Mark Moore Gallery will wrap up their current exhibition Josh Azzarella: Works 2004-2011 next week on May 14. The show, as the title implies, presents a comprehensive “career-to-date” survey of both Josh Azzarella’s photographic and video works. This approach seems like a particularly apt curatorial strategy on the part of Mark More Gallery, as Azzarella’s underlying conceptual framework spans both media and unites the works on view by reflecting developments in practice.

“I initially started with photography. I decided I would stay with photography for quite some time….in terms of modification and removal, I felt I needed to get handle on that before moving to video,” says Azzarella.

“I approach video as I do photography, which is to tear it apart into 24, 30 frames a second and approach each frame frame as an individual photograph. The complication becomes matching things that have moved and making sure they don’t jump….but really its the same process between the same mediums.”

Untitled #23 (”Lynndied”), 2006

Azzarella’s early works focus on appropriating and modifying widely recognizable, or even iconic images from both historical photographs and current news media. Untitled #23 (”Lynndied”), from 2006, removes one of the subjects from the darkly controversial Abu Graib photos–leaving in its place a haunting absence.

Untitled #100, (Fantasia)

More recent works in Azzarella’s ouvre favor pop culture and commercial iconography. In the video Untitled #100, (Fantasia), Azzarella took two years to meticulously remove all but the murky rolling fog of a smoke machine and ominously ambient noises from Michael Jackson’s seminal Thriller music video. The result is a seeming post-apocalyptic landscape; robbed of its ghoulish face paint and kitsch, the video is both a humorous and frightening look at what is left behind- imbued with new symbolic meaning now that the prince of pop himself “left the building”, so to speak, in 2009, oddly enough the same year the piece was created.

Untitled #105 (SFDF)

The show culminates with the debut of Azzarella’s multi-channel video installation, Untitled #105 (SFDF), another major 2 year project, which suspends three pivotal moments of “anticipation” from the iconic 1933 version of King Kong and combines them with newly captured footage by Azzarella himself. Continuing  his practice of modification and removal, the piece marks Azzarella’s first time behind the camera, reflecting a new directorial direction perhaps. Collapsing fact and fiction, the piece questions notions of authenticity and fantasy.

The exhibition itself was held in Mark Moore Gallery’s new space in Culver City, CA (after twelve successful years in their Santa Monica, CA, Bergamot Station locale). Featuring the designs of renowned architect Peter Zellner, the “new” space is actually a Historic Building (according to Culver City’s preservation program), built originally in 1925.

Upcoming exhibitions (opening May 21) include new works from Belgian artist Cindy Wright and a new installation by emerging artist Mark Fox in the project room.

Babak Golkar is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice, at its fundamental roots, takes aim to deconstruct, recontextualize and rearrange our perceptions of the world around us. Like Zen koans, Golkar’s work seems to arrive at new understandings by setting up impossible questions. At it’s core is a spirit of unbridled philosophical investigation; one that exhibits a Duchampian twist on the visual pun mixed with a Gestalt sense of multistability and reification. Golkar’s work understands both the destructive and regenerative aspects of perspective and shifting visions; and fundamentally contests the fixity of subject and object and space. And, like his work, Golkar’s visual language maneuvers between seemingly oppositional realms–East and West, politics and revolution, Modernity and antiquity, Minimalism and ornament—ultimately exposing not the dialectical relationship between polarities, but rather the poeticism in the world around us.

Sasha M. Lee: I wanted to begin with your series “Negotiating Space,” in which you use Nomadic Persian Carpets as a kind of architectural support, transforming its geometric twists and turns into rough blueprints for gleaming, white, three-dimensional models, rising from the woven geometric patterns. I thought the title and the conceptual framework of the work, for me, was actually a poetic way to summarize many of the themes that run through your work. Can you talk about how these forms interact, and why you chose to juxtapose these particular forms in this manner?

Babak Golkar: I’m interested in the alchemy of the art practice…arriving at gold, metaphorically of course, some sort of proposal for new understandings, the creation of new meaning. I like the idea of a particular piece transforming from two dimensions to three dimensions; something non-existent becoming a possible structure, and the subsequent interaction between the two. I like to talk about my work in terms of “becoming,” of interdependency between these two forms. In the case of the series “Negotiating Space” I don’t like to look at the nomadic Persian carpet as the origin of the whole thing per say…but rather one visual form constantly becoming the other and vise versa.

Hence the title—I like to use titles as materials in and of themselves– it is carefully chosen to hint at a state of uncertainty, a fluid or malleable state of existence. Really, I call the works “proposals,” rather than installations or sculptures.

Even though the carpet is technically the blueprint for the architectural scale-models, the structure adds a vertical dimension, which, as you move above the piece it collapses back to carpet once again. I like to talk about this idea of 2D to 3D, and its reversal; in particular the Duchampian aspect of playing with space. I’m inspired by Duchamp’s alchemical approaches to art making. In some ways I make a reference to Duchamp, in particular his piece, 3 Standard Stoppages. Do you know that piece?

SML: I think so, it’s the piece where he sort of makes a conceptual joke out on the meter?

BG: Yes. Duchamp takes three threads, each one meter long, and drops them onto a stretched canvas. The random shapes the threads created were fashioned into new sculptures that preserved the shape of how they fell. It takes your pre-existing notions…like what is a standard meter? And transforms it to a whole new understanding, one that undermines your rational perceptions. To me, that’s alchemy.

SML: So in many ways you are using both Eastern and Western ideologies equally, but by using these seemingly oppositional ideas in congruency with another, you are able to effectively speak to both, and critique both. In setting up these proposals though for imagined spaces, that seem to confound and complicate more than rationalize and resolve, there seems to be an underlying sense of humor that evolves out of them?

BG: Yes, a sense of humor is important in looking at my works. I find it sort of culturally specific…but also, a reaction towards the rationalism of the West. I personally find rationalism boring, I much prefer poeticism.

SML: I like the idea that humor draws the viewer in. One of my favorite interviews with Chris Ofili was describing this trick as the great seduction, using beauty as a sort of tool to draw the viewer in, put them at ease, allow the mind to unlock, and then allow them to come to the more politically & culturally charged meaning and metaphors sort of organically.

BG: Yes, exactly. It sounds like something I always say, which is that many things in art can be used as a “hook,” whether it’s humor, beauty, spectacle… these hook you right off the bat, allowing for multiple levels of engagement. I think laughter is the best, as viewers are literally opening their mouth, and bodies to the work. But above all, it does put the audience at ease and welcomes them.

SML: One piece I found had a very interesting effect on spatial understanding, or this epistemological context was in the piece “From God to Malevich.” As the title suggests, you riff off Malevich’s spiritual/Suprematist ideology surrounding the cube, in particular his own iconic “Black Square;” it seems almost a play on his temporal philosophies, in particular the weightless and relative “fourth dimension,” posited in opposition to the fixity of Renaissance perspective. And of course there’s a kind of humor that emerges, a kind of Duchampian joke of being able to visually travel “around the entire cube” by way of optical illusion, while physically travelling in a straight line from left to right.

BG: There is the idea of ghost image at play with the piece “From God to Malevich,” in which case the literal and conceptual space of the piece are determined by the notion of sight and vision. As you move in a linear direction from left to right of the diptych images, which are side by side, the lenticular black polygon changes shape, creating the illusion that a black cube is moving right in front of you, hence, the viewer moving around an imaginary cube. Beyond its “visuality,” this piece has to do with Malevich’s proposal of “art for art’s sake”…. considering the idea of ridding an object of art from any external meaning. I find this quite funny to be honest, especially for such a spiritual artist as Malevich! It sort of contradicts him. So in that light, I wanted to put the most significant external meaning to this piece, God. And of course by using the image of a black cube, I am referencing the Ka’aba, the most minimalist piece of architecture in Islam, credited to Abraham for building it as a house of God. If you buy it, you can have his house in your house!

SML: So you’ve created a kind of ironic interpretation of the black cube, religion, etc through the visual trope of the parallax. I absolutely love that the philosophical implications of parallax here. The textbook definition of parallax is the apparent displacement of an object, or a way to describe how objects can appear differently when viewed from different points of vision or lines of site. But I love the concept of parallax to sort of poetically describe your practice, the whole notion of shifting visions, playing within an ocular culture, and understanding that calculating is a fluid process, often containing many shifts. You are literally avoiding a fixity of perspective with this shifting painting.

BG: This makes sense in the idea of the overlapping and the overlaying, of understanding originating and moving between multiple realms.

I’m interested in layering iconographies. I’m hoping that what this piece does is push the viewer to realize that it’s nothing, that they’re basically tricked, or at least have experienced a shift in understanding.

SML: Hegel has said that “subject and object are inherently mediated so that an epistemological shift in the subject’s point of view always reflects an ontological shift in the object itself.” In some ways you’ve elegantly “shifted” both the conceptual framework and perspective (again, literal and metaphorical of the cube. On this subject Lacan has also said, “the subject’s gaze is always-already inscribed into the perceived object itself, in the guise of its ‘blind spot,’ that which is ‘in the object more than object itself’, the point from which the object itself returns the gaze. Sure the picture is in my eye, but I am also in the picture.”

BG: Right now the black cube is a void: metaphorically, physically, literally, by way of the illusion that’s transposed. The idea of Ka’aba; it’s a cube and physically it’s empty, it’s nothing. And yet for these reasons it works immensely as a symbol. In that sense, this piece hopes to re-enact that, and parallel the concept that art for art’s sake in and of itself can also be nothing.

I think for me the relationship between subject and object is the driving force behind the works, it’s all about what these works are doing to the audience. I often get asked what my art means. But I’m actually interested less in my own positing of meaning into the works, but rather the moment of alchemy that occurs when somebody views the works.

Going back to the idea of parallax, by collapsing all these metaphors together, I am trying to construct a parallel between different systems of belief. Art can be a system of belief as we’ve seen; the object functions as a relic, and you fetishize it the same way you fetishize a religious relic. There is that parallel. All obsessions can be illusionary.

SML: It’s such an elegant solution to a seemingly impossible question; how do you condense multiple viewpoints into one, while at the same time exposing the shifting nature of the gaze in and of itself…how do you travel 360 degrees while only walking a straight line. What you have done crosses from the absurd to the rational, scientific and spiritual….I guess I’m curious how you came up with not just the solution to this…but also the question?

