 The photography, video and performance works of artist Kelly Nipper proclaim the material proof that is inherent to photography and lens-based media at a time when most artists are determined to prove the falsities of the medium. Nipper explores the human relation to time, space and dimension, usually carried out through the choreographed acts of her subjects. The artist often works against normal photographic expectations, leaving her viewers void of the satisfaction that comes from the release of a climax or the capturing of a spectacle. Instead, Nipper engages her viewers with quiet, unassuming, though philosophically rich, images that investigate the empirical nuances of life. Nipper lives and works in Los Angeles and is an M.F.A. graduate of the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Calif. This year, the artist will present an exhibition with the Anna Helwing Gallery in Los Angeles. Previous exhibitions include "Bending Water into a Heart Shape" at the Galleria Francesca Kaufmann in Milan, Italy, and "shotgun and a figure 8" at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica, Calif., which was reviewed by Artforum (2001). The artist has performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in California, PERFORMA07, and she has received the Alberta Prize for Visual Art from the Alberta duPont Bonsal Foundation. | |||
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 Galerie Michael Janssen is currently showing a three person exhibition titled Heaven, Hollywood, and Hitchcock until June 14th. Tom Allen, Kristian Burford, and Christoph Steinmeyer are all interested in mixing motifs and media culled from the history of film and European painting traditions. Los Angeles-based artist Tom Allen references works from the German Romanticist and European Baroque traditions of painting and then transforms this imagery into fantastical worlds. He uses reproductions from the history of painting and obscures them into visual landscapes, maintaining some reference to the original imagery. Allen has previously exhibited at Richard Telles Fine Art in L.A. and Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York. Los Angeles-based artist Kristian Burford, whose installation Christopher is seen above, mixes hyper-real sculpture and filmic backdrops to create compelling installations. Christopher depicts a naked man (made of wax) lying on a disheveled bed with his hand dangling over the edge as his fingers graze a glass of water, referencing the popular tale that if you fall asleep with your hand in tepid water, you will wet the bed. Burford has shown her work at I-20 Gallery in New York and at The Happy Lion in L.A. Berlin-based artist Christoph Steinmeyer also combines motifs from European painting traditions with film qualities. After selecting his motifs, Steinmeyer uses a multiple transformation process to morph the image, thereby alienating the original motif. For example, Hitchcock's film The Paradine Case provided the the basis for his new large format painting Maddalena, which is included in this exhibition. He has previously shown at Galleri K in Oslo and Elizabeth Dee Gallery in New York. | |||
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 Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement is a breakthrough exhibition for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Despite the heavy Latino and Chicano population in Southern California, LACMA has never before featured the Chicano art movement. Organized by filmmaker and curator Rita Gonzales, LACMA's Contemporary art curator Howard Fox, and LACMA's adjunct curator of Latino and Chicano Art Chon Noriega, the show attempts to explore the experimental aspects of Chicano Art. Phantom Sightings includes around 125 works of art, all by contemporary artists. Christina Fernandez, whose photographs were recently displayed in the project space at Pomona College's Museum of Art, shot the promotional image for the show: a graffiti ridden laundry mat. Mario Ybarra Jr., an artist who likes his work to interact with its surroundings and its audience, recently participated in the Whitney Biennial. Nicola Lopez does free-spirited multi-media projects that probe urban landscapes. Juan Capistrani does it all--installation, sculpture, and drawing. As a whole, the LACMA show gives audiences a comprehensive idea of Chicano art as it stands today, emphasizing the social, environmental, and attitude related issues that young people face and showing how art can grapple with contemporary issues. The exhibition opened on April 8th and will run through September 2008. | |||
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 Corey McCorkle is one of the eighty-one artists currently exhibiting in the 2008 Whitney Biennial. His video about The Knickerbocker Greys, a historic after-school leadership program for children and teenagers, is being shown at the Park Avenue Armory (not coincidentally the location of the Knickerbocker Greys' weekly meetings). McCorkle studied Architecture at Pratt Institute, ultimately receiving a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He earned an MFA from the University of Chicago. McCorkle's work - a mix of architecture, sculpture, installation, and traditional documentary technique - explores utopian communities and zones of public space. He has documented his travels to a dilapidated zoo in Istanbul in which feral dogs have overtaken the facilities designed to house wild animals. He has studied townships in Moray, Scotland, the nineteenth-century Oneida Christian Perfectionists (located in Oneida, New York), and Auroville, a self-contained community located in southern India. His altered photographs and well-crafted sculptures and installations demonstrate his understanding of these specific zones throughout history while also sparking the viewers' interest in such off the radar niches. McCorkle's journey to Cambodia in search of a mystical white calf named Preah ("God" in Khmer), who apparently cures a variety of ailments with his lick, was documented with vivid photographs carefully displayed in a meatpacking warehouse, focusing not on the cow but the power and contingency of belief. In Rouge, McCorkle creates a bridge between Art Nouveau and socialism. He created a replica of the staircase of Victor Horta's "Maison du Peuple," a historic Brussels building built in 1896 - 99, whose architecture was flamboyantly Art Nouveau. It served as a public meeting house for the Belgian Socialist party under much controversy; it was subsequently torn down in 1965. McCorkle's title, Rouge, juxtaposed with the smooth white wooden and polyester surface serve as a monument of both transition and timelessness. | |||
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 Opening tonight at James Cohan Gallery in New York City will be a collection of works by Japanese artist Tabaimo. The new work comes after her successful commission for the 2007 Venice Biennale, and continues the use of everyday Japanese imagery mixed with darker views of sex and violence. The main work at James Cohan is titled public conVENience, a five-channel video with floor to ceiling images. The artist, barely into her thirties, has now exhibited in over 15 countries and has been included in the Yokohama Triennale, the Sao Paolo Biennale and the Biennale of Sydney, Australia. Upcoming exhibitions include Japan's Yokohama Museum in 2009 and Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London, in 2010. | |||
