Irrational Exhibits 4: Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Deborah Oliver 323.669.1668 Laurie Steelink 310.264.4678

Track 16 Gallery presents

IRRATIONAL EXHIBITS 4 Curated by Deborah Oliver

12 Performance Installations
One Night Only
Saturday, November 19, 2005, at 8:00 P.M. Admission $12
Reservations required 310.264.4678

IRRATIONAL EXHIBITS 4 follows in the tradition of its own innovative past: simultaneous and continuous presentation of discrete performance installations over the span of a two-hour period. The stark, empty, gallery setting lacking theatrical prosceniums or dividing structures provides a tabula rasa for the artists. This unique environment allows the audience to experience an intimate and rare sense of access to the performers, their performative spaces, and their actions and intents.

The evenings’ Performance Installations include:

Tony Banuelos, Dave Burns, Claudia Bucher and Julie Lequin, Mariel Carranza, Carol Cetrone, aka Perpetua, Zack Davis, The Elizabeths: Elizabeth Tremante, Micole Elisabeth Hebron and Kristin Elizabeth Calabrese, Janice Gomez, Douglas Green, David Khang, Tiffany Trenda

Video: Jose Villar

IRRATIONAL EXHIBITS 4 is an eclectic mix of genres and artists that speak to the moment, the personal, and the political, for example, Tony Banuelos’ “Modern Nomad” addresses the struggle and anxiety caused by the quest to find and create a “home,” while Dave Burns’ “BABYMACHINE” calls into question sexual reproduction. Claudia Bucher and Julie Lequin stage “The Adventures of Claudzilla and the C-men: Dive Attack Plan RRR!,” during which Mariel Carranza attempts to subvert nature, to the realization that nature is undeniable. While Perpetua & Co. present a cinematic investigation into the laws of opposition, Zack Davis’ live ping-pong match refereed by an active potter blurs the lines between the apparent extremes of fact and fiction. The Elizabeths will fan the flames of inspiration as audience members transform devotional objects into objet d’art, and at the same time, Janice Gomez utilizes familiar materials to create unfamiliar, but sometimes oddly familiar experiences. In Douglas Green’s “A Snail From Ripley’s Garden,” considerable amounts of children’s putty and play slime create a curious narrative fed by the gooey toys and science fiction films of youth, and concurrently David Khang channels Shigeko Kubota’s Vaginal Painting (1965)––which she painted using her vagina––instead Khang uses a paint brush attached to a butt plug to paint with his anus; and Tiffany Trenda creates a digital environment utilizing images of a moving utility elevator lightly basing her performance on Giovanni Bellini’s “Feast of Gods.” Jose Villar’s video performance, “Stealth” reflects the personal alienation from one’s place of rest and explores the sense of disconnectedness to a place that is called home. As promised, the performances will run the gamut of sight, sound, and experience. It is an evening that should not be missed.

Please contact Deborah Oliver or Laurie Steelink for additional information on the artists or their performances. For more information, please refer to our web site at www.track16.com.

DAVE BURNS “BABYMACHINE”

“BABYMACHINE” integrates assembly line production and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World with common household ingredients via the Internet to create an endless supply of one-of-a-kind handmade babies. Using “hired surrogates” to facilitate a symbolic process of domestically engineered asexual reproduction with the help of an anonymous donor (gallery visitor), results in paper maché casts of life-sized babies in a variety of freestanding positions. Some babies are happy, others in curious poses, and some of course colicky. This work marries a meditation on art and reproduction with the more far-flung play between anality and the conservation and recycling of resources. One of the keystones of modernity has been the copy and how its endless availability challenges the original. BABYMACHINE calls into question sexual reproduction, parental rights, reproductive rights, genetic manipulation, ownership and parental responsibility. What is pregnancy? Who may have babies? Why must they be gendered?

CLAUDIA BUCHER AND JULIE LEQUIN
“The Adventures of Claudzilla and the C-men: Dive Attack Plan RRR!,”

(Captain LeKong and Claudzilla inadvertently blow up Los Angeles while searching with their crew for terrorist C-men amongst offshore oil rigs).

The piece marks the beginning of a new body of work that will employ satiric comedy to approach the subject of the post human condition from an absurdist standpoint. This piece is influenced by the following: the recent completion of a summer long L.A. County Advanced Diver Program, a separate collaborative group project that references the film Dr. Strangelove, an unexpected sudden interest in the graphic novel and comic book action figures, and a general disgust with the current political climate.

THE ELIZABETHS: ELIZABETH TREMANTE, MICOLE ELISABETH HEBRON AND KRISTIN ELIZABETH CALABRESE

“Phenom-EEE-nological Science Fair: Take Creation Into Your Own Hands”

You won’t believe your eyes as you delve into the origins of creation in this seminal achievement of performance art. In this inspiring and intelligent new performance, The Elizabeths will transcend religious and scientific boundaries on a Phenom-EEE- nological crusade. Like throwing holy wine on a bunsen burner, The Elizabeths will fan the flames of inspiration as audience members transform devotional objects into objet d’art. The Elizabeths will not stop with a mere bibelot, however; they will design true miracles of creation. Please join The Elizabeths’ in this special exploration of the scientific method as the road to ecstasy. All works made in good faith will be judged, prizes will be awarded.