BG: Well, my first approach to the work was actually in a completely different format, though rooted in the same conceptual framework. At first, I was going to make a black cube from charcoal, by grinding charcoal down to a powder and re-casting into a mold of the cube. Then, I was going to use that as a material for drawing a cube from multiple perspectives. Then I would create a room that you entered, with all these frozen moments, and in the center of the room I would display the charcoal that was used to create the drawings.

This seemed somewhat complicated, and then I discovered the lenticular frames; it’s actually used predominantly in advertising. But it had all the elements that interest me within my work, the idea of shift, of 2D/3D, the gaze, the idea of alchemy and illusion. And so I thought fantastic, I can take 9 unique points of view and condense them into two simple paintings.

SML: In some ways, a good term may be visual puns. Or, the kind of philosophical practice of the Zen koan, in that they focus on the nature of truth, and a truth unobstructed by the oppositions or differentiations of language or view- so to come to an understanding by letting go of conceptual approaches, logic, rationality, so that new insight arises naturally.

BG:Yes- I think the idea of this visual pun is quite relevant, one that pokes at the deeper nature of things. But I always get accused of being ambitious! And I say accused, because people see these queries as something I can’t acheive or shouldn’t touch.

SML: There’s definitely something meditative, spiritually probing- it’s almost a humanist practice, in a sense, and concerned with kind of the historical, fundamental question that thinkers have tackled across the board—and that’s kind of, what’s the meaning of life or an individual in society…

BG: Yes, there’s the idea of what’s the role of us? Its a privileged situation to be conceptualizing culture, to be involved with culture on this level. I think Julian calls it a “zone of freedom.” We have this element of freedom and creative expression, but in exchange for what? What do we do with this free zone?

SML: I wanted to ask you about your work conceptualizing Western colonialist practice of representation of the East; specifically with regard to historical intermediacy in context of Said’s seminal text “Orientalism.” In particular, I’m thinking about his text on coevality, in which Eastern cultural production was placed in a non-synchronous “past,” and thus carrying a pejorative implication that Eastern artists work was submissive to a form of “critical” or conceptual prescription and thus unoriginal or decidedly non-Modern.

BG: The idea of coevality is very significant. I must say that some of my works have been looked at in that light. I have had conversations with some very well informed people in terms of contemporary art, and they have talked about my work as the kind of art that deals with “decorative” and the “ornate”, or some put it more politely and use the word “design”! This is a significant take on my work. I think it goes back to the idea of “make it exotic, or get rid of it” type of attitude. I mean, it doesn’t change anything for me or the way my work is done, but it shows that old systems are not so old after all. Imperialism and colonialism are very relevant to our time; they have just changed their form.

SML:In some ways it amazes me though, that this sort of dialectical relationship that posits the West as the center of rational thought and contemporary, relevant cultural production, and East as being firmly rooted in a mystical, decorative, irrational past, is still being furthered, even after Said sort of called attention to this problematic Euro-centric dichotomy here. As you show in the works, actually both encompass each other and are quite literally on top of each other as far as temporality, conceptually. I mean the Nomadic Persian Carpet is a symbol of cultural production, ingenuity and artistic practice that has survived long before the Renaissance and into today- it’s an icon really.

BG: I’m particularly influenced by them [the Nomadic Persian Carpet makers]…they are hugely modern, displaying an early reductivism and abstraction. These concepts have been there for centuries, and Modernists, not only have they looked at these cultures, but they have also heavily borrowed from them. Bauhaus artists and architects alike had looked at them. There are records of Gropius and Breuer, doing projects in Iran for example, Le Corbusier designing the Olympique Stadium in Baghdad. They must have looked at the context very carefully and studied the Eastern cultures. More importantly, I think, the works of the textile artists at the Bauhaus, like Anni Albers, Alma Buscher and Gunta Stölzl, not only were quiet directly linked to the patterns of the nomadic rugs, but also very significant in the development of the Bauhaus and the forms that came out of it. But as usual, you never hear about the women of the Bauhaus! What a surprise! I wonder if Said’s coevality concept is relevant to this situation too, women making textile!

Bauhaus aside, there’s a real story of ingenuity with the patterns in the nomadic carpets. It’s a fact that they developed the geometric patterns this way because they couldn’t compete with the more established carpet makers, the floral Kashan, Tabriz or Esfahan carpets, and they didn’t have the luxury of time and space to develop those things in months. The nomads had to move really quickly, and so they came up with their own expression, with the geometric shapes; floral patterns reduced to geometric shapes, to their “essence.” That’s exactly what Modernists did! They had to part away with the pre-existing accepted traditions, so economically they had to part away, and logically this was the step that they took.

SML:This is the ultimate irony; that many Modernist expressions that were being touted as novel, innovative, avant-garde and fundamentally Modern, where actually concepts that had been in movement and in use in other cultures before. So not only did they steal the forms, somehow they managed to deny ever borrowing from these outside sources, and then on top of it all, construct a philosophy that essentially framed their cultural production as being archaic, irrational, of the past and essentially not relevant. It’s interesting how they sort of got away with it. How is an African mask, with all its symbolism and geometric abstraction, use of pattern, shape and reductivism an anonymous relic that belongs in a natural history museum, while that same mask, painted and reappropriated by Picasso, becomes an icon of Modernist expression, the author and artist is firmly acknowledged, and it’s placed in the trope of the museum to reinforce the hierarchy.

BG: They don’t get treated the same way, and this really needs to be looked at institutionally and looked at critically. This was my line of thinking with the series “Impositions,” where I literally bleach and paint over a Persian Carpet with pure white paint, then frame it and hang it on the wall. I figure, if they don’t deserve to be looked at institutionally okay fine, I’ll paint them over. Fuck it! If they’re not worth looking at it, then let’s give them something that they think is worth looking at: a Monochrome. In the end though, the pattern still peeks through the paint.

SML:The process you underwent in this piece though, poetically, seems like it became an integral part of the final work’s meaning; I personally can’t help but imagine it as a kind of furious battle between polarized visual languages- minimalism and the decorative arts, etc. What’s nice is the final outcome encompasses both a kind of reductive and constructive aesthetic; a work of wavering Minimalism that could almost become a Rauschenberg, a Rothko, or even the infamous Ad Reinhardt black painting, forged from the ashes of the carpet. Of course the irony is that your piece is almost a comical expose on the limitations of removing all external reference from a work. “Impositions” seems to make the point of the sheer impossibility to obliterate context. It’s almost like Duchamp’s mustache on the Mona Lisa piece, a work that slyly questions the canon that came before.

BG: I was quite conscious of what I was doing. This piece is in line with those types of works, of Duchamp’s defacing of Mona Lisa and Rauschenberg erasing the drawing by de Kooning. It’s all vulgar gestures. But, for me it goes beyond the gesture, it’s more about the culture that here is being used as a material. In a way, “Impositions” operate exactly in reversal of those works. It just uses the same language.

SML:It’s quite a transgressive act, really- but I like to think the carpet had the last laugh as no matter how hard you tried, you really couldn’t remove all traces of its existence.

BG: Yes, the carpet had the last laugh, though it’s sort of a too little too late kind of thing. Funny thing; once it is defaced and enters the realm of contemporary art, the value of the carpet is multiplied in fact by being ruined.

SML: There’s something really backwards about that.

BG: Yes it’s sort of sickening, but this is something that I am working on, as far as expanding the understanding of both the work and the issues at hand.

You have to hear this story about a city called Baghdad in Northern California. A friend of mine was researching satellite cities, I believe, and got a permission to go and visit this site. Baghdad, CA is a massive piece of land restricted to a section of the US army, but I believe a private security firm runs it. The idea came from a private contractor- who was a Hollywood producer and now the director of the site. The army used to train soldiers through simulations similar to video games; remote offense. But when they began to face the insurgents, they found that when they took a step back, really in situ one-on-one negotiation, and simulacra such as these to train personnel worked best. Basically, the California site is a reconstruction of parts of Baghdad and is built as a training camp for one-on-one situations to train the army personnel. The funny thing is, they have Iraqi people there, imported from Iraq straight to this camp. They speak Arabic and interact as if they are back home. It’s fucked up. That’s besides my point, the point I was going to make is that when my friend went to clear everything at the office of the director of the camp, there was this Iraqi military outfit hanging on his wall. When the director walked in he proudly said that the outfit was Saddam’s personal uniform. He said his buddy brought it back as a gift when they first invaded Bagdad and raided Saddam’s palace. Isn’t that fucked up? So, not much has changed…

SML:Wow, that’s insane…but in some ways this ties into the layers of meaning; I mean this site-specific simulacra, of imposing one structure, one culture on the land of another ties into your idea of reverse recontextualization, right? Or this bizarre kind of cultural schizophrenia. I mean the premise that you can cut and paste a culture is kind of absurdist.

BG: Exactly, I consider my work “performative” and what I often perform through the works is what I like to call: “performing systems.” Sort of reconstructing what already exists, but by recontextualizing it in the realm of art, there is a chance for rethinking it. This one instance with the story is not unique. Is there much difference between Baghdad, CA and the city of Dubai? In the sense of imposition? Cultural and political impositions happen constantly, but the question is, are there any opportunities for negotiation?

SML:That’s interesting, it’s such a nice metaphor for the kind of physical disruptions you create, the notion of the trophy, cultural impositions, in particular with the aforementioned use of the carpets. There’s something undeniably bizarre ….

BG: And uncanny, I believe. With these works there is a sense of familiarity because of the objects I use, yet there are put together in a way, which creates estrangement. I think that shift is important…

SML:Within your works, it seems that there is a kind of tentative equal reverence…and irreverence towards the idioms, the ocular culture of the West, Modernism…all these expressions you approach with a kind of schizophrenic adulation and adversity?