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 The San Francisco-based directing duo, Encyclopedia Pictura, has recently completed a nine month video and animations project that was shot at Deitch Studios on the bank of the East River in Long Island City. The members of Encyclopedia Pictura, Isaiah Saxon and Sean Hellfritsch, worked with musical artist Bjork to produce her latest video project, Wanderlust, created in 3D. The video, which contains large scale mechanical puppets, detailed costumes, original concept paintings and sculptures, corresponds to Bjork's fourth single off her latest album Volta. The video will be presented this Thursday March 13th, at Deitch Studios, and will include a behind-the-scenes look at the video's production. Encyclopedia Pictura has successfully completed several video and video-music projects through Ghost Robot, but this work with Deitch Projects marks their first gallery project. | |||
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 Photographer, video and installation artist Sue de Beer creates work that references experiences related to high school and adolescents. de Beer's work centers on haunting narratives that resonate with the tragic emotional state of a post-Columbine youth, often focusing on the engagement of first time activities such as sexual experience and drug use. The artist is a graduate of both Parsons School of Design (1995), and Columbia University (1998). In January 2004, the artist appeared in a four page spread in Artfourm, and later that year she was featured in the Whitney Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions include Sandroni Rey Gallery, L.A. and Kunst Werke, Berlin. The artist's video work has been selected for screenings with the MOMA Gramercy Theatre, NYC, and The American Academy in Berlin. | |||
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 Pakistani artist Bani Abidi will be exhibiting a collection of video and photographic works with Green Cardamon for her first UK solo exhibition. Standing Still Standing Still Standing... will feature the artist's documentary style short films and photographs that examine the collective political culture held in Pakistan, but only to serve as a universal metaphor for oppression and political dominance. For the exhibition, two new works Reserved, a video produced for the 2006 Singapore Biennial, and The Address, a series of prints and video stills will be shown. Both works will be linked by a new series of digital drawings. Abidi received her BFA from the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan in 1994 and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999. In 2000, Abidi attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Last year, the artist exhibited in Art Miami with Gallery Haines, Simulasian: Refiguring "Asia" for the Twenty First Century at the Asian Contemporary Art Fair in NY. | |||
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 Ramak Fazel was born in Iran in 1965, but moved to Indiana when he was 2 months old. He graduated from Purdue University and later moved to New York to study graphic design and photography, assisting with notable photographers such as Mark Seliger and Bruce Davidson. In the summer of 2006, Fazel embarked on a 17,345-mile odyssey to every United States capitol. His mission was to photograph each state capitol and to construct a 10"x14" postcard in each city using stamps from his childhood collection. He mailed these cards to himself at his next destination, the postage providing his medium as well as payment. The postcard from New York to Pennsylvania had 11-cent stamps arranged in the shape of twin towers, one toppling over as a commercial aviation stamp pierced the other. Fazel faced obstacles along the way, being mirandized and detained at one point. He believes he was placed on a "list" after telling an airline passenger about his artistic endeavor. Recalling he had a beard at the time, Fazel believes the passenger photographed him asleep and gave his image to TSA. After being questioned by a member of Maryland Joint Terrorism Task Force with the F.B.I., Fazel consulted his lawyer before moving on. Facing increased security at each capitol entrance, Fazel included this element of post-9/11 anxiety in his photographs, showing yellow caution lines and police security. "49 State Capitols" is currently showing at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in SoHo until March 8th. (Entirely self-funded, Fazel ran out of money before Alaska). The exhibition includes the postcards, photographs, and ephemera from his 78- day trip. Having only wanted to "see up close the country you call home," Fazel's patriotic road trip recalls the interstate culture of post-Eisenhower America, but his journey unfolded in a way that could only have taken place in the contemporary atmosphere of "Homeland Security". | |||
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 Artist and filmmaker Michel Gondry will open a new exhibition this week at Deitch Projects in NYC to correspond with his new film; both titled "Be Kind Rewind." After one of the characters in the film accidentally gets his brain magnetized by a local power plant, he visits the video store of his friend and unknowingly erases all of the videotapes in the store's inventory. The characters then decide to make their own homemade versions of popular films in a junkyard behind the store. For the exhibition, Gondry will recreate the video store in the gallery, complete with a variety of movie sets for viewers to participate with and actually recreate the films themselves. Each video is recorded and screened in the gallery. This exhibition is the artist's second with Deitch and precedes the exhibition "Science of Sleep" which premiered with his film of the same title. Gondry began to gain attention as a student of graphics in France while creating short videos for his band. In 1993, the artist directed the singer/songwriter Bjork's music video "Human Behavior," which won him countless music video awards. Since, Gondry has directed videos for artists including The White Stripes, Beck and Daft Punk and has directed three major motion pictures including, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Science of Sleep." | |||
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 Artist and filmmaker Matt McCormick is a creator of short films, documentary and experimental videos that examine the American landscape both culturally and physically. The artist has completed projects such as "The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal" which makes the observation that the process of removing or "buffing" graffiti by painting over it unknowingly produces new forms of artistic creation. Opening next week at Seattle University's Hedreen Gallery in the Lee Center for the Arts is the artist's "future so bright" video series. In these videos McCormick has captured the sprit of the contemporary American West through slow moving images of homes, vast skies and forgotten spaces. McCormick recently shot a music video for the music group The Shins, and has had work appear on MTV, the Sundance Channel and received several awards including the Best Short Film from the San Francisco International Film Fest. The artist is also the founder of the video label Peripheral Produce and created the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival.
