Matt Mullican has been busy creating his own world in a multitude of different media since graduating from Cal Arts in 1974. His current exhibition at Galerie Micheline Szwajcer continues this constructive process. The front room is filled with banners and scale models done under hypnosis, that investigate the workings of the subconscious. The short lived Abstract Expressionist movement pursued a similar process, but, theirs was an

unquestioned outpouring of the inner spirit.

Mullican and his dreamscape contemporaries such as Johnathan Borofsky, Jim Shaw, and Mike Kelley reject this notion. Instead, they continually question, trying to come to an understanding of our motivation. In his black and white banners, Mullican tries to make metric conversions that just don’t seem to make sense. But, at least he’s trying. Being a concerned citizen, he outlines a path to follow should an emergency develop. This too sputters and spurts along with wry humor. And, in the end, suggests it’s probably best to call 911 for help.

In the second room of the gallery, Mullican ventures into the new territory of the digitally altered light box. Deeply mysterious in their abstracted form, it’s hard to phantom their position in his new world order. Two pieces come close to making suggestions. Photos of trees have been altered so that the leaves resemble guitar picks, fingernails, or the plastic “feathers” on darts. These have then been treated to a camouflage coloration to help them blend into their green surroundings. Most telling, however, is the shadow they cast. Reminding us that no matter how much we try to fit in, we still cast a shadow on the world. And, it’s this shadow that we must remain mindful of.

Matt Mullican at Galerie Micheline Szwajcer through May 3, 2008

The 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art opened on April 5th, launching 63 days and nights of art, revelry, and entertainment. Adam Szymczyk and Elena Filipovic curate bb5, which is divided into daytime and nighttime events and titled “When Things Cast No Shadow”. It brings together artists of various generations and nationalities in the experimentation and promotion of new art.

The day part consists of 50 artists exhibiting at three main venues: the KW Institute for Contemporary Art (the organizer), The Neue Nationalgalerie, and Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum. These were thoughtfully selected for their cultural and historical significance. KW Institute for Contemporary Art, a former margarine factory, is showing films by Babette Mangolte, Michel Auder, and Patricia Esquivias. Founded in 1991, it has become a popular venue for contemporary art in Berlin. The Neue Nationalgalerie is an icon of post-war modernist architecture in the capital. Mies van der Rohe‘s glass hall showcases a film installation by Susanne M. Winterling. Above is a still from her 2006 video, Piles of Shade. Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum is an outdoor exhibition site located in an area formerly occupied by the Berlin Wall, an urban void developed by artists who began to host diverse exhibitions and cultural activities. It hosts a community-based project by Katerina Seda and a screening of Lars Laumann‘s film about a woman who marries the Berlin Wall.

The night portion, “My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days”, sweeps the city’s main venues and other locations in an eccentric array of lectures, performances, concerts, workshops, and other presentations. This curiosity-driven experiment draws artists and thinkers from various fields. Neuro-scientist Olaf Blanke demonstrates an out of body experience and this year’s Nobel Peace Prize candidate, Augusto Boal, runs a workshop according to his context-sensitive teaching method. The Volksbuhne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz screens Cameron Jamie‘s recent film, JO, with a live score by Japanese noise artist Keiji Haino, and many many more events, night after night until June 15th!

Tony de las Reyes first re-imagined Herman Melville’s Moby Dick in 2006, with an exhibition at Carl Berg that drew the attention of national critics. Ahab’s America, the continuation of de las Reyes preoccupation with Melville’s classic novel, is now on view at Carl Berg Gallery.

De las Reyes uses red bister to make lush stains on paper. At first glance, these stains seem unassuming. But a closer examination reveals the intricate marine scenes that play out within the jurisdiction of the stains: rollicking waves or the confident mast of a ship. In Ahab’s America, de las Reyes has also included a bronze sculpture of a skull, an elongated resin spout, and text paintings that quote passages from Moby Dick. The exhibition is a well-crafted, visually alluring exploration of American identity.

De las Reyes received his BFA from California State University and his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. He has had solo exhibitions at Bentley Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, Howard House in Seattle, and Artplace in Los Angeles. His work has been featured in Art in America and Modern Painters. Ahab’s America runs through April 12, 2008.

Anna Sew Hoy, a young artist who splits her time between Los Angeles and New York, makes work that sometimes seems therapeutically lyrical and sometimes seems tongue-in-cheek. Her current solo show Pow! once again straddles the line between lyricism and banter. At LAX Art in Los Angeles, Pow! includes two oversized casts, one for a giant ankle and another for an arm. Sew Hoy invites visitors to autograph the casts and the huge sculptures are already brimming with light-hearted consolations and one-liners.