BG: I do want to say yes… when was the last time anything like that was publically disclosed or even practiced? We’ve become so cynical and so rejective of anything that is considered an inspiration like Modernism. You have to kind of keep a distance….even if you are infatuated by the ideas. I’ve never admitted that, but I think there is truth to that. Becoming an institution is next to impossible though Beuys and Duchamp, figures like them did it. There are potentials and possibilities. For Beuys, also the idea of reconciliation is huge, the idea of healing as opposed to dealing…approaching real issues…through art. I guess there could be a slight sense of purity to it. But, that can come across as a naïve thing to say.

SML:Your work still, at a deeper level create physical disruptions to both the Modernism and perceptions of the East. By straddling the middle and using these tropes you sort of use one to call the other into question, and vice versa. It’s a beautiful kind of jiu jitsu really, to pair the two to complicate understandings of both.

BG: I think one of the very few talents that I have is the ability to compare and contrast things, putting things against one another to examine their relationship. Not only do I enjoy the process, but also I firmly believe that there is a potential in it for creating art, and subsequently new meaning.

Eric Yahnker recently opened a solo show at Seattle’s Ambach and Rice Gallery. Though his ouevre spans a motley crew of materials and techniques, his modus operandi tends to favor elaborately laborious processes that can be best described as artistic one-liners. This surprising element of going above and beyond to create such elaborate jokes lend the works a two-sided element of both hilarity and seriousness, in their dedication to tell the joke. Yahnker’s practices range from the absurd, such as re-writing a book on the habits of highly effective people with his foot, to virtuosic in craftmanship–creating sumptuous, beautifully executed charcoal on paper drawings on such subject matter as well, bare bums and turd hats. It’s almost like hiring an entire fleet of the world’s most pre-eminent sculptors and artisans to commission a gold plated whoppee cushion. Of course, this unusual dichotomy as far as sentiment and fabrication is precisely what lends Yahnker’s works such a thrilling complexity. Yahnker’s unique brand of smarter-than-thou humor is a burst of fresh air- a rare blend of intelligence and sophistication, with maybe just one slyly glinting pretensious gold tooth of well-warranted scorn lurking behind his pearly grin. DailyServing’s Sasha Lee had a chance to sit down with the Los Angeles-based artist and discuss his process and the role of comedy in his work.

Sasha Lee: Can you talk a little bit about your process as far as conceptualizing your works? Many of them seem both pre-meditated and spontaneous- can you talk about how you come up with an idea for a new work, and some of the transmutations it undergoes before it becomes the finished piece? (Or are your works ever finished?)

Eric Yahnker: Coming up with concepts for my work is no different than how any comedian develops material. It starts with a drug-addled rage where you beat your own mother, yell at Larry King, find new units of measurement, like how many P.B. & J’s tall your furniture is, followed by a long depressive, schizophrenic funk where you’re not sure who to listen to: your nipples or nectarines.

So, yes…I’m extremely premeditated.

SL: Humor, clearly is one of the presiding principles that links your works together- a complex human emotion that in some ways is kind of metaphor for the artistic practice…creating novel meanings or shifting perspective when frames of references are disrupted and presented in new ways, reflecting varying degrees of a kind of social intelligence….how do you view humor playing out within your works?

EY: Like a designer uses composition, or a painter uses color to lead the viewer’s eye around a canvas, I try to use layered comedy to lead the viewers mind around a piece. If it’s firing on all cylinders, the humor should circulate into infinity — the more one excavates, the more the comedy swirls. For me, the perfect piece simultaneously matches what I’ll term “elegant comedy,” a la Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Jacques Tati, with more slapstick, crude, innuendo-laced comedy, a la The Three Stooges, Three’s Company, Rodney Dangerfield, etc…put all that in a paella pan over a medium flame for 20 minutes, stir, let simmer, and you’re probably serving George Carlin for dinner. Trying to encapsulate and deliver that energy in a visual form for a context and audience not exactly built for laughs is a challenge, but it is my burden to bear.

SL: How do you relate it to the artistic practice?

EY: Comedy is art, period. I mean, how is it that Beyonce is labeled a recording “artist,” but Richard Pryor is merely a comedian? Why not a comedic artist? I think most comedians would love the vaunted title — it would give them something else to self-depricate about. The definition of the word “artist” or “artistic” either needs to be extended to include everyone from porn stars to plumbers or be reserved exclusively for John Tesh and Dale Chihuly‘s spidery orange, blown glass testicles.

SL: There is something ironic in your meticulously crafted pencil drawings, as far as utilizing such an arduous and technically skilled method of draftsmanship to create humorous works, ranging from 4-eyed dogs to Turdhats….can you talk a little bit about your use of graphite on paper, how you began using it and what you think the affect is of the material?

EY: Artist’s choose their medium as much as their medium chooses them. I have no clue why when I was a kid, I looked at those who could draw realistically as magicians. For some reason, painting never crossed my mind as being interesting. It was always drawing. When I entered journalism school, I thought I might go into the field of political/editorial cartooning. I fell in love with the idea of taking major world events, and on a daily basis being tasked with paring them down into an economic, single-panel, black and white image. It’s about delivering rich metaphor and poetry with utmost clarity and poignancy — by a 4pm deadline. No one ever did it better than Paul Conrad, who I idolized, and to this day is probably still my greatest influence in terms of creating a visual language. As far as I’m concerned, the “picture’s worth a thousand words” reference was created for Conrad.

In 1997, I ended up in animation school thinking if I could make my images move, perhaps they’d have even greater impact. Of course, after working in animation for years, I found I was wrong. Especially considering animation studios were replacing all their paper and pencils with monitors and keyboards. Getting back to hand-drawn, single-image making in 2005 was entirely freeing. Other than singing Gino Vanelli‘s greatest hits in dank karaoke bars, it’s what I was put on this earth to do.

As far as the affect of the material is considered, it is probably the same for others as it was for me when I was a kid — to see a drawn image that could almost exist in reality can be magical. Then add to it heroic, larger-than-life scale, and people are equally mystified it was created with the same sharp end of a pencil they used in middle school to doodle cocks n’ balls in the margins of their notebook paper.

SL: In fact labor-intensive processes seem to abound throughout your works, whether removing every single thread in a Gap shirt or cutting up and alphabetizing Moby Dick, re-writing books on “effective people” with your foot…it’s like a ridiculous amount of labor to create almost these one-liners, which by definition are not supposed to be set up arduously, but with brevity. Of course that dichotomy goes on to give the works complexity that they have….can you talk about this contrast, as far as aim and craft, or fabrication and intent….?

EY: Those labor-intensive works paralleled animation in the way they required the same level of patience and dedication as drawing 24-frames per second to give the illusion of movement. I have a few more of these babies in storage that I’ve never shown, but I was also aware it could be very limiting to be defined by them early on, so I’ve been careful to release them slowly, if at all. I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to at some point unveil Moby Dick though. It was a six-month exodus into self-induced, humorless anguish, which in itself is mildly hilarious — sort of playing on the idea of the painful joke lasting soooooo long it becomes comical purely from the performer and audience testing one another’s endurance, a la Andy Kaufman. At the time I thought there might be something potent about an idea taking six-seconds to conceive and six months to execute…almost like baby-makin’.

SL: Many of your works evidence a fondness of wordplay, even in the title of your recent exhibition at Ambach & Rice, Naughty Teens/Garbanzo Beans, two seemingly incongruous images are butted up against one another, each sort of shedding light and the absurdity of the other. Or your clever use of antanaclasis to recontextualize, of all things, the swastika…reappropriating it in Michelle Kwan, guacamole…..How do you view the role of language in your works? How do you use it in your arsenal?

EY: The english language is a tangible material that could literally be listed as a medium in my work alongside graphite, colored pencil, and tennis sweaters. In my world, just about every word has potential for a dozen meanings, whether by definition, inflection, or a minor change in spelling — and more importantly, they’ve all been used as sexual innuendo to confound ol’ Mr. Ferley. I grew up in a family where if a word was mispronounced or a phrase incorrectly altered, it was forever officially changed to the incorrect usage to humiliate the original offender. Even if the offense was committed when you were 3, it was still hung out on the porch like a bed-wetter’s soiled sheet for all the neighbors to see. Of course it was always “tongue in cheek,” but it made you want to get your shit straight in order to return the favor, Inigo Montoya-style.

I’m not so much a typical set-up/punchline/rimshot type of comedian, but perhaps more reactionary. When speaking to me in conversation, rest assured I am listening, but also contending with a stream of jokes, double entendre’s, and puns involuntarily flowing through my frontal lobe in response to your dialogue. Some wriggle through the pipes and squirt out the faucet, while others are forever lost, or remain on deck for later use. I do often mourn moments where I’ve held back, but I’ve had to gain a certain amount of control through the years so as to occasionally have a normal conversation — the labels “asshole,” “complete dick,” and “who’s Mr. Funnyfuck?” can plague a young man if he doesn’t learn to reign it in.

SL: Who are some of your favorite comedians, and/or comedic acts, and what do you think the significance of their work has been, or how it manifests itself in your works?

EY: I guess I preempted this question by already mentioning quite a few who have inspired and influenced me, but I should also add that comedy doesn’t necessarily come from watching other comedians do their business. What is authentic for one, comes across as bullshit for another. True comedy can only come from gaining one’s own life experience, often through hardship. There’s a huge reason why “Jew” and “comedian” are practically synonyms. My family, just like many others, is simultaneously full of humor and pain.

SL: One of the fundamental tenets of successful delivery for comedians is to know your audience- how do you think this translates to creating works that seek to be humorous within the art world? Are there certain subjects you’ll push/avoid given a work’s reception? How do you manipulate their artistic context to further their humor?

EY: I know my audience intimately, because it’s me. There’s plenty of times where I’ll peel off a joke and get nothing but crickets, but I’m laughing so hard my knees are buckling, I’m getting lightheaded, mere seconds from collapsing with a raging hard-on and an overflowing adult diaper. As long as I can keep tickling myself like that, I could care less who else is laughing.

I guess creating artwork for the wall or floor is in its own way a manipulation of my comedy as it has to take on a readable, visual form. You’re not typically going to get a big laugh in a white cube context, so it’s preferable to deal in ideas that linger or sit with an audience. Like a surprise queef at a dance recital, I want the laugh to come when and where you least expect it, or when consequences in your own life produce it. I want visions of my work to flash in people’s mind when they’re at the car wash, getting a spray tan, watching Oprah, or pissing in their roommate’s Crystal Light.