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 Package Deals is an international artist film series program that explores artist videos through a site specific curatorial approach. Fueled by the work of Kelly Shindler and Deirdre Corley, Package Deals has explored a vast range of artist video selected from Iceland, Sweden and other Scandinavian and North American cultural sites. These video "packages" then travel around the world to locations such as Hong Kong, Athens, New York City, and Charleston, SC to be publicaly viewed. DailyServing recently spoke to Kelly and Deirdre about their previous projects and what's to come. Read the full interview with Package Deals below. All images courtesy of PD. | |||
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 For their first exhibition in 2008, 2x2projects in Amsterdam will present a new video and recent artist book by Raymond Taudin Chabot. The artist's new video "That Place" is a continuation of an interest in the qualities of power and how they are conveyed through the facial expressions and gestures of the important person. In the video, a well-dressed stereotypical businessman man is shown riding in a car through a non-descript industrial site, completely immersed in his own thoughts and problems. Chabot's work analyzes power structures through both the ideas of psychological and physical dependence as defined through the male gender. A recent graduate of Goldsmiths Department of Visual Art, Chabot released an artist book Cast (part 4) published by Roma Publications that contains a collection of appropriated media imagery that depict men of power in different contexts. The artist currently lives and works in London and has exhibited internationally with upcoming shows at the Centre of Contemporary Arts M'ars, Moscow and Passage, Mechelen, Belgium. | |||
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 Currently showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney is Julie Rrap's retrospective "Body Double". Spanning the last 25 years of the artist's career, this exhibition is an evocative exploration of the human body. With particular emphasis on the female form, Rrap's photographic, sculptural, video and installation pieces explore issues of feminism and identity. Rrap uses herself as a key figure in many of the works, creating casts of her own body, photographing herself and even utilizing her own hair and bodily fluids. Appropriation is a tool widely used by Rrap as her early works include a photomontage of herself as Christ, while others include her own naked body fused with artworks created by the 'great masters,' such as Rembrandt and Munch. Rrap currently lives and works in Sydney. Her work has been displayed on a global scale, appearing within solo exhibitions at the Galerie Eric Franck, Switzerland and Ecole des Beaux Arts, France. | |||
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 Indigenous Australian artist, Destiny Deacon presents issues of fanatical patriotism within her current exhibition "Whacked," at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. Within the confrontational series, Deacon addresses misconceptions and stereotypes associated with racial prejudice. While exploring her fascination with new media practices including photography and video, Deacon also utilizes more traditional art forms, creating carpets and cushion covers imprinted with the sinister faces of her disturbing characters. Reflecting on recent events such as the racially motivated 2005 Cronulla riots, Deacon through her use of black humor, reflects on the increased sense of xenophobia caused by the fear of terrorism. Deacon's contemporary art practice often deals with issues of social stigma faced by Indigenous Australians, while the inclusion of black dolls as kitsch representations of Aboriginal people symbolize the way in which they have been silenced and forced into submission. The dolls often act as substitutes for real people and are able to both depersonalize and globalize the issues projected in her art. She has showcased her works on an international scale, becoming the only Australian artist to be selected for Documeta II in Germany, 2002. | |||
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 Performance artist Andrea Fraser has long been acclaimed as provocateur, leading a unique style of performance art coined as "institutional critique." The artist has conducted many famous performances, such as the 1989 work "Museum Highlights," where the artist posed as a Museum tour guide under her stage name Jane Castleton at the Philadelphia Museum. During the piece the artist walked different groups around the institution using grandiose verbiage often associated with overly intellectualized critics, art historians and gallery directors. Perhaps her most controversial work to date is "Untitled" (2002) a videotape performance where Fraser had a 60 minute sexual encounter with a prominent art collector through a contractual agreement. The artist proposed the piece to the Friedrich Petzel Gallery and asked them to facilitate an agreement between the artist and the patron in which the patron participated in the production of contemporary art through a sexual act in a hotel room. In the end, the patron paid $20,000 for the work in the form of an unedited videotape of the performance, and one other copy went on view at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery. The New York Times Magazine reviewed the work and reflected both its art historical position and its opposition by many in the New York community. | |||
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 New York-based photographer, video, and performance artist Laurel Nakadate has developed a series of ongoing projects that began during her graduate studies at Yale University School of Art in which she involves middle-aged single men in a series of uncomfortable scenarios. The artist's work successfully mixes voyeurism, awkwardness, and manipulation with ideas of feminism, the male gaze and power. Often she will invite men who hit on her in parking lots, grocery stores and the on the street to come to her apartment or she will go to their homes and ask them to participate in events such as a fake birthday party for her or dancing to Britney Spears songs with a Hello Kitty boombox. More often than not the men, out of desperation, blindly follow Nakadate's requests to perform in the videos, regardless of how uncomfortable they may be. In another project, the artist, as an adult, dressed in an authentic Girl Scout uniform and went door to door with a secret camera selling countless boxes of cookies, attempting to enter the home of the buyer. Nakadate's work began as an undergraduate student at School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston when she would document young women at wild parties in the Boston area. Later at Yale, the artist began conducting her projects through video which eventually led to several successful works that drew attention at the 2002 Armory Show in NYC. In 2005, Nakadate presented "Love Hotel and Other Stories," which was featured in the New York Times and the Village Voice. This was followed by an acclaimed video in the 2005 "Greater New York" exhibition at P.S.1 in NYC. The Believer Magazine conducted an excellent interview with the artist in October of 2006.
