FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
Deborah Oliver 323.388.7777 Laurie Steelink 310.264.4678
IRRATIONAL EXHIBITS 7
ONE NIGHT ONLY
PERFORMANCE – INSTALLATION – VIDEO ART
SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 2009
8:00 PM
CURATED BY DEBORAH OLIVER
Purchase tickets online at: http://www.smartartpress.com/products/ir7
17 February, 2009—Track 16 Gallery is pleased to present the seventh edition of
IRRATIONAL EXHIBITS, the experimental performance /installation show produced and curated by Deborah Oliver. This one-night-only performance extravaganza will occur on Saturday, March 7, 2009, at 8 PM. Advance ticket purchase is suggested. Purchase tickets online at www.track16.com; admission is $12, $10 for students with identification.
The entire gallery space will be occupied by performances, installations, and video art in an immersive environment that will push the boundaries of non- static art. All pieces will be performed simultaneously and live during the course of a two-hour template. In this current political environment of hope, change, and determination, these pieces will bring into focus the process of actions that create change. The audience will become part of an ever-evolving world spending as much time as they wish with each of the eighteen works shown, or
by moving freely through the gallery. This type of show is rare in Los Angeles– one night only, a carnival of consciousness, a revolution, a revelation.
Performance – Installations – Video Art by:
Brian Black & Ryan Bulis; Kent Anderson Butler; Gul Cagin; Mariel Carranza w/ Svetlana Darsalia, Asher Hartman, Adam Overton, and Lindsey Walker; Nicole Hayashida; Joe Hernandez & Emilie McMahon; Alejandra Herrera; Steve Irvin; Marcus Kuiland-Nazario w/Leigh Ann Hahn; Dana Maiden & Lizabeth Eva Rossof; Jamie McMurry; Paul Oshima w/Jason Keller and Tony Banuelos; Seth Pringle; Shane Quentin & Natalie Jean Klibanow; Helia Rabie; Jules Rochielle Sievert; Steve Shoffner; HK Zamani.
Artists:
Brian Black and Ryan Bulis: “Brian and Ryan Bicycle Ball Joust”
Brian Black and Ryan Bulis have been working collaboratively to explore their interests in the psychology of competition and sports. In their sport-based work, the two artists have reflected that the “staged artistry” of these performances often gives way to a genuine urge to win and compete. For this performance, the artists will merge the chivalry of the joust with the action of the contemporary sport basketball.
Kent Anderson Butler: “A Time To Heal”
How do we deal with the wounds, stains, and sins of our self, our country, and our humanity? In this work, Kent will be covering a section of the gallery wall with adhesive bandages. The viewer is invited to reflect upon this important issue, and really think about how it affects them in a personal and universal manner.
Gul Cagin: “Panoptic Mouths, Hegemonic Cognition, and Lost Bodies”
The circulating stereotypes about the ‘the other’ is a site of mediation for Cagin. Her performance piece draws on various Western discourses and languages that creates distancing classifications about ‘the other.’ She focuses on
indistinct boundaries between vision and perception by bringing forth the masquerades of stereotypes in her playful apparatuses and readings.
Mariel Carranza with Svetlana Darsalia, Asher Hartman, Adam Overton, Lindsey Walker: “Blank Space”
Carranza’s performances continuously present a challenge to physical and emotional deprivation while exploring mental processes. “Blank Space” involves the participation of four other artists in an experiment that explores how the exclusion of one of the senses influences artists’ sensibility in relationship to artistic process.
Nicole Hayashida: “Shell”
Hayashida’s work is usually based in drawing and painting. She incorporated the use of paint and textured mediums into this video work. Played in reverse, the piece aims to call to question the authenticity of time, and reality. With a doll painted face, Hayashida wanted to portray the intake and spilling of knowledge and existence from an empty shell.
Joe Hernandez & Emilie McMahon: “Kiss You All Over”
This work examines interpersonal relationships and the sometimes outlandish promises and verbal enticements that people make to one another. This work brings to fruition the adage that we’ve all said or had said to us… “I’m going to kiss you all over.” This saying will become a reality in this performance, displaying the pleasing and perhaps uncomfortable results of keeping this familiar promise.
Alejandra Herrera: “Life is art”
Herrera’s work explores gender roles through a filter of action and reaction. Over several hours, Herrera uses her body as a vessel to transport liquids that the human form relies upon, into another location and thus presents them in another state. The result is an installation that both questions the form and function of these materials, but also questions the body’s typical use of them.