The three large format photographs included in the show surrealistically examine panoramic landscape views and historic landmarks through the cockpits of Veteran-restored military bomber aircrafts and custom freight-liners. This mechanism — of framing and drawing parallels between seemingly disconnected visages through an unlikely, fabricated meta-frame of sorts — is an exploration that continues from Gispert’s last series of photographs. In his 2008 exhibition at Zach Feuer gallery, Gispert selected surreal Latin-American themed imagery and architectural tableaux, from a bizarrely Escalade populated suburban sleepy sprawl, to a processional litter in progress. When these vignettes are seen through the smooth lined, white leather pleated, faux-wood adorned aesthetics of wealth and luxury liners–the question of their relation to poverty, religion and oppression is raised.

In the newest series of works, Gispert instead examines sweeping views of perhaps one of the most amateur-photographed icons — nature at sunset. Gispert notes, “Sometimes I like to start with a problem and work my way out. Sunset landscape photography is one of the most cliched tropes in photography. So I decided to make landscape images that are interesting to me.” Interestingly though, by trying to unpack and revitalize an overexposed genre, Gispert notes that part of the inherent process has been chasing sunsets, trying to capture the sublime moment at a grand scale. In a move that is at once humorous and surreal, Gispert offsets Amsel Adams’ style purist/spiritualist “straight” photography that evokes the grandeur of the natural world with the implication of human presence. In this case, the masculine, psychologically-loaded customized spaces of souped up bombers, RVs and vans both mocks and renders foreign the romanticism of the sunset vistas.

The 26 minute short film, Smother, was a seductive semi-autobiographical narrative following a young boy’s “rite of passage through an Oedipal relationship with his mother.” The film was enchanting and violent, and revealed a penchant for the subliminal and horrific in the way that older, Brothers Grimm fairy tales encompass the nightmarish and fantastical. The film fluidly straddled the cinematic languages of science fiction and neo-noir to create a story that was at once powerful and unsettling.

Overarchingly, there is a certain dreaminess that pervades Gispert’s work: at once irrational, beautiful, slow and unexpected turns between the transcendent and the dark, with a languid sense of observing the in-congruencies in the images presented. “I tend to work slowly; several months usually elapse between idea and execution. When a new idea arrives I like to play with it in my head for a long time….I rarely make drawings, if something is too clearly illustrated on paper it’s finished for me, there’s no discovery left….I like to leave myself some room for improvising….I like the tension of not completely knowing what’s going to happen,” says Gispert. This modus operandi of holding, molding and shaping an image in his mind’s eye, rather than on the fatalistic and concrete media of paper, which locks in development seems to play a role in his works general aesthetic. “I don’t consider myself a ‘photographer’ as the camera is just another tool to illustrate an idea….I’ve always liked artists whose works resemble a group show….I don’t like when things are clearly defined or understood. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I jump around from medium to medium.” Perhaps it is this seemingly psychic induced conception process and fluid movement between genres & media that casts such a strangely hallucinatory light on his work- which unfold, as dreams do, nonsensically, but somehow with a divinely inspired sense of purpose.

Luis Gispert was born in 1972, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe, South America and the Middle East including MOCA North Miami, FL; Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York; PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Studio Museum of Harlem, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; His work has also been included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, New York, NY; Private collections include Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA; San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.

DailyServing’s Sasha M. Lee recently caught up with RARE Gallery founder and president Pete Surace and director Ryan Brennan to discuss the gallery, their process for selecting artists & nurturing their careers, the climate of art gallery economics and their philosophies on the artistic practice, its role in contemporary society, and RARE’s particular contribution to the dialog.

Installation of Donovan Barrow’s exhibition Portraits of Villa Savoye, 2009

SL: Can you talk a little bit about both of your backgrounds and how you got interested in and involved with the art world?

PS: I started as a lawyer, went into sports marketing for a dozen or so years, became a collector and then decided one day I wanted to be an art dealer. Totally nuts, but I have been enjoying it ever since.

RB: I went to Savannah College of Art and Design to study film and I popped out with a major in painting. I went on to run a non-profit gallery and performance space for 3 years in Savannah. It was a really rewarding experience. SCAD is the largest art school in the US, so it didn’t take long for us to build up a strong community, which ended up branching out well beyond our little town to work with artists from throughout the U.S.

SL: How did you come to work together, and what roles do each of you fulfill at the gallery?

PS: After meeting Ryan at a Scope art fair and speaking with him at length a number of times I came to realize that he had a lot on the ball including the experience of running a gallery and working closely with artists. He is a great resource to our roster of artists who are of the same generation, falling roughly between the ages of 25 to 35.

RB: Pete and I originally met at Scope Miami in 07. I was showing work a few booths down. We became friendly. I visited NY a few times the following year and he offered me an exhibition. Our relationship developed, the director position opened and next thing I knew I found myself at a desk next to him at RARE. I see myself as complementing, implementing and extending Pete’s vision for the gallery and instituting additional programs to keep the excitement level high.

SL: How do you think your relative perspectives and relationship to both one another, and in a larger sense, the art world, complement or work together?

RB: What initially attracted me to the gallery was how genuine and community oriented Pete’s approach is. There is a great sense of family here, where everyone’s on a very personal level dedicated to the gallery and each other. This is very similar to the atmosphere of the gallery I directed in Savannah. Being non-profit, all of our time and efforts were donated because we had faith in the gallery and it was very fun and gratifying. This kind of camaraderie is what I’ve found at RARE. We do it because we believe in the artists not because of their perceived marketability.

Installation of Jeff Lutonsky’s exhibition Motley Cruez, 2008

SL: What’s a typical day like at the gallery?

RB: Very high-energy, always working, always trying to find a way to place our artist’s work and get them written about. . Pete also brings in lots of food and sweets so that our associate, Jasper, and I are full of carbs and performing at fever pitch all the time.

SL: Ryan, you’ve mentioned one of your favorite aspects of the job is the studio visits- can you expand a little bit more on what you love about it, and some of the recent visits you’ve gone on?

RB: The context of the studio is removed from the gallery in a way that allows for a more causal engagement of the artist and the work. It’s an atmosphere of possibility closer to the initial artist’s inspiration where you can catch an artist’s work in process before its refined and shrink wrapped for the gallery world. What I love about this experience is being able to connect with the artist; to delve into their ideas hopefully in a way that is not only revelatory for their work but for them personally as an artist.

SL: RARE Gallery was founded in 1998 in the meatpacking district of New York and is now located in Chelsea, featuring the addition of a project room, RARE PLUS. How do you see this new space functioning?

PS: Well, we’ve been at the so-called new space for six years now, and RARE PLUS has been part of the mix since we relocated to Chelsea. It’s a project room that basically serves to introduce the art-buying public to artists who are entirely new to the marketplace.

RB: For me, RARE PLUS is an opportunity to show new artists given that the front gallery mainly exhibits veteran RARE artists.The space also acts as a catalyst for experimentation. For instance, Jeff Lutonsky‘s recent exhibition, Motley Cruez, transformed the project room into a dive bar scene, where the walls were covered with wood paneling and the floor with red shag carpet. A day before the opening we held a party in the space making sure to leave evidence of all the drinking, smoking and partying that ensued.

RARE Gallery Founder Pete Surace & Associate Director Ryan Brennan

SL: How has the gallery evolved since its inception ten years ago?

PS: While the gallery continues to be dedicated to emerging talents, we certainly have reached a point where a number of our artists would no longer be considered “emerging.”

They have been well-collected, have had museum exhibitions, have gained representation in Europe, have been written about by the critics- these signifiers or touchstones, among others, when taken together signify an artist who has passed out of the emerging category.

SL: RARE Gallery primarily showcases emerging artists that exhibit a love for craft and unusual execution, as well as a sort of youthful, playful irreverence. Can you talk a little about your gallery’s particular aesthetic?

PS: We definitely care about artists who have mastered their craft, processes, and techniques, but these are not ends in themselves. The craft needs to amplify and highlight the content of the work, its meaning. We generally like work that reflects an artist’s way of life or vision of how life should be, that deals with experiences and events that have shaped who the artist is and is becoming. These can be weighty topics, so we have sought out artists who also inject a dose of humor into their work.

RB: I’d like to add that this emphasis towards craft does not counter our interest in conceptual art but rather our artist’s craft is often part of their concept. For many of our artists the materials and processes used to make their work is an integral aspect of the art itself.

SL: Can you walk us through some of the artists exhibited in your space, their work, and how it is indicative of RARE’s particular vision and scope?

PS: Johnston Foster, so crucial to the shaping and maturing of our vision, searches through alleys and dumpsters for junk from which he makes his very rough-hewn and evocative sculptures. Schandra Singh applies a sensibility informed by her multi-cultural background to paintings that seem as though the figures are made up of shards of roughly cut, colored glass. Jean-Pierre Roy and Nathan Ritterpusch bring an unmatched technical expertise to paintings that for all their mastery are never sleek or slick. Growing up in the environmental cauldron of southern California, JP focuses his gaze on a post-apocalyptic future that offers hope for Man’s survival, while Nathan deals with the microcosm of highly fraught interpersonal relationships using images of friends and acquaintances he has photographed. Christine Gray employs both abstraction and photo-realism in canvases that propose a new definition of Nature vastly different from the sanitized version we are used to seeing in nature magazines or on television. Morgan Herrin utilizes a chain saw and chisel to transform glued together wood 2-by-4’s into Renaissance like invocations of the human form.

RB: Our artists are contemporary in their practice; their approach to art-making is very current, often using untried techniques or materials. For example, Jim Wright‘s slant towards painting is anything but traditional. Using acrylic paints poured through templates onto glass sheets, he peels off the dried shapes and then collages them onto wood panel. A brush never touches his paintings.

Jim Wright, Bangstry’s Flafter, 2007

SL: What’s your process of selecting artists?

PS: When one of my artists says look at a particular artist’s work, I almost always take their advice and do a studio visit.