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 Well known filmmaker and installation artist, Isaac Julien came to prominence in the film world with his 1989 drama-documentary "Looking for Langston." By incorporating themes of sexuality and race, Julien's work expands conventional strategies of narrative and beauty to explore stereotypical cinematic portrayals of gay and black subjects. Julien's work addresses issues of class, sexuality, and artistic and cultural history, creating a cinematic experience that draws form different artistic disciplines. He comments on film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture to construct a powerfully visual narrative. Julien founded the Sankofa Film and Video Collective in 1984 and was a founding member of Normal Films in 1999. In 1991, Julien received the best film prize at the Cannes Film Festival. He has won many other prestigious awards such as the MIT Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts, Frameline Lifetime Achievement Award and an Andy Warhol Foundation Award. Julien's work has recently traveled from the Pompidou Centre in Paris, to the MoCA Miami and Kestner Gesellschaft, in Hanover and many other locations. | |||
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 "the return of the real" is a new exhibition opening this week at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London that will feature the outcome of artist Phil Collins' Tate Tuner Prize nominated work that features true stories of television betrayal. The artist investigates the post-documentary culture that has become known as reality TV, and the surrounding issues of authenticity and illusion, intimacy and inaccuracy, expectation and betrayal. For the past four years Collins has been engaging with the media through reality TV formats, taking testimonials from former show participants and industry professionals that reveal televisions exploitations. Through this process the artist is able to introduce performance and conceptually grounded approaches to video and photography through popular culture and low-budget production. The artist received his undergraduate degree from the University of Manchester and his graduate degree from the University of Ulster, Belfast, and now lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland.
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 Cuban-Dominican artist Quisqueya Henriquez opened his first major museum survey exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts yesterday evening. "The World Outside: A Survey Exhibition 1991-2007," showcases the artist's sculptures, installations, drawings, photographs, videos and light/sound works created over the past two decades. In addition to the exhibition, Henriquez was featured in this month's ARTnews magazine. The artist's work investigates social environments through cultural cliches, invoking sensory experiences of urban life through his multi-disciplinary works. The artist, who is currently represented by David Castillo in New York City, studied at the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana, Cuba and the Universidad Autonoma De Santo Domingo (USAD) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Henriquez has exhibited in the Centro de Fotografia de la Isla de Tenerife in the Islas Canarias, Spain and Proyecto de Arte Contemporaneo, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico, among countless others. The artist is now in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), North Miami, the Henry Buhl Foundation and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
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 Opening just yesterday at Lawrimore Project in Seattle is "Anne Mathern -- Moses Lake," new photographs, film and a live installation. Along with the opening, Mathern presented a live installation and performance, featuring fantasy metal band DOOMHAWK. "Moses Lake" is the first solo exhibition at Lawrimore Project for the Seattle-based artist, and the show is centered on a cluster of small farm towns in Eastern Washington that have Greek and Hebrew-derived names but were originally inhabited and eventually stolen from Native Americans. The exhibition investigates the imposition of the cultural values embodied by one set of people upon another. Mathern received her BFA in photography from the University of Washington in 2004 and received several awards during her study, including the Marsh Scholarship and the UW Undergraduate Research Award for special projects. The artist also co-founded and currently acts as the managing director of Crawl Space, an artist-run gallery in Seattle. The artist has also exhibited with the King County Gallery 4 Culture in Seattle. | |||
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 The Gagosian Gallery's Madison Avenue space in New York City is currently presenting "With Full Consent," works dated 2004-2007 by artist Jill Magid. The exhibition continues Magid's investigation of the emotional and philosophical links between authority, protective institutions and the individual. The artist has staged and edited scenes that were captured by police using public CCTV surveillance cameras, using the footage to "seek the potential softness and intimacy of their (police) technologies, the fallacy of their omniscient point of view ..." Magid is a graduate of science in visual studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass., and completed an artist-in-residence program at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. The artist, who now lives and works in N.Y.C. and Amsterdam, has completed major solo exhibitions with the Tate Liverpool (2004) and the Centre D'Art Santa Monica in Barcelona (2007). | |||
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 Artist Susan Giles' work takes root in the eye of the tourist. The artist has presented hours of video documentation taken by vacationers and amateur videographers around the world. In 2005, Giles participated in the exhibition "Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist's Eye," curated by Francesco Bonami at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago. Unassuming establishing shots of local scenery are spliced with scenes of street performers and the insides of airports, among countless other nondescript locations. In a recent exhibition with the Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago, the artist recreated a portion of the Eiffel Tower made completely of constructed foamcore in a work titled "Pilier Sud." Both bodies of work, while formally different, present very similar conceptual concerns dealing with ideas related to tourism, place and photographic documentation. The artist is a recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and a Fulbright Full Grant to Indonisia sponsored by the Museum Nasional in Jakarta and Sekolah Tinggi Seni in Indonesia. Giles has exhibited with numerous national spaces such as Spencer Brownstone Gallery in New York and Deluxe Projects in Chicago. | |||