Sew Hoy participated in the Hammer Museum‘s 2007 exhibition Eden’s Edge, a show that featured fifteen Los Angeles artists, including Ken Price, Lari Pittman, and Jason Rhoades. Her work for Eden’s Edge had notable affinities with Ken Price’s work; her ceramics took organic forms and she questioned art’s decorative potential. In Pow!, Sew Hoy asks different questions. She explores medical practices and the social nature of the body by re-envisioning a casts on a massive scale.

Sew Hoy received her BFA from the School of Visual Art in New York and she is currently completing her MFA in Bard College‘s low residency program. She has had solo exhibitions at Karyn Lovegrove Gallery, Peres Projects, and Massimo Audiello Gallery. Pow! runs through April 26, 2008.

Curator’s Office and Civilian Art Projects have collaborated on the exhibition craigslist at Civilian Art Projects in Washington, DC. On craigslist, users can search for essentially anything, from jobs and jewelry to casual encounters. Each month, the site receives more than 9 billion page views and more than 10 million new images are uploaded. Artists Joseph Dumbacher, John Dumbacher, Jason Horowitz, and Jason Zimmerman use the popular online community as a conceptual catalyst in their investigation of the identity phenomenon in the age of the Internet and how our online personalities generate a new type of portraiture.

The Dumbacher artist team solicits models on the website to meet them and pose for photographic portraits by offering to purchase a movie ticket to a film of the model’s choice. The Dumbachers meet them at the theater and photograph them in the low lighting, leaving their faces largely obscured. This allows the viewers to project their own identity onto the sitter. These haunting and shadowy portraits reflect the anonymity of the internet posting and our ability to manipulate our own images and personalities to the point of obscurity.

Jason Horowitz solicits models on the site to come to his studio where they sign a social contract based on physical and emotional comfort levels. He then shoots extreme close-ups of the terrain of the body, creating his own type of anonymous portraiture. With the invasive zoom lens view, Horowitz awakens our own biases about beauty, race, sexuality, body image, and exhibitionism.

Zimmerman uses images obtained from craigslist as his found raw material. He looks for images posted by people who are actively seeking sexual partners or indulging in blatant exposure and exhibitionism. He published an artist book, “The Willing”, containing images of people who posted their rape fantasies on the Internet.

An essay by Andrea Pollan, Director of Curator’s Office, accompanies the exhibition that will remain at Civilian Art Projects until April 26th.

A collaborative team of Melbourne artists known as DAMP have created Scene 1, an interactive installation currently on show at the Kerry Gardner & Andrew Myer Project Gallery within the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Victoria. Consisting of three large painted wooden panels, the work depicts the artists posing in a conceptual freeze frame similar to the biblical nativity scene. Holes have been cut where their faces should be in order to allow for the audience to insert theirs instead. Photographs of spectators in this positioning can be taken and displayed on the gallery wall, allowing them to remain as part of the work.

DAMP have been operational since 1995, and are frequently changing in members. Their projects are often performative in nature and rely on audience involvement, thus blurring the barriers between art, artist and audience. They have had various solo shows across Australia and have appeared internationally within group exhibitions at venues including Gallery Side 2, Tokyo, Basekamp Gallery, Philadelphia, Serpentine Gallery, London and UKS Gallery, Oslo. Members who took part in the creation of Scene 1 include Jonathan Bailey, Martin Burns, Olivia Dwyer, Sharon Goodwin, Ry Haskings, Spiro Kalantzis, James Lynch, Lisa Radford, Sean Samon, Dion Sanderson, Blair Trethowan, Masato Takasaka and Neil Wilson.

A series of works by late Indigenous artist Michael Riley are currently on show at Stills Gallery, Paddington. Entitled flyblown the photographic series portrays a range of imagery depicting the loss of Indigenous culture through forced assimilation. Christian iconography including wooden crosses and bibles reference the way Western religion was forced upon their civilization, while images of dead birds and heavenly skies refer to the death of their own identity. Riley grew up in regional New South Wales as his heritage lied with both the Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi Indigenous communities. He later came to Sydney where he attended Koori photography classes at the Tin Sheds Gallery. His passion for new media art practices led him to become one of the founding members of the Boomalli Aboriginal Artist Co-operative, the only Aboriginal owned and operated contemporary art space in Sydney. His work has been displayed both locally and internationally within exhibitions and events including The 8th Festival of Pacific Arts, Noumea, The 2003 Istanbul Biennale and a solo retrospective held at the National Gallery of Australia. He was awarded grand prize at the 11th Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh in 2004, while his legacy lives on by the creation of The Michael Riley Foundation.