques.  Amidst a metropolis of thousands of people, multitudes of social situations, and a handful of empathic moments, survival becomes a complicated undertaking. The pieces concurrently epitomizes human predicament in urban life that challenge the logistics of space.

Pierre St-Jacques’ nine-part video series describes how, like the crowded metropolis, an interior space can provide a difficult topography in the navigation of the every day.  Feelings of claustrophobia, anxiety, and estrangement envelop the theme.  Leah Oates photographed the beauty of barren landscapes, abandoned structures and forgotten objects in Newfoundland, Canada and Turku, Finland.  This journey to a place of silence and peace represents a physical escape.  Virginie Sommet’s three-dimensional pieces, truly reflects a suspension of space and time that enables existence in one’s living space despite the nature of urban environment’s interruptions and dissolutions.  The meditative element of her pieces offers a resolution in finding internal peace, independent from locale.

Artists:  Leah Oates, Virginie Sommet, and Pierre St-Jacques

Click here for press release

Image:  "Pool House", 2005, Leah Oates, C-Print, 20" x 24"


 

"Countenance"
When:   January 10-February 21, 2008
Where:  Mazi's Cafe, Lower East Side

Jonna Twigg fluidly caresses the canvas with her paintbrush, rich in black India ink.  This medium gives her the freedom to make long gestural lines.  Her strokes create a landscape of the mind’s nature of contemplation.  These scenes consist of constructs of reality.  A mélange of emotions, and its effect on memory.  Twigg is concerned with indistinctness of recollection.  Her visual execution is devoid of actual references of events, time, people, and meaning that surround her.  This composition of a dream-like state, bestows an entry to insight on identity.

She represents various characters with faces as part of her subjects that are reminiscent of African art’s expression of human essence within an object. Faces reveal themselves with contemplative and yet aware lowered eyes.  Characters within the impermanent landscape are symbolic of obscure personal references pointing towards a self-realization.

The audience is awarded for letting their eyes oscillate from line to line.  Forms begin to appear and disappear. Faces become apparent with the free-flowing paint.  Birds migrate towards a direction that is driven by instinct.  Mountains freshly emerge out of the surface.  Twigg presents this world as a manifestation of the psyche that embodies derivations of countenance as it relates to behavior and identity.

Click here for press release

Image:  "Hollowed", 2005, india ink, enamel, acrylic on canvas  30" x 80"

 


 

"All Bets Are Off"
When:   November 16-
                      December 20, 2007
Where:  Mazi's Cafe, Lower East Side

John Gagliano’s paintings are a promulgation of various emotions.  Betting is a visceral act.  The body is running on adrenaline, where the highs are highs and the lows are bottomless.  The backgrounds of each scene, suggest colors of the subject’s adrenaline pumping euphoria and despair. “Pimlico is More Important” depicts a man who is on the verge of winning, unconsciously knowing that he’s also on the verge of losing.  Gagliano’s hue of red and green is maddening, referencing Vincent Van Gogh's color choices to reveal emotion. Van Gogh said, “I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green”.

2007 marks Gagliano’s five-year anniversary at the OTB.  His major piece, “Oak Tree at Santa Anita” reveals various characters he has met over the years.  There are 14 men that come from all walks of life.  They are rich and poor, young and old, drunk and sober.  Despite differences, they are all regulars as the horses that run the race.  These characters are floating within the canvas, resembling the feeling of weightlessness while gambling.  OTB is indeed, an abysmal place, one cannot escape those live feed televisions.  The feeds exist outside the OTB.  Bukowski once said, “if you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose”.  With a life of addiction, all bets are off.


Click here for press release

Image:  "Oak Tree at Santa Anita", 2007, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 72"
 
 

 

New works by
Chris Georgalas

When:   September 21 - October 31, 2007
Where:  Mazi's Cafe, Lower East Side


Please join us in celebrating Chris Georgalas solo show of six new works.  His pieces are multi-dimensional in medium and nostalgic references.  This artist's canvas is made up of attentively chosen “found objects”.  The process of drawing, painting, sculpture and collage are all apparent in his works.  The recurring subject of his pieces plays on the audience's recollection of virility in classical movies, art history, and childhood.

 
Image:  Image:  "Kong", 2007, oil pastel, acrylic on canvas, and buoy, 5.5 ft x 4.0 ft.










 

"The Grass is Greener on the Other Side..So What?"
When:   June 23-August 31, 2007
Where:  Leo Fortuna Gallery, Hudson, NY

Leo Fortuna gallery is pleased to announce an independently curated show of painting and photography that reveals the commonality and charm of people, places and objects in poor, middle-class and affluent neighborhoods. Our memories of shopkeepers, street corners, and benches in the park vary widely due to differences in our socioeconomic backgrounds. From time to time, we become susceptible to futile attempts on meaningless comparisons and biases. This psychosis of discontent is resolved through acceptance of benefits and detriment in distinct local environs.

Artists: Justin Allen, Yayoi Asoma, Kevin Cooley, David Faust, and Lisa Krivacka
Curator: Joyce Manalo

Image:   
"2 Pondfield (view from Breitches)", 2007, Yayoi Asoma, acrylic on canvas,  96” x 144”

Click here for Press Release

 



For additional exhibition materials and artist information
please e-mail joyce@art-forward.com

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