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SABER is one of Los Angeles' leading graffiti writers who had already developed wide notoriety for his omnipresence within the L.A. area when he created in 1997 the world's largest illegal graffiti piece (a title which he still holds). The solo project was created on a sloping cement bank on the Los Angeles River and can be viewed from a satellite photo. The complete work took the artist 97 gallons of paint and 35 nights to create. The artist grew up in the Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles, and was introduced to graffiti at age 13. Later, SABER joined the infamous graffiti crews AWR, MSK and The Seventh Letter and began creating public works both legal and illegal worldwide. SABER's first solo exhibition, "Close Encounters," is opening this weekend at White Walls Gallery in San Francisco along with a book signing for the artist's new 168-page monograph, "Mad Society." The book will be released by Gingko Press and has an in-store release date of Aug. 7. | |||
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 The video and photographic documentation of Bahamian-born artist Heino Schmid is derived from the artist's own experiences and immediate environment. By incorporating and recontextualizing found materials, Schmid is able to question the inherent conflicts of social and personal boundaries and how divisions are created by these conflicts. Often, the artist uses elements of performance, which allows the work to contain a distinct narrative. Elements of nature are also used as objects of observation and as environments to contain other works. Schmid studied photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and completed his graduate degree from The Utrecht Graduate School for Visual Art and Design in Utrecht, The Netherlands. The artist has exhibited twice this year with the Popopstudios Gallery in Nassau, The Bahamas, and has recently exhibited with the Universiteitsmuseum in Utrecht, The Netherlands. | |||
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On view now at the Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston, S.C., is "Tentacle House," new works by Korean artist Si Jae Byun. Byun was the 2007 artist in residence with Redux, completing the program only five days ago. The work of Byun often revolves around the artist's childhood experiences, focusing on inner conflict from social experiences, which are communicated to the viewer through the interactivity of her pieces. Using characterized images of human organs and videos that incorporate the artist's own body, Byun creates vibrant youthful works using multiple materials to achieve her diverse ideas. Byun currently lives and works in New York City. She received a BFA and MFA from the Kookmin University in Seoul, Korea, and has just completed her second MFA from the School of the Visual Arts in New York City. The artist has exhibited internationally, including "Da-Da-Da-Da-Da" with the Shin Art Museum and installations with the Seoul Art Center and the Seoul Museum of Art in Korea. Additional group exhibitions include "kinaesthetics" at Visual Arts Gallery in New York City and "Dual Scenery" at Artcom Center in New Jersey. To read an interview with the artist, please click below.  | |||
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Spanish artist Gonzalo Puch is a native of Sevilla and currently lives and works in Madrid, Spain. The auto-photography, video and performance of the artist are rooted in academics such as math, science, music, biology, physics and environmental studies. Puch demands the environment to be valued in order to ensure the survival of art as a whole. The artist stages and develops a series of videos and photographs related to survival and the human life cycle. In what would seem an exaggerated way to approach photography and artmaking, Puch's work comes in direct conflict with the landscape and with nature itself. Through this process, the artist is able to express the idea that man's destruction of nature will lead to or cause the death of art, showing that art can't exist without nature. The artist currently teaches at the University in Cuenca and is represented by Julie Saul Gallery in New York City. Puch has been reviewed in The New York Times and has more videos posted on youtube.com. | |||
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 Los Angeles-based artist Amir H. Fallah will be exhibiting in this year's Rogue Wave '07 exhibition at L.A. Louver Gallery, which opens with an artist reception this evening. This will be the third exhibition in the Rogue Wave series, which examines work currently being made by artists in Los Angeles through the media of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video, installation and conceptual art. For the exhibition, Fallah will present three new large-scale paintings, six photographs and a large two-tiered Terrarium Fort in the gallery. The artist, who is also the founder and creative director of art and culture magazine Beautiful/Decay, will be offering limited-edition 'zines at the opening that accompany his other work in the exhibition. Fallah will be exhibiting alongside other Los Angeles-based artists such as sculptor Joshua Callaghan and new media artist Osman Khan, who will present an interactive piece investigating identity and communication. Fallah has exhibited internationally, including a recent exhibition with the Third Line Gallery in Dubai. Later this year, the artist will present a solo exhibition with RHYS Gallery in Boston. | |||
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 Sean Landers' work is known for its risky experimentation that allows the artist to expose his process of creation. Although the work avoids consistency in a particular medium or style, Landers' work acts as a self-portrait that relies on influences of contemporary culture that's often revealed through text. His most recent exhibition with the Andrea Rosen Gallery consists of only text-based paintings that build up texture across the picture plane, creating a delicate, beautiful surface with biting personal content. Often, the images have an easy-to-follow dialogue, but many of them also become abstracted in image and concept. Landers received his degree from Philadelphia College of Art in 1984 and his MFA from Yale University in 1986. In the past few years, he has had shows with Taka Ishii Gallery in Tokyo, greengrassi in London and Sister in Los Angeles. In addition, Landers has been involved in the fourth Berlin Biennial and other group shows with P.S.1 in New York and the Serpentine Gallery in London. | |||