DOUGLAS GREEN

“A Snail From Ripley’s Garden”

Artist’s statement: Working with considerable amounts of children’s putty and play slime, this piece creates a curious narrative fed by the gooey toys and science fiction films of youth. As a child, I drowned my GI Joe figures and my stepsister’s Barbie dolls in pits of green mutagen, making up story lines with complex plot twists that grew from the movies I begged my mom to allow me to watch, films like The Blob, The Incredible Melting Man, and Aliens. Every time I opened a plastic egg of Silly Putty, I could see myself cracking the shell of an alien creature, a small organic anomaly with its own set of biological drives. Now that I am officially an adult, I can purchase as much ooze and slime as I want, enabling me to extend my play narratives beyond the bounds of mere action figures. “A Snail From Ripley’s Garden” allows me to fulfill a childhood fantasy and blur the lines that exist between the actual material nature of play slime and the nostalgic limits of Hollywood-ized imagination.

DAVID KHANG

“Writing on Water”

Khang will wade through a rising pool of water, and attempt to write with a calligraphy brush held in his anus. Reminiscent of Shigeko Kubota’s Vaginal Painting (1965) – which she painted with a brush inserted in her vagina – Khang will use a butt plug and a harness to attach a large brush to his anus, and drag it behind him while squatting, crawling and immersing his body in a pool of water. Combining video, sculpture, and performance, “Writing on Water” is a ritual that is at once cleansing and polluting, productive and futile, (homo) erotic and scatological. This is the third in a series of Khang’s performances presented through the Irrational Exhibits series.

TONY BANUELOS “Modern Nomad”

“Modern Nomad” portrays the struggle and anxiety caused by the quest to find and create a “home.” Economic pressures and the unspoken class war have squeezed many out of their former homes and neighborhoods and turned them into migrants in their own land. These modern nomads relocate, move from apartment to apartment, in order to obtain a part of the ever shrinking American Dream. Banuelos sets out to take his piece of the dream and plots his home on whatever land he can get while he can still get it.

PERPETUA & CO. AKA CAROL CETRONE “Untitled”

Perpetua & Co. present a cinematic investigation into the laws of opposition. Motion and reaction meet at the epicenter, the exact point where good and evil come together and discover they are partners on the dance floor. Traditional dance forms are abandoned in Carol Cetrone, aka Perpetua’s own genre of movement-based performance art. She takes inspiration from other art forms such as film and photography; she has gained the reputation of an innovator in local dance theater as her work takes on a bigger-than-dance appeal. She also creates her own compositions for her pieces.

MARIEL CARRANZA

“Junction”

Mariel Carranza attempts to subvert nature, to the realization that nature is undeniable, cannot be erased or undone, and has yet to be fully accepted. Conflict and pain are parts of life and death.

ZACK DAVIS
“Wheel Thrown Table Tennis”

Zack Davis’ live ping-pong match refereed by an active potter blurs the lines between the apparent extremes of fact and fiction, comic and serious, profound and absurd, and performer and audience. It is an exploration that questions the viewer’s relationship to any symbol; if it carries significance, it is challenged and the viewer is put into a position of being de-centered, where no symbol can be taken for granted. The audience is faced with the quintessential question: how does a symbol carry meaning that is more substantial than its most obvious characteristics?

JANICE GOMEZ “tothelimit”

Janice Gomez makes work that involves the entire body. She utilizes familiar materials to create unfamiliar but sometimes oddly familiar experiences. Her work deals with concepts of time, private/public space, and interaction with others all while being site- specific. Gomez is intrigued by the notion that instances can be defined as moments of now. Literally, this second you are experiencing reading this word, now this one, and so on. With this mind set of time and experience, her work can be described as situational set-ups encouraging viewers to be aware of now.

TIFFANY TRENDA “Feast of God”

Trenda will create a digital environment utilizing images of a moving utility elevator. The digital experience will create an optical illusion through use of video projectors and still images. The performance itself is lightly based on Giovanni Bellini’s “Feast of Gods.” She creates a digital environment that combines mechanical and organic material. In creating this mixture, she establishes a sense of death and life as an artificial reality, a surrealistic influence. She remarks, “We are all bodies of flesh and a network of information. We are our own puppeteers cloning our existence and our own death. The interface is so powerful as consumption, and a desire, that it starts to erase the human touch and begins a process of death. We create and destroy in unison as both creation and destruction. We control the interface as it controls us.”

JOSE VILLAR “Stealth”

Villar’s video performance reflects the personal alienation from one’s place of rest and explores the sense of disconnectedness to a place that is called home but does not necessarily feel like “home.”