Steve Irvin: “Animate Falling”
This work falls within the scope of many of Irvin’s earlier performances that have
dealt with struggle, confinement, liberation, and progress. Through a process of gesture and actions he sheds layers of shirts to confront self. He assumes this gesture from a scaffold, and the shed shirts animate the piece by falling.
Marcus Kuiland-Nazario with Leigh Ann Hahn: “High Performance (C)Art”
“High Performance (C)Art” is a mobile, interactive portal into the pages of High Performance Magazine. The mission is to reflect the multiplicity of visions and perspectives found in the pages of High Performance, to turn observers into participants, to educate audiences about performance art’s rich Los Angeles history, and to go directly to the streets providing the public at large with unique art experiences. A public feeding á la Barbara T. Smith in a re-invention of her famous squash pieces will take place, investigating the boundaries of entitlement and volunteerism along with Performance Art Karaoke and special surprise guests.
Dana Maiden and Lizabeth Eva Rossof: “The Pitkin Projeckt”
In order to better understand and document the social, economic and philosophical implications of the exclusive world of private aviation, Maiden and Rossof have been hitchhiking rides on private jets, and have so far managed to hitch rides to seven cities. Video footage shows Maiden and Rossof outside a private terminal caught in a space between two very different possibilities: the dejection of waiting in the cold for hours by the side of the road vs. the freedom, excitement and luxury that awaits them if they happen to be whisked on board a plane.
Jamie McMurry: “Ego #2”
The cacophonous actions and objects that one encounters in their everyday life are not only often absurd, but also are the unseen details that define our characters and separate us from all others as individual beings. McMurry’s work as part of the “Ego” series seeks to make manifest these day-to-day actions and interactions with objects to illustrate a vocabulary with the outside world that has been developed over the span of his life.
Paul Oshima: “Our Boys”
“Our Boys” is concerned with the misguided search for meaning through other people. In this specific instance, it takes the form of domination. Unquestioningly fighting within the parameters of a zero-sum game over an arbitrary prize, the victor attempts to find meaning in the ability to destroy and acquire. The flipside of this piece would be the equally misguided search for meaning through love. This work will be performed with Jason Keller, and Tony Banuelos
Seth Pringle: “Untitled” (#2)
Pringle’s work involves a rigorous physical engagement and a commitment to irrational systems of logic. In this video, which is a self-portrait of sorts, he sets in motion a process that is both physically strenuous and seemingly arbitrary, slowly building in intensity until the climax offers a final respite. The tight cropping of the frame creates an intimate engagement with the viewer while abstracting most of the action.
Shane Quentin & Natalie Jean Klibanow: “Making the Most of Our Time Together #1”
In their performance, Quentin and Klibanow share the beginning stages of learning a new task with an audience. By throwing a chair back and forth between them, the pair seek to glorify the joy of learning a meaningless skill and indulging in pointlessness. This is the first in a series of undertakings also documented on video.
Helia Rabie: “The Blank Verses”
The “death of the novel” as it stands; an exposition of the future of the written word, specifically of verse and fiction in relation to the body. Rabie contends the eventual demise of the authoritarian author as coinciding with inherently interactive physical and textual negative space. In this video-text series, she explores a convergence between reader and writer, performer and author, as traditional storytelling morphs from a closed and bound system, into a fluid and integrated revelation of the psyche.
Jules Rochielle Sievert: “Portable City Projects”
Rochielle asks: do conversation and communication solve problems? The Portable City Projects explore various micro-publics while providing an opportunity for conversation, communication and dialogue about shared experiences and common problems. The Portable City Projects are portable platforms for dialogue and exchange in public space.
Each Portable City Project is a mobile performance piece and they are meant to be transported from place to place in urban environments.
Steve Shoffner: “Looking Glass #15”
Shoffner combines performance and video to create interactive installations. With the use of closed-circuit video cameras, false walls, and his own physical interaction, he sets up illusions for the viewer to negotiate the validity of real time and real space. His installations aim to reenact scenarios where technology leaves us confused and disconnected. Steve is drawn to produce these mind provoking scenarios to exemplify the humor he finds in our dependency on technology. Looking Glass #15 is the most recent project within the series in which Steve provides us with an experience of odd interaction and realization of the strange things that are around us.
HK Zamani: “Fashion of the Veil”
Historically some art has been an object of aesthetic appreciation, also embodied and imparted a political message. It is as important to investigate the political and cultural uses of art, as it is to engage in the more traditional inquiries of form and style. Erotic or romantic, a symbol of oppression or a sign of devoutness, the veil conveys religious, sexual, social, and political significance. It has become a ubiquitous symbol. In this arrangement seven performers conduct a movement/non-movement for a sixty-minute duration.