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 Canadian artist, writer and filmmaker Scott Treleaven initially became well known for his 2002 short cult film "The Salivation Army," depicting the activities of a gang of radical sub-culture youth. Since, the artist has gained much notoriety for a range of other artistic endeavors, including his college and photographic works, which have been exhibited across the U.S. Treleaven appeared in the recent issue "S" of art and design magazine Beautiful/Decay, alongside other notable contemporary artists such as Banks Violette. Treleaven's collages and photographs use the same montage quality as his films, continuing to reference punk motifs and fringe cultures through heavy symbolism in a documentary style. The graphic black and white collaged approach found in all of Treleaven's work has been influenced by his personal experience of publishing a zine titled the same as his popular short film, "The Salivation Army." Currently, the artist is represented by the Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago, John Connelly Presents in New York and Marc Selwyn Fine Art in Los Angles. This month, the three galleries are releasing a co-published, 100-plus-page catalog of the artist's work, titled "Some Boys Wander By Mistake." | |||
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 South African-born artist Robin Rhode works in a variety of media, including performance, photography, sculpture and video that centers on his personal experiences as a young man growing up in Johannesburg suburbs. The artist uses and alters everyday objects that reference South African products or that embodies a personal or social connection to the artist. Rhode is currently exhibiting new work in all three of the Perry Rubenstein Gallery's exhibition spaces. The artist has continued his interest in exploring narratives where he uses only the most basic of materials to complete his ideas. Recently, the artist has expanded to 16mm film and sculpture and has created a collaborative performance in Rheims, France, with professional dancer Jean-Baptiste Andre and violinist and cellist Didier Pertit. Rhode lives and works in Berlin and in September will have his first major museum exhibition in Europe at the Haus der Kunst in Munich. Rhode has exhibited internationally, including notable shows with Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam. | |||
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 Artist Chris Johanson's brightly colored, socially saturated works offer a humorous light to current cultural and societal feelings. With the background of the artist rooted in contemporary culture rather than formal art training, Johanson is able to rely solely on his personal experiences and the collective experience of all Americans to explore absurdity and humor in contemporary life. The artist is a prolific creator and clearly prefers a steady stream of ideas to be completed over tedious long-term works. Johanson is a Bay Area artist who is often included in the "Mission School," a group of suburban-influenced creators, including Barry Mcgee and Margaret Kilgallen. Johanson was launched into art stardom after receiving the SECA Art Award from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and being included in 2002 Whitney Biennial. The following year, the artist completed an exhibition with the Deitch Projects in New York City titled "Now is Now" and was included in an exhibition at SITE Santa Fe. This year, the artist will exhibit "Apex: Chris Johanson" at the Portland Art Museum, and, in 2008, Johanson will exhibit again with the Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco. | |||
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 Artist, filmmaker, photographer and writer Larry Clark is perhaps best known for his feature-length films graphically depicting subculture youth engaging in the extremities of drugs, sex and violence. His ground-breaking film "Kids," released in 1995, cast several teenage skateboarders that Clark befriended in New York City's Washington Square Park. The controversial film was given a rating of NC-17 and was celebrated at both the Cannes Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival. "Kids" was followed by three more feature films, one of which was banned from distribution in some areas. In addition to filmmaking, Clark is also an acclaimed photographer in the contemporary arts world, with works in several major museums. In 2006, Clark presented two self-titled exhibitions with Le Case d'Arte in Milan, Italy, and with Spruth Magers Lee in London. In 2005, the artist received the International Photography Lucie Award for Achievement in documentary photography. | |||
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 South African artist William Kentridge produces works that exist somewhere between film, drawing and theater and sometimes as a combination of all three. Kentridge's drawings and stop-motion videos often have a subtle but reflectively political undertone, investigating the cultural dualities of South Africa and the artist's birth city of Johannesburg. Using the reductive medium of charcoal with only a small amount of blue or red chalk, Kentridge is effectively able to portray narratives while allowing the drawing process to be revealed by erasing and redrawing the object on the same sheet of paper. Since the late nineties, Kentridge has exhibited with museums worldwide. In 2004, the Metropolitan Museum in New York presented a solo show of the artist's work, which was followed by a premiere of Mozart's Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) in 2005 at the Theatre de La Monnaie in Brussels, with Kentridge as the director. The artist had perhaps his largest exhibition to date at the Musee d'art Contemporain in Montreal, and he received a project commission from the Deutsche Bank Guggenheim in Berlin the same year. | |||