RB: I’d have to say I’m always on the look. Maybe it’s my contemporary take on the hunter gatherer instinct. Living in the city, I find that woodlands are scarce so I stake out climate-controlled galleries, rifle through online blogs and brave the underbelly, DIY spaces of Brooklyn. Unlike many galleries in Chelsea we do accept unsolicited submissions. I take this on as kind of a personal duty. Being an artist I understand the plight and stress of courting galleries.

SL: What role do you feel art plays within our contemporary cultural landscape? How do you think RARE is contributing to this dialogue?

PS: Art brings people to another place that has some relation to reality, but is not reality. It’s an alternate but imaginary plane of existence that lets viewers lose themselves in another dimension. That’s what good art does. We hope RARE is helping this process along through the artists we represent and the work we show.

RB: The practice of art is very much a dialogue.It reflects culture as much as it influences it. The artists of today are in a conversation with their peers as much as they are with the artists who came before them. Listening to this dialogue we seek out artists who have refined their own unique voice within the greater context of the discussion.

SL: In the face of the bleak economic climate, how do you think this is affecting RARE, and in a larger sense, the art world in general, for better or for worse? How do you see this unique socio-political event affecting artistic expression and the art world, from your experience?

PS: We survived our first few years when the contemporary art market stunk, we survived the economic aftermath of 9/11, and we will survive the current economic climate. We keep our heads down and push forward – we conduct business as usual, as it should be. If anything, the times require that people support the arts and artists now more than ever.

SL: When people buy for the love of art, they generally continue to buy, even if at a scaled down pace, when the economic environment is bleak. The ones who buy solely for investment, well they are the ones who generally are not good for the art market at any point and have the least concern for the economic livelihood and well-being of artists.

PS: Unfortunately, the fear generated by the media can be crippling to all markets, and the art market is no exception. It’s not that everyone who buys art has lost money, it’s that they are afraid of spending money. Hopefully the turnaround will occur sooner rather than later because it is painful to see galleries close and artists lose their home base. It frankly nauseates me when I read some art critic’s columns and can sense the gloating and barely contained glee in their anticipation of gallery closings. Don’t they understand that it means the gallery’s staff and artists are out of work, have lost their source of income, and will find it very difficult to gain employment elsewhere. I just don’t understand the awful mentality that’s out there.

Johnston Foster, Summertime Blues, 2008

SL: Can you walk us through one of your recent exhibitions and the work and tasks that go into orchestrating something like this?

RB: A few weeks before Donovan Barrow‘s and Ryan Ford’s January 8th opening at the gallery I ventured into their studios. They pulled me into their worlds and showed me how their visions manifested themselves into reality. Filling my head with a healthy dose of their sorcery, I went to work crafting a press release for their respective shows. A few weeks later we did the little hang the artwork boogie around the gallery and the show was set. We had the opening, some laughs, some drinks, and plowed ahead with the business of telling the world about their work….end cycle, repeat.

SL: Are you working on any other exhibitions currently?

RB: Actually, at the moment I’m working with our artist Jimmy Joe Roche in establishing a reoccurring performance night at the gallery that I’m very excited about. We intend to showcase live acts that are as spontaneous as they are current and pioneering. . I hope to pull artists from various creative pockets around the US, put them together and see what kind of magic ensues.

SL: What are your ultimate goals both individually and with RARE Gallery in the future?

PS: We want to continue to be a source for what is new and significant in contemporary art. That’s what keeps any contemporary gallery a fertile and exciting place to work in, to visit, and to buy from. In addition to searching out new talent in the visual arts, we also devote evenings at RARE to other art forms. We plan to expand our offerings in 2009 to include more musical events, documentary screening, theatrical productions, performance art and the like.

RB: I intend to engage the artists by working hand-in-hand with them to keep the gallery growing in an atmosphere that is inspiring and innovative. I’m truly excited about the opportunity to be able to work with so many creative individuals in such a nurturing communal environment.

In a recent interview, Louter discusses the nature of his works, his creative process and sources of inspiration with DailyServing.com’s Sasha Lee.

DUST (ASPHALT), Ambach and Rice, Seattle

SL: Can you talk a little bit about your creative process, from the inception of an idea for a work to its final creation?

BL: Well usually I don’t plan much ahead. I have my archive of images that is continuously growing, it’s the heart and starting point of all my work. Usually there is a bunch of images I am very attracted by, I don’t always know why. I use basically anything, pictures out of newspapers, stuff I find on the internet, images I find on Myspace and Facebook, or I compose my own images or will montage one.

Nomally for one exhibition there are about 4/5 different interests. The editing of the imagery is as important as the execution of a drawing, it’s a very intuitive process and it’s always a major challenge trying to avoid randomness, it should feel like everything belongs together no matter the differences in source.

SL: What’s a typical day in your studio like?

DUST (ASPHALT), Ambach and Rice, Seattle

BL: I wake up, make a coffee and bike to my studio. In my studio I switch on my computer and check my mail. I start the day with stretching sheets of paper on wood. Basically I install, prepare and sometimes set up some new works in the morning. After a couple of hours I have to get out. Sometimes I go to the library or a store to buy art-materials, often I go the swimming-pool to swim laps. After this I return to my studio. The process of creating new works always seems terribly slow and the drying of ink (while the drawings are laying flat on the floor) requires both patience and order. I interrupt the working process continuously to do other art-related activities. It’s a way of working that enables me to keep enough distance from the works, it’s a way to give room for coincidences. Every three hours I will interrupt the working process and get back to it later.

SL: Your most recent work is predominantly portraiture. I read that the majority of them are “historically important,” – but primarily lost or forgotten. Can you talk about your process and criteria, as far as what you look for in a subject?

BL: I am attracted to taking things out of the past in the now, the actuality. In general I think time can be a non-chronological cycle, things from now can be old and things from the past can be contemporary. It’s my interest to question the way we look at these whole container of images.

What interested me most about these portraits was how elapsed eras can crop up in result, like time condensing in a flash of lighting. When this flash is over it seems all detail is lost, like the portrait is somehow haunted or hollow.

JOHN THE REVELATOR, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam

SL: Where and how do you typically discover your subjects?

BL: Mainly in public libraries.

SL: How does the nature of these “forgotten” visages interact with the large-scale of your works? Why did you decide to create their portraits in such a large-scale?

BL: The works are large-scale but made with charcoal and ink on paper. Monumental and fragile at the same time. I make large works because I want the works to be inescapable, to give the viewer a physical experience. I want to confront the viewer with the perception of time and transient in relation to collective imagery.

Installation, Octagon, PAKT, Amsterdam

SL: Some of your works include abstract geometric, hard lined pieces in the installation, that seemingly contrast the diffused light of the figurative charcoal works. What do you think this bipolar juxtaposition evokes?

BL: I see these juxtapositions as crashes of two opposite worlds and they challenge the viewer to give new meaning to the historical narrative in my work.

SL: What relation do you think your work has to photographic imagery- whether similarities or fundamental differences?

BL: I use photography as a starting point for my works. The finished works have a gestural and grainy quality, they are real drawings. Although, you can compare them with old photo’s, but they are obviously consisting of charcoal, ink and paper.

Max, 2008, charcoal and ink on paper, 97×143 cm

SL: What are some of your sources of inspiration, whether visual, ideological, musical, historical, philosophical….

BL: I get my inspiration out of novels, picture-books, movies and music. I love to read books from Yukio Mishima, Louis Ferdinand Celine, Jerzy Kosinski, J.G. Ballard, Klaus Mann, and Martin Amis. The picture-books that I use as a direct inspiration for my work are books with images from the early American entertainment-industry.

Some of the movies that I have seen which had a huge impact on my work are the early stuff from David Cronenberg like Scanners, The Brood, Rabid and Shivers, Blodd Simple from the Coen brothers and Seven Samurai from Kurosawa.

The music I am inspired by is Kool Keith, Linton Kwesi Jonhson, Kyuss and Joy Division.

The opening itself was replete with art world heavy-weights, as well as some amusing celebrity appearances, including Pamela Anderson, who was very proud to showcase the works she had been a part of. This attendance seemed both particularly apt and also surreal given the respective artist’s aesthetics; Prince, who turns to glossy advertising culture, forging celebrity signatures and re-photographing iconic ads, and Berman, a near ascetic recluse involved in the revolutionary, avant-garde aesthetic of the Beats that rejected the pressures and demands of the collective American “dream” of the time.

Interestingly, a number of previously unseen single-image Verifax collages were on view by Wallace Berman. Berman, largely considered to be the grandfather of the assemblage movement, began making Verifax collages when he moved to Topanga Canyon in 1963 at the height of the artistic concentration, musical and otherwise, in the renowned enclave. The works themselves were comprised of printed images, derived from magazines and newspapers, mounted onto a flat surface, sometimes with large swaths of solid bright acrylic paint. Berman created these works, as well as rock assemblages, until his death in 1976.

Other highlights included rare editions of Berman’s handmade art and poetry zine, Semina. In the early 1950’s, Berman had become a prominent and active figure within Los Angeles and San Francisco’s beat community. Semina was created between both of the city hot-spots for cutting edge intellectualism, in the realms of both writing and art, and chronicled some of the most brilliant creatives of the time, including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jess, Joan Brown, Robert Duncan, and John Altoon, among others.‚Ä® These hand-made zines were mailed out to Berman’s friends only, with 9 issues total, during the era of 1955- 1964. Richard Prince, an avid fan of Berman’s contributions to the west coast Beat scene, has himself collected a number of Semina copies.

Richard Prince also debuted the piece No New Next–a 1986 El Camino with images from his Girlfriend series superimposed on the car’s body. No New Next playfully pokes fun at the relationship between men and their “objects of possession,” car culture and women tend to go hand in hand in a hypermasculine fantasy of ownership.

Prince’s Girlfriends series encapsulate a raunchy sexual power so extremely heightened they verge on comical. Perhaps Prince’s better known works, however, were his Nurse series. Begun in 2002, Prince appropriated the covers of pulp novels, studies in a contained sexuality that leak out, staining the entire canvas. Prince’s images have not been afraid to push the envelope, and at times, oscillate between a kind of fetishistic admiration and a similar-veined exploitation of women’s sexuality in the media and within the art world.