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 Video, photography and sculptural installations are only a few of the vehicles that carry the ideas of Los Angeles-based artist Skylar Haskard. In a recent exhibition with the Anna Helwing Gallery in Los Angeles, the artist presented Octagonal Erection, a structure that revolves around other works and acts as a set for a multi-channel video. Some elements of the video depict the artist as an astronaut inside the structure who is repairing and building it from the inside as he scans the apparent outward universe. Haskard overloads most of his installations with information, challenging the viewer in their ability to take in all that the work has to offer. The artist's constructed works contain a variety of found and re-contextualized materials, making use of many low-cost and accessible resources. Haskard is an MFA graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Drawing. Haskard also received his BFA from the Glasgow School of Art. This year, the artist will exhibit with Transmission Gallery in Glasgow, Scotland. | |||
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 Currently on view at Ace Gallery in Los Angeles is "VOOM Portraits" by artist Robert Wilson (Feb. 24-April 30). Wilson creates work that is rooted in theater and, as of recently, has been displayed through video on plasma screen televisions. Wilson has captured the images of many famous actors such as Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and William L. Pope, who is in the image above. Often, the video works move very slowly and test the patience of the viewer, which has led Wilson to be accused of disregarding his audience, while at the same time others have noted this controversy as a successful and challenging element in his work. The use of traditional theater is skewed as he emphasizes choreography and staging over the use of plot and dialogue, which has also been furthered through the artist's inventive use of sound. Wilson was born in Waco, Texas, and graduated from Pratt Institute in New York (1965), where he currently lives and works. The artist has completed three exhibitions already this year, including works with the Paula Cooper Gallery and Phillips De Pury & Company, both in New York. Wilson has been the recipient of many prestigious awards including the Louise T. Blouin Foundation Award (2005), the Pratt Legends Honoree and the American Innovator Award from the Japan Society in New York. | |||
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 Investigating the nature of truth as told through the photographic lens, artist Duncan Ganley documents experience though a fictional language. The artist is currently exhibiting "midnight, mid-Atlantic," a body of work that was produced during an artist in residence in Iceland, on view now at the Inman Gallery in Houston. Ganley has assumed the role of a researcher, developing a documentary, though completely fictional, about a movie director, his actors and his unfinished movie. Through these fictional narratives, Ganley places the viewer in a position to question the truth of the documentary and thus the truth of all lens-based media. About these ideas, Ganley says: "...the ability of technology to intervene in the veracity of the image, as well as the integrity of the location being photographed, reveal the shifting terms on which our understanding of historical significance (both personal and cultural) through the photographic image is based. Are the histories we learn just as 'authentic' as the fiction we see?" Ganley was born in the UK and received his MFA from Edinburgh College of Art. The artist has exhibited "Endless Filmset 2" with the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota, and "Opening Shot/End Titles" with Cornerhouse in Manchester, England. Ganley is currently a professor of photography at the Glassell School of Art in Houston, Texas. | |||
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 "Zivildienst Kunstprojekt, Kunstprojekt Zivildienst" translates to "Social Service Art Project, Art Project Social Service" and is a new series by Canadian artist Althea Thauberger at John Connelly Presents in New York. Long periods of research in social and political developments led the artist into collaborative performances that intend to reveal a particular group consciousness and civil responsibility. Thauberger collaborates with various social groups, engaging them with exercises and meetings designed to help promote group discussion about their relevant social issues. The artist usually presents her work as video, performance or photography. Thauberger is currently a doctoral candidate in communications at the European Graduate School in Saas Fee, Switzerland, and is an MFA graduate of the University of Victoria in Victoria, B.C. The artist has recently exhibited with Basis Voor Acuele Kunst (B.A.K.) in the Netherlands and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany. | |||
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 Iranian artist Shirin Neshat addresses the role of women in Islamic society through compelling photo and video work. Her early work consisted of photos of veil-covered women in extremely compromised or uncomfortable positions with writing across their hands or faces. Her more recent work deals primarily with the transition between art and cinema, allowing for a narrative to create particular characters. By basing her video on the novel "Women without Men" by Shahrnush Parsipur, the videos allow the narrative to portray themes of refuge and identity. Her new work in the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York was widely acclaimed with a review in Art in America and a photo essay with Time Magazine. In 2006 alone, Neshat showed with the Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Stedelijk Museum CS in Amsterdam and the Lumen Travo Gallery in Amsterdam. Neshat was recently featured with the Venice Beinnale in 1999 and the Whitney Biennial of 2000. | |||
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 The videos and photographs of Chinese artist Yang Fudong reflect the human condition in a state of existential uncertainty. The individuals represented in the works are young and disillusioned and seem to struggle with political, social and moral values, while coping with China's growth as an economic state. Fudong also references specific film genres as the characters attempt to carry out a narrative through multiple perspectives and experiences. Fudong was born in 1971 in Beijing, China, and studied painting at the China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. This year, the artist will exhibit "No Snow in the Broken Bridge" with Shanghart Gallery in Shanghai, opening March 24, and will be featured in the 52nd Annual Venice Biennale. Fudong has exhibited with countless international galleries and museums, such as the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin, Ireland (2004), Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (2005) and Parasol Unit in London (2006). View video from one of Fudong's installations. | |||