Though his sexually charged images of women landed him and arrest and conviction in 1957 for obscenity–Prince’s images simply mimic and mirror the ways in which American society have themselves offered up the image of the women. Lurking beneath it all, Prince is shoving a very satirical tongue far back in the recesses of his cheek–it is hilarious we should prosecute Prince’s works of art and not the blatantly vulgar advertisements presented by corporations today. In a conversation with the New York Times, curator Kristine McKenna said of Prince’s work: “I think he likes to be mischievous. When Richard makes this kind of work, you get the impression that it’s very playful, that he goes into it to figure out what it’s going to be.”

A comprehensive catalog of the works designed by Lorraine Wild of Green Dragon Office will accompany the exhibition. The catalog will include an essay by Kristine McKenna and an interview with Richard Prince. The catalog is published by Michael Kohn Gallery.

Established in Los Angeles in 1985, Michael Kohn Gallery has exhibited the work of 20th-century artists from Picasso to Warhol, Bruce Conner, Wallace Berman, and John McLaughlin, with a focus on representing the work of mid-career artists from California, New York, and Europe such as Maureen Gallace, Mark Innerst, James Nares, Darren Waterston, Guy Limone, and Walton Ford. The gallery also extends its programming to introduce emerging and established artists such as Los Angeles-based artists Christine Ngyuen, David Korty, Dennis Hollingsworth, and Mark Ryden.

A group exhibition entitled Lucid Dreaming opened Saturday, January 17th at Curator’s Office. The exhibition includes works from the Estate of critically acclaimed abstract symbolist painter Simon Gouverneur, who pursued a lifelong investigation into the structures of language and meaning. His work invokes a wide range of ideas–from the principles of structural anthropology espoused by Claude Levi-Strauss to the teachings of Jewish mysticism, Buddhist texts and linguistic theories.

Also in the show are works from brilliant architect Paul Laffoley, who is reputed to have created over 800 works, mixing precise technical work with philosophical ideologies from ancient times to the present. Laffoley has described his work as blending the purely rational, Apollonian impulse with a more emotional, Dionysian stances.

Jason Hughes, who is directly influenced by both Laffoley and Gouverneur, will also be exhibiting his works. His iconic works appear like objects designed to inspire higher consciousness or serve as the focus of meditation.

The exhibition interestingly situates the artist’s conceptual framework around lucid dreaming, a dream stage in which the person is fully aware they are dreaming while the dream is in progress, without waking up. In this stage, the dreamer can act and create as they would in reality, though with limitless capability and imagination, a sort of moving painting. To reflect the continuing visionary tradition in modern and contemporary art, each of these artists attempts to harness this realm of a waking dream-state as part of their practice.

Through obtuse, and irrational visual logic, each artist creates a kind of mesmerizing mandalic emblem. These symbolic structures and tandototems attempt to organize and stratify consciousness itself.

Artists from top to bottom: Simon Gouverneur, Paul Laffoley, Jason Hughes

Herve Graumann constructs dizzying, modern day vanitas still lives from kitsch, throwaway souvenirs of our plastic culture. The works both valorize and disdain the role of the object in modern day culture. Like schools of fish joining together to create the impression of a much larger- and more powerful- entity, the multiplicity of Graumann’s constructions aggrandize and impress. They are at once thrones to commodity culture and disdainful commentary on the never ending supply of useless consumer goods.

Graumann notes, “think my ‘inspiration’ started when I took the ‘computer’ as a model. It was in the 80’s, and it was quite a new subject to observe and to think about at that time: the nature of it, of what was on or under the screen and how to manage it. The act of ‘saving’ an image, to be able to modify or duplicate datas… The size of images mentioned in ‘weight’ and not only in the traditional dimensions, the color depth of an image, the compression, the format… Inspiration is linked to the environment, in dialectic with the world you live in, and this world started to change radically with the use of computers. Our everyday life has been modified since and we can clearly see today how it changed our reality and the way we deal with. It was the revolution we had in front of our eyes.”

Wholly relevant in today’s seeming rising tensions between the analog and digital, Graumann’s works reference and flit between technological language’s from binary patterns and information systems, reinserting a kind of aesthetic beauty and harmony within these seemingly anti-humanistic vessels.

Herve Graumann is currently represented by Galerie Guy Bartschi in Geneva and Nettie Horn Gallery in London.

In his recent solo show at Heaven Gallery entitled Daydreams in the Age of Delightenment, Brennan expounds upon his characteristic line of inquiry, to create new three dimensional collages that combine found objects, cut paper, wood work and drawings; this time strung together with poetic riddles.

Brennan has brought his new wall relief collages to life by turning them into wondrous miniature environments which stop animation movies are filmed. He describes his new work as “Cinemallage: Works that are simultaneously the set and viewing platform for stop animation movies.”

Housed within each collage is a video player displaying three chapters of a 32 minute stop motion animation. The video is an endearing story replete with astronauts, princesses traveling to strange lands and interstellar love objects. The subject is an imaginative tale of a young man’s journey through a land of make believe where he learns of the power of imagination to make a change in the world around him. This story cleverly utilizes the naive language of fairytale as a vehicle to engage real issues of modern society evoking hope and community in a trying time of uncertain future.

Brennan notes, “In the end everyone wants a fairytale life. In the beginning for some, like me, this seems very possible and the notion of God and existence seems pure and comprehensible. But as we grow older the realities of the world start to set in. The world becomes more complicated and individuals become more complex. By the time you’re an adult the simple notion of the childhood fairytale like world has vanished into make believe. In my work I try and replicate these childhood ideals by exploring narratives taken directly from my childhood experience as well as those nieces and nephews. Sometimes the narratives are more specific than others but in the end the idea is the same. I want to offer a gateway through these works into the idealistic, creative mindset of the child that exists inside of each of us.”

The show itself included a three part Cinemallage. In the three part “Close Your Eyes… ” series, Ryan hearkens back to the grade school craft of diaromas to create an all-encompassing world of fantasy. Neon lined Alps house kaleidoscopic fantasy castles, trappings of theater curtains, and gold fleur-de-lises collide with what could be heaven’s stringed harps and images of decadent halls.

His all encompassing, horror vacui environments reflect a broad range of materials. Brennan reflects, “I’m definitely a pack rat. My studio looks like a very disorganized thrift store with piles of cloth, books, stereos and weird trinkets everywhere. The whole process begins with the collecting of different objects; the first decision whether to take it back to the studio or not. At that point I have no specific idea usually in mind, that comes much later. When I’m working, I generally have a loose idea of what it is I want to convey, sometimes more than others. The key for me is to have all my materials at hand so I can easily visualize them in my work. The pieces start to work out subconsciously, until I start to get the idea of what I believe I’m trying to convey. Then, I start to make more rational decisions on symbolism, and metaphor.”

He also included a video installation “TV ARC” facetiously exploring “western civilization” through a never ending windows browser style hall of mirrors, delving into countless TV programs. Ryan also tied in a unique performative piece to prequel the exhibition of his works. Two weeks before the opening, Ryan attached envelopes with cards that read “You Found Me, I Am For You,” with the address to Heaven Gallery. Sixty of these were let off into the air, half-filled with helium so the wind caught them and they dispersed by chance through the city. The remaining 60 were hand delivered to friends and placed on their doorstep. In keeping with Brennan’s attraction to themes such as fate, fancy and chance, the work highlights the potential for human connection.

Ryan V. Brennan (b. Cincinnati, Ohio 1982) has exhibited internationally (France, and Prague) and nationally (Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Richmond). He has a two person show June 09 at Rare Gallery in Chelsea. Ryan received a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center in 06 and has been featured in a variety of publications including, The New York Times, Beautifuldecay.com, The Sunday Paper, Atlanta, Biscayne Times, Miami, and Savannah Morning News.

DailyServing: Can you talk a little bit about your position at the MOCA and the various projects you oversee, maybe your favorites?

Denise Gray: There’s one particularly that comes to mind, and that is the high school apprenticeship program. The program has been around since the 90’s, it started out because we originally had a high school program for students interested in having conversations about art with their peers. It ended up being successful and students wanted to continue the dialogue, so MOCA decided to formalize that program, resulting in the MOCA apprenticeship program. We conduct a pretty vigorous interview process–with anywhere from 80 applicants for 12 spots usually. Its highly competitive; consisting of students who have identified themselves as interested in pursuing a career in the arts, whether as a curator or as an artist or educator. The program is great because its very hands on. We use downtown as a resource, so for example today we’re going to the art walk. We use the library at REDCAT and visit exhibitions and attend events related to art, so as to compare and contrast the different kinds of art that’s out there. Sometimes, we’ll even have artists who are exhibiting at the MOCA or invite other artists to do special programs with MOCA apprentices.

The apprentices also host events. In 2009, we’re going to have our seventh annual teen night. It’s an amazing opportunity for the apprentices to take the lead and create events for their peers. Usually there’s a student art exhibition that they curate, they bring out live entertainment, along with other activities. It’s like this big art party for teens; we don’t turn away the adults but it’s definitely designed for teens–creating a real ownership for them over the event. Last year, related to the Takashi Murakami exhibition, we collaborated with TOKYOPOP [publishers and distributors of Manga] to hone in on the Japanese pop culture connection–we had a photo booth, young performers, etc. The event was called Eye Candy.

Last year they actually had a slumber party at MOCA! This group had bonded so much that they wanted to have a sleep over at the MOCA. They were hanging out at 2am in the gallery–and the challenge was intentional insomnia–so to stay awake, we hung out with security and explored behind the scenes of MOCA.

DailyServing: That sounds like everybody’s dream, right? A night at the museum, and its great that MOCA is still youthful and trusting enough to allow your apprentices to literally spend the night there.

Denise Gray: Yeah, they definitely had a lot of fun. It’s funny because a lot of the students now involved in the MOCA apprentices were former art students from our MOCA Maniacs program [designed for pre-teens and younger elementary students to participate in summer art classes at the museum] who also wanted to continue on at the MOCA. So, I have actually been working with some of the students for quite some time.

But that entire group had such a positive experience with the museum and such a tight bond with each other they wanted to culminate their learning experience with a fun event like that.

DailyServing: From my own experience [as a former intern via the Getty Multicultural Internships in the Education Department], I’d definitely say that MOCA has that power to draw people in and make them lifelong supporters.