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 Identical twins Jane and Louise Wilson investigate institutional architectural sites that were once centers of power but have now fallen to abandonment and ruin. These images are often projected as video onto multiple screens that act as independent walls and ceiling. The structure of these connected screens serves and echoes the images of the specific architectural sites projected. The collection of these devastating images conveys a weighted sense of humanism, while also presenting stunning cinematic formalism. The artists are graduates of Goldsmith College in London (1992), and, in 1999, they were nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize, which is organized by the Tate Gallery in London. Other exhibitions include "The New Brutalists" at the Lisson Gallery (2006) and works with the Bergen Art Museum in Norway (2004). The sisters also attended the studio program of the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) in Berlin. | |||
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 English-born artist John Isaacs explores contemporary experience though a variety of media. Each work embodies a dark and cynical sense of humor, mixed with the gothic and grotesque. Isaac's sculpture, video, installation, photographs and paintings depict an odd spectacle that, in the artist's words, are: "places we can get lost and the utopias we dream of. The wrong turns we take, directed by ego or fear, and ultimately the way we learn to forget the beauty of the world we live in." Isaacs is a graduate of Slade School of Fine Art and attended Ecole des Beaux Arts in Dijon. The artist is currently exhibiting with Aeroplastics Contemporary in Brussels and, in October, will exhibit with Museum 52 in London. Last year, Isaacs was included in the Murdeme Collection at the Serpentine Gallery in London and, in 2005, was guest lecturer at The Getty Foundation in Los Angeles. Art in America reviewed John Isaacs's exhibition at Feign Contemporary Art in 2003. | |||
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 German artist Janaina Tschape produces video, sculpture, photography and drawings as she works through fragmented narratives that exist somewhere between reality and fiction. Ideas of the female body are explored through wearable sculptures, fabricated to mimic fleshy organic bio-morphic material. The photographs and videos take place in luscious botanical settings that aid to the dreamlike quality of each character. The artist was born in Munich and spent most of her adolescence in San Paulo, Brazil. Tschape is a graduate of the School of the Visual Arts in New York City (1998), and she attended the Museu de Arte Moderna Artist Residency in Salvador, Brazil (1994). Last year, the artist exhibited "Melantropics" at The Museum of Contemporary Art, St. Louis, and had a solo exhibition with Galeria Fortes Vilaca in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 2007, Tschape will exhibit with Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York City and The New Art Gallery in Walsall, U.K. | |||
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 Photo, performance and video artist Mary Coble creates work that addresses the social issues associated with gay, lesbian and trans-gendered individuals. The images evoke physical pain that references the emotional strain many ambi-sexual individuals constantly endure. Her 2005 performance with Conner Contemporary Art in Washington, D.C., received strong opinions after the artist endured a 12-hour marathon of inkless tattooing, covering the back side of her entire body with the first names of more than 300 gender-based hate crime victims. Mary Coble graduated in 2004 from George Washington University and since then has had exhibitions and performances with Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, d.u.m.b.o. art center in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Artist's Space in New York City through Performa'05. In 2007, Coble is scheduled to have a performance with the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York. View video of Mary Coble's inkless tattoo performance "Note to Self" (2005) here. | |||
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For their first exhibition in 2008, 2x2 Projects in Amsterdam will present a new video by artist Raymond Taudin Chabot. The videos, like many of the artist's other works, focus on men of power and the projection of stature through visual signs such as facial expressions and gestures. In the exhibited film "That Place," Chabot depicts a man riding around an industrial estate, quietly disconnected from the viewer and his own surroundings, and completely immersed in his own thoughts. The video is staged and scripted by the artist and required a Hollywood-style film production to accomplish. In addition to the video 2x2 will also exhibit the artist's new book "Cast(part4)" which features years worth of collected imagery focusing mainly on photos of men in powerful positions. The book was published by Roma Publications in Amsterdam. | |||
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 "Sleepwalkers" is the first U.S. large-scale public project by renowned video artist Doug Aitkin. Creative Time and The Museum of Modern Art have commissioned the artist to create a multi-screen video installation that will be projected on seven facades of the MoMA on 53rd and 54th Streets. This project will premiere on January 16, and will continue through February 12, each evening from 5pm to 10pm. The video follows several individuals through their daily pedestrian activities as they interact within a vast urban landscape. The work was filmed and produced in NYC, and has a diverse cast including Seu Jorge, Chan Marshal (Cat Power), and Donald Sutherland. The nightly viewings are free and publicly open. | |||
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Photographer, video and installation artist Sue de Beer creates work that references experiences related to high school and adolescents. de Beer's work centers on haunting narratives that resonate with the tragic emotional state of a post-Columbine youth, often focusing on the engagement of first time activities such as sexual experience and drug use. The artist is a graduate of both Parsons School of Design (1995), and Columbia University (1998). In January 2004, the artist appeared in a four page spread in Artfourm, and later that year she was featured in the Whitney Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions include Sandroni Rey Gallery, L.A. and Kunst Werke, Berlin. The artist's video work has been selected for screenings with the MOMA Gramercy Theatre, NYC, and The American Academy in Berlin. | |||
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