Denise Gray: Definitely, that is the hope, maybe because we’re not positioning ourselves as a “huge giant institution”–we’re large physically, but not too big, Its all about relationship building too, we want to connect one on one. We’re all about reaching with people, it’s about communication. We love when former students call back and stop by to visit and keep in touch. And a lot of us [the staff] do stay on for a long time–I’ve been here for 11 years, most of us have been here for at least 5, maybe 10 years. So I think it says a lot about how much we want to be here. And, a lot of us in education are involved with the museum education dialogue across the country, even internationally. Again, the practice itself of education is a field, and all the practice is very informed on a particular philosophy – student centered, participant centered. We want to engage people in a dialogue, not just teach what we think, but we want to hear what you think. And we start with what you think, what you believe, your experience–because only in that way will we make those connection and will you learn.

Anyways, back to the teens. Its about making connections, demystifying the contemporary art world. Especially since a lot teens are interested in pursuing careers in the arts, we introduce them to careers beyond just being an artist. That’s pretty huge for them; if they want to get out and raise money, or write grants, there are multiple ways for them to get involved with the creative community.

DailyServing: I think that’s very true from my experience with MOCA education. I know that when I was 19 or 20, I was an art student and wasn’t sure what potential there was within a creative field or what else I could do with my degree. But I did that internship and came back and realized–wow, actually there’s a lot that I can do; you can do a lot with a creative degree. You can do education, communications, or design. It kind of re-energized my idea of a creative career.

Denise Gray: Definitely–how to energize people’s creativity, not just through art practice, but how to think, or talk, or look at the objects in our world. That’s what museums also do; is offer different perspectives. Its much more engaging when you go back and forth and learn from each other, its very powerful.

DailyServing: That’s awesome. So how did you get into education? Earlier you mentioned a lot of people are surprised when they discover this is a viable route within creative careers, were you one of those?

Denise Gray: I was an art student early on as a senior in high school, but I think I was always interested in art history too. Junior high is when I dove into the big monographic books; like a lot of teens that’s when I learned about Impressionism and the Renaissance, your typical movements. I majored in art history at U North and worked at the art museum which is ranked number two for liberal arts colleges. It has a really great art collection. I was in the education department at the time, so I was already being trained how to gear towards and talk about art.

DailyServing: So you were already involved within education as an undergrad.

Denise Gray: Yeah, as a student managing the student docents. Then I interned at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. It was probably at that point I realized I was interested in modern and contemporary art as well; an area that I related to because there was a real diversity of people being portrayed, rather than the typical movements I had learned about in junior high.

DailyServing: So who were some of those first artists that you fell in love with from the contemporary arena?

Denise Gray: I don’t know if I can exactly answer that, but I can think of the direct contact with artists who came to speak; because they tended to be more conceptual and performative, sociopolitical that was interesting to me. Direct contact was really what sparked it; it made me realize there was something behind what was on display. And to hear the artist professors was inspiring in some way.

DailyServing: I was reading through the MOCA website and saw that you had done a broad cross section of various projects and seminars with a great group of contemporary artists. For example, Liz Craft did a sculpture workshop, and so on. That must have fit right in with your gravitation towards working with the artists behind the works of art?

Denise Gray: Yes definitely. I did a number of projects where MOCA would invite artists to come in and work. With Liz Craft, she actually worked with Marshall high school and did a week-long project with the students, which were then on display.

DailyServing: Can you talk about one or two examples of projects you’ve worked on that have been the highlights?

Denise Gray: Pervasive Persuasion I did earlier in the year in conjunction with the Takashi Murakami exhibit. It was a great opportunity to talk about the connection between art and commerce; and having Murakami there for the event was great. What I wanted to do was focus on L.A. for the event, because it’s such a rich environment for creative expression. We began by putting together a panel. From there we decided to do a collaborative mural that people worked on for an hour. Gary Baseman painted alongside Buto dancers. What made this event one of the highlights of my careers was the community, everyone there was from such a broad cross section.

It brought in about 500 people; the little marketing that we were able to do was great.

The one a year before was related to WACK! Art and the Feminist Revoution, with Suzanne Lacy. We brought about 14 woman’s groups; you can still look it up on the MOCA website. That was pretty incredible, working with these woman’s groups and communities from woman’s bike messengers to domestic groups, to healthcare providers, nurses. We had a culminating celebratory dinner at the end, which was amazing. But its fun having the range of different projects that we do. I think that’s what we’re lucky to have at MOCA, a really broad range of exhibitions and the programs.

DailyServing: Can you walk us through the process of beginning a project such as Pervasive Persuasion, from the inception of the idea to the finished event?

Denise Gray: It was related to this huge blockbuster show, that was the start. No one anticipated how much it would be. But we started by sitting around a table with Takashi Murakami and the curator of the show, Paul Schimmel. We asked Takashi if he wanted to do anything, and I think he was thinking maybe someone from his studio could do something. It didn’t pan out, but even at that time I had ideas of what I wanted to do.

DailyServing: So what were some of those ideas?

Denise Gray: Well actually it was inviting Eric Nakamura from Giant Robot as a consultant and coming up with a plan. I definitely knew that I wanted him to be the lead, especially since he had covered Murakami pretty much since the first Murakami curated show in the US.

DailyServing: That was a pretty important show; I remember it being a paradigm shift in the way a lot of people thought about art.

Denise Gray: Definitely, introducing Japanese culture and such. Because he had a relationship related to Murakami and had conducted interviews with him already; I figured lets have him help out. He ended up being the moderator and lots of ideas happened. A lot of those ideas sort of got weeded out, whether because it was something that had been done or didn’t come back to the premise of the show itself. My core idea was to recruit artists from the LA art community to create an event.

DailyServing: So then you went about securing artists–What was the criteria you took into account when curating your group for the event?

Denise Gray: The selection process was people who were based in L.A. and who were involved with the dialogue between art and commerce; and people who had cited as being directly influenced by Murakami; so people who had specific personal connections with his work.

So after that I had a few email conversations and phone conversations individually with each of the artists. Then the entire group met once on December 18th, and around that time Eric came up with the title: Pervasive Persuasion. So around the holidays we designed the postcard and did all of the PR.

DailyServing: So how did you liase with the PR department for this event?

Denise Gray: The event ended up being January 12th. Around that time I think I had actually met with you and we were discussing online PR and in particular blogging, and how it has become such a huge mechanism for disseminating information to audiences these days. And I think that’s what really happened; the three artists in particular went out and sent out e-blasts or wrote on their blogs about this particular event, and that’s what actually brought on the hundreds of people despite the short time period.

Actually, one of the things I didn’t mention was that the Buto dance group was actually a big component of the event. I organized this component of the event with Hirokazu Kosaka. He’s the Artistic Director of the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center and also a performance artist, he does different community projects locally and internationally. But he’s also a Zen Buddhist priest, so originally he was asked to bless the Murakami works, though that later fell through.

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DailyServing: He sounds like a totally righteous dude!

Denise Gray: Definitely, whenever I meet with him I feel like the loudest person on earth because he’s extremely mellow and contemplative.

Anyways, although that fell through [the idea to have him bless the works] I still wanted to have a performative aspect to the event. So I thought to do a paper scroll, collaborative drawing/painting live session and give away the work from that performance.

I met with him about giving away these boxes full of art. Well he had the idea: “Well what if someone painted on me!” For some people, it may have been bizarre, but to me it was a spectacular event, and you could see that the people watching were so intrigued. I don’t know if you know Buto but they move very slowly, and they can twist themselves in these extreme postures. It has a quietness in this weird way.

What was so great was watching Gary Baseman paint, go to watch the dancer, and then go back to paint. In the video that we produced, he talked a little bit about how it was akin to painting on platform toys, which a lot of the artists had done too. So that particular performance happened, they finished painting him, and then four other dancers in a kimono, mad scientist, and sailor suit, came out really slowly and started distributing the boxes of art.

DailyServing: Its almost like a performance work where you were the artist orchestrating, or a play which you enlisted the actors to do an improvisation with some guidelines?

Denise Gray: It really was; I think it was such a highlight for me because it involved the formal talk about art and commerce, very traditional, Powerpoint slide, etc and then this collaborative community art thing and then a performance with this special souvenir that took place at the end. I wanted it that way in that neat package instead of people going crazy and tearing apart this mural, not a free for all; I wanted it structured and special. Although you saw people who were tearing off pieces early or guarding pieces early!

Visually it was spectacular on a number of different levels and I think in some ways we definitely recognized Los Angeles-based artists. I loved the blurring of the boundaries like that anyways.

DailyServing: So for someone, maybe interested in getting into a career like yours, what recommendations can you give to them?

Denise Gray: I would say explore as much as you can. If you’re really interested in museums, visit lots of different museums and figure out what kind of museum you’d like to work with; because every museum is a different animal. It depends on the mission statement, the philosophy of the place. With MOCA, for example, we tend to be very artist centered.

Also, I think it’s really important to be out in the world, going to different galleries, and openings, which represent art that may never get into the museum. Just to be up on the conversation, which is very divergent, and it’s really interesting to see the various tiers and not be elitist in a way.

I don’t know that anyone can expect to major in art or art history and really obtain a museum job just out of school, because it is a saturated field. And MOCA is a non-profit, so you’re not going to get the lucrative earnings you would if you were in investment banking. A lot of us in the field of art or education do it for a different kind of passion; and for me it is about connecting with different communities and getting them enthusiastic about something I personally love. When they will pass it on to other people, its very endearing to see them go full circle.

DailyServing: As far as your overarching approach towards education, maybe as an individual but also within MOCA’s own philosophy, what would you say your three top missions or goals are?

Denise Gray: I feel like I wrote my masters thesis on this actually! It’s sort of bi-pronged, where it is about audience, so this constructivist approach starting with the audience as the basis; talking about what they know. Talking about objects specifically, and the idea. So a concept based dialogue, through conversation, but also hands on and more participatory modes, so whether that’s drawing, exercises, etc–because we all learn different ways.

DailyServing: So fostering the seed of knowledge they may have and furthering it.

Denise Gray: Exactly. Going back to the teens, I am always floored by what they have to say about work they don’t necessarily know, but based on the kinds of questions we ask them they’re able to figure it out. It’s by asking the right kind of questions in order for them to see what’s there, and also talking with each other so they can learn from each other.

DailyServing: A Socratic approach.

Denise Gray: Definitely, I’m constantly amazed. For example, we did this writing activity related to Louise Bourgeois, then had them share last week. We started with a brainstorming activity, had them read about Bourgeois, then brainstorm words that came to mind from what they saw in the gallery. We made little magnetic type poetry poems, and then they went out and journalled, then shared what they wrote.

What amazed me was that they all got the emotional intensity of Bourgeois, and her own biography, and personally connected to her work in some way.

It was really powerful. I got choked up because one, they were sharing, and two, they just got it. We didn’t have to lecture at them. They had already developed the tools to look at the art and think about in a sophisticated way.

And I think that’s also our job as museum educators; we’re trying to guide them to think about and converse about contemporary art.

DailyServing: That’s really interesting because I feel that’s an age old struggle with art; it’s propensity to be elitist. And an idea that many scholars, curators etc try to reinforce that if you don’t have a pricey art history degree then you can’t understand all the references or complexities. But what you’re saying is sort of the opposite, right, if you’re given a few simple tools to think about art you can “get it.”

Denise Gray: Definitely. It’s about conversation and being open to it, and getting over your fear of sharing your ideas. And also to accept and explore more the questions you inherently explore when you look at art.

Art–even when challenging, doesn’t have to be an unpleasant experience.

DailyServing: Well I think that sums up my line of questioning–were there any last things you wanted to say about your position at the MOCA?

Denise Gray: I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love this kind of job. I even get like teachers, regular classroom teachers who say: you must love what you do.

Levi van Veluw is a young multidisciplinary artist living and working in the Netherlands. He has won a number of accolades and been featured in a slew of magazines within the last two years for his ostentatious refashionings of his face, entitled Landscapes. In each of his series, he painstakingly obscures his likeness, in increasingly elaborate disguises. Earlier works include ridiculous wiring closed of ears and popsicle sticks applied to now Quasimodo like eyes to simply and humorously change the face.

Upon first viewing Levi van Veluw’s works, I couldn’t help but compare his disguised self-portraiture to the resurgence in the interest in the mask and film-inspired disguise in contemporary photography, ranging from Gillian Wearing‘s diaristic and macabre facial effigies of sorts, to Hanna Liden‘s gothic black metal inclinations, or even Cindy Sherman’s self-portraiture. Van Veluw’s works seem to function within this conversation; his experiments in obscuring and fundamentally altering his own visage seem like the logical, humorous, conclusion to prior explorations within examining, and shifting, self-image.

In a recent conversation with the artist, surprisingly, van Veluw dismisses the heavy conceptual framework of the mask, citing it as merely functioning for “religious” purposes or as “decoration/tradition.” In a way, his refusal to acknowledge his relationship to other similar artists is interesting; they become instead private, more ego-driven explorations of himself, like a young child painting his face for the first time and marveling at his own transformation. His works become comedic, self-absorbed endeavors, with the endless presenting and representing of his own face becoming the sole focus of his practice. In this sense, van Veluw’s practice is an apt metaphor for the creative process itself; laying bare an artist’s inherent vain and narcissistic impulses to both recreate and abstract their own identities.

Perhaps this is fundamentally what introduces humor into the works – we voyeuristically watch van Veluw make a fool of his face in new and surprising ways, time and time again.

Curated by Christopher Bedford (himself a player of rugby and American football), the show poses athleticism not in diametric opposition to artistic expression, but rather as a kind of male-dominated theatrical spectacle of gender performance. In Bedford’s accompanying exhibition article, he noted, “This new interest among practicing artists in the imagery of and materials associated with men’s sports can be traced to the increasingly polymorphous depictions of star athletes in the media. More and more often, popular magazines such as Sports Illustrated and ESPN the Magazine publish portraits that lavish as much attention on the bodies and apparel of male athletes as has traditionally been accorded female models and celebrities endorsing cosmetics, clothing, and perfumes.”

This hypersexualization, or offering up of the male body and identity for consumer culture, is on the one hand liberating, yet also a cause for concern. While women have long been objectified as a means to fuel commercial desire, now it appears men are subjected to the same unflinching, and unattainable vision. Yet the implications of imposing such unattainable ideals upon masculinity are apparently a new subject for consideration, the implications of which still as of yet unknown.

Works within the exhibition included a composite kaleidoscopic sneaker sculpture by Brian Jungen, and a Jeffrey-Koons style talisman-like homage to a soccer ball by Mark Bradford. Artist Joe Sola created a video that explores the psychic struggle to realize strength and repress weakness through a fantastical metaphor. Harun Farocki displayed Deep Play (2007), a twelve-channel, multi-perspective, video-based deconstruction of the 2006 World Cup final between France and Italy.

Collier Schorr offered up spectacularly visceral images of high school wrestlers and their training environment in an exploration of male adolescent sexuality and performance. In his exhibition text, Bedford notes, “Unlike the other five exhibition artists discussed, who use strategies such as performance and appropriation to confront and reframe the question of masculinity in sport, Schorr suggests that the same depth‚Ķ it is evident in the raw subjects alone if observed closely and captured at the right moment.”

In an email conversation with Bedford, Schorr herself noted her creative process behind capturing the male wrestlers: “Perhaps fifty kids were present at any given time. I would bob and weave between some twenty-two pairs of wrestlers, always within inches of being knocked over. Moving around in that 100-degree room, I could almost feel like I was mirroring their activity, so the very act of photographing felt like dancing or fighting. With that body of work I wanted to position the viewer within the situation rather than outside it . . . The performers in that project were wrestlers, but they were aware of the camera’s ability to further activate the heightened sense of reality in the room and the abstract ways in which they experienced space and motion.”

Perhaps the most adrenaline-inducing work of the night was a live performance by Shaun Leonardo. In keeping with his previous performative explorations into male gender identity within the context of athleticism, Leonardo re-enacted a brutal drill he used to participate in during his ten years of playing American football, as an arena to explore conceptions of male gender identity, sexuality and popular culture.

Entitled Bull in the Ring, the practice itself entailed a group of ten players encircling Leonardo, and rotating one by one, charging him unexpectedly. The experience was surely comparable to being jumped by a gang- with attacks coming from any angle, and little hope of defending yourself. Leonardo was severely hit again and again, and even knocked to the floor in one instance. Leonardo noted, “The radius is only ten yards. Even if you are quick enough to see the oncoming player, you’re lucky if you get a few steps forward and are able to hit back with some of your own force to defend yourself against the oncoming player at all.” In a move that can only be described as brave, Leonardo and his gallery, Rhys Mendes Gallery, hired a team of semi-pro football players- some with stats of 6’9, 295 lbs- to tackle him in the entirely unscripted drill.

“Though the tactic was supposedly designed to increase awareness and alertness, often times the guy in the center gets so frightened, it really becomes a practice that functions in an opposite manner from its purpose‚ĶIt’s really designed to prove a person’s toughness in a vicious manner, or isolate the weak. There’s a part in the drill where if the middle man moves aside to dodge the oncoming player, people will snicker and scream ‘Ole,’ as if he is a matador, meekly evading the bull rather than taking it on head first,” says Leonardo.

Leonardo’s impetus behind the drill was to highlight it, and in a larger context, American football and athleticism, as a beautiful metaphor for the process of gendering and shaping the male identity. “Isolating male individuals is pervasive in the work force, in the military, fatherhood… the idea is that you become part of a group, but to encompass a true sense of manhood you must also prove your own authority.” In a larger sense, the practice also seems true of the American isolationist tendency to place emphasis on an individual above the group.

Leonardo’s interest in the particular drill is rooted in a direct personal narrative–when he was in high school, he performed the drill and survived nearly every member of the team’s attack–until the very last player completely destroyed him, flipping him horizontal in the air. In some ways, Leonardo’s gravitation towards the exercise was also a nostalgic way to re-enact the past.

By engaging in a fight that is at once both fictive and actual, detested and fondly remembered, Leonardo highlights the sport as a kind of spectacle of hyper-masculinity, and examines his own tenuous and complicated relationship to his own gender identity. Leonardo notes, “Inherently in all my work I tell people half of it is critique, half of it is desire‚Ķ but there is a certain nerve in my body that is looking forward to it in every single way.”

This bipolar attitude towards athleticism within contemporary culture–at once rife with desire, and replete with critique–seemed particularly apt to describe the artist’s attitudes towards the rituals, regalia and spectacle of athletic activity. While the works did offer an alternative understanding of the archetypical male athletic as aggressive, overtly heterosexual and hyper-competitive, they still displayed a certain longing to be the hypermasculine hero that increasingly smatters our contemporary cultural landscape. Though the selection of artists were brief in scope, Bedford’s foray into athleticism as an avenue to examine male gender identity succeeded in bringing the issue to the fore as an interesting grounds for exploration.

Zheng Guogu’s sculptural work often pairs confounding idioms, layering ephemeral qualities with imposing materials, in order to poetically arrange forms that operate on both a tactile and symbolic level. In his sculpture, Waterfall, Gougu pours white melted wax over a rigid metal armature, embedding calligraphic scripts into this serene fountain. Gougu both reinforces and freezes the progression of time, in an allegorical fashion not unlike the symbolism of burning candles, skulls, or rotting fruit prevalent in Dutch Renaissance still lives.

Evocative of natural forms on multiple levels, from snow-capped trees, mountainous landscapes, to icicle-like forms, Gougu creates an enigmatic presence, both familiar and foreign. The piece’s somber, haunting aura is reinforced by the fact that white is traditionally a symbol of mourning in China. Lyrically composed, the piece acts as an abstract Memento Mori of sorts – reminding the viewer of his or her own mortality and the impermanence of life.

Zheng Gougu was born in Yangjiang, Guangdong province, China and lives and works in Yangjiang, Guangdong province. He has shown at the Venice Biennale, and was one of the few Chinese artists to participate in Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany. Last year, he was exhibited in The Real Thing: contemporary art from China (2007) at the Tate Modern in Liverpool. He has also shown at the Mori Museum in Tokyo and Guangdong Museum in Guangzhou, China.