Rotwand presents “Disguised,” a group exhibition featuring Layla Ali, Melanie Bonajo, Kinga Kielczynska, Heidi Bucher, and Yael Davids. In today’s world where everything is overexposed and overanalyzed, a countermovement to the dwindling distinction between public and private spheres is growing. Whether this is an effort to protect the past or to criticize contemporary culture is to be determined by the viewer.

Ali’s monochromatic prints in Indian ink portray cartoon-like characters in elaborate costumes and flamboyant headdresses. Her work provides some narrative with no specific references. Ali has had solo exhibitions at MoMA in New York and participated in the Venice Biennial in 2003.

Bonajo and Kielczynska join to present “Modern Life of the Soul,” a photographic documentation of a fictional cult at Poland’s east border. The followers of this cult reject Darwin’s theory of evolution in distaste for the success driven state of humanity today. They propose that humanity originates from plant life and they reside in a pristine and secluded forest. Bonajo has exhibited at Foam in Amsterdam. Kielczynska has made fashion videos for designer Bernhard Willhelm and Amsterdam Fashion Week.

Bucher was a Swiss artist whose first fame came in the 70s when she dipped objects into latex, preserving and embalming them while playing with the transience and appearance of materials. She has been compared to Rachel Whiteread and Gordon Matta-Clark. In “Disguised”, a pillow case, bed sheet, negligee, and ornamental cushion are displayed, transfixed and disguised in their latex casings. A retrospective monograph edited by Heike Munder was recently published.

Davids isolates a specific part of the body and places it in a situation that inverts our expected relationships. Her video “Face” displays a model’s head with a mechanical wig attached in continuous slow rotation, heightening our consciousness of the body. Davids has exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Galerie Barbara Thumm in Berlin, and Smart Project Space in Amsterdam.

“Disguised” is at Rotwand until May 9, 2008.

For the first solo exhibition in a season-long multidisciplinary program called The Proper Animal at Black & White Gallery in New York, painter Asja Jung presents Mating Season, a series of humanoid apes set in highly ornate environments. The purpose and actions of the figures are ambiguous, but the intense gaze of the animal captures our attention. The subject stands alone in the elaborate surroundings, both confronting and confusing the viewer, causing us to ponder it’s purpose. Jung’s original iconography raises ethical questions surrounding the human-animal relationship. Several of her canvases are 96×40 inches, thus addressing us at our own human scale. Jung has previously exhibited at the Gedock Art Gallery in Hamburg, Gallery Reich in Cologne, and Monkdogz Urban Art Gallery in Chelsea. She has also done several independent painting projects in the streets of Cologne. Last year, she was a centerfold in the online art magazine Perfect 8.

In Germany, Asja Jung completed a Study of Preparation of Cadavers for Scientific and Medical Studies at the University of Bochum and in pathologies, morgues, and museums in the area as well as in Munich and Berlin. She then began Art Studies at the Muthesius Hochschule in Kiel, Germany. She describes her subject matter as “in between the world of Bosch and Gruenewald creatures and science fiction movie aliens”.

On display until November at the Rubell Family Collection (RFC) in Miami is a decade of Hernan Bas’ works collected by the Rubell Family. The RFC is a museum-size collection of contemporary works dating back to 1960 housed in a converted 45,000-square-foot former Drug Enforcement Agency (D.E.A.) confiscated-goods warehouse. The Bas exhibit opened in early December 2007 to coincide with the movement of collectors and dealers flying south for Art Basel Miami. Hernan Bas is one of South Florida’s most well received artists. Though only thirty years old, his work is included in the Museum of Modern Art and Saatchi Gallery permanent collections. He graduated in 1996 from the New World School of the Arts and lives and works in Miami. Bas’ acrylic, watercolor, and gauche paintings take on the aesthetic of a blurry photograph, capturing intimate moments with a wide brush. His figurative subjects, if any, are always boys and men, and the viewer is invariably invited to peek into Bas’ world as a gay man. Bas’ vibrant pallet and the fairy tale and mythological scenes that he creates-often derived from history and high-art does not linger far from stereotypical utopian playgrounds. In the RCF exhibit, Bas features three multimedia works one of which is an underwater symposium, titled “Ocean’s Symphony (Dirge for the Figi Mermaid).” The installation includes a phantasmagorical documentation of an underwater dance searching for the Figi Mermaid. In the gallery space adjacent lays an archive of ocean treasures carefully collected including a life-size replica of the mummified mermaid herself.

Theresa Sapergia’s show, A Thousand Natural Shocks, opened March 15th, 2008 at Cerasoli Gallery in Culver City, Los Angeles. Drawings, mostly large-scale and monochromatic, of various animals and one monumental depiction of the artist as both nymph and satyr hang in the front section of the gallery. The drawings have a tranquilized or sedated vibe to them, and yet there is also a drowsy yearning towards – for lack of a better word – nirvana.

Theresa Sapergia received a B.F.A. from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C. and an M.F.A. from Concordia University in Montreal. She has exhibited at AIR Gallery in New York City, and across Canada in Vancouver, Toronto & Montreal. She currently lives and works in Prince George, British Columbia. Please read below for a full interview with the artist by Darrin Little.

Interview by Darrin Little for DailyServing – Photo Courtesy: Cerasoli Gallery

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Wangechi Mutu will never experience the heated backlash that Kara Walker experienced. No one will call Mutu the “patsy of the white art establishment,” accuse her of selling fellow black artists down the river, or launch a letter-writing campaign to keep her artwork from being shown. There are good reasons for this: unlike Walker, the Kenyan-born Mutu does not share the slavery lineage of African-American artists and she does not make work with a lucid historical context. Yet Mutu’s work is often as disturbing as Walker’s, reconfiguring sexualized representations of women and creating visceral collages that appear more pornographic than critical. Continue reading for the complete DailyServing article by Catherine Wagley.

Article by Catherine Wagley for DailyServing – Photo Credit: Robert Wedemeyer

“Eat Drink Swan Man”, 2008 Watercolor and collage on paper Overall dimensions 43″ x 63″ (nine parts) Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.

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Videomaker Sadie Benning began making films at age sixteen with her Fisher-Price Pixelvision toy camera, a gift from her avant-garde filmmaker father. In her early videos from the 1990s, she retreated to the comfort of her bedroom to film intensely personal single channel videos exploring the themes of emerging sexuality and lesbianism. Experimental filmmakers like Benning loved the black and white grainy images and box frame of the Pixelvision, despite it’s failure on the general market. These videos were referred to as “Pixelvision” videos, and the artist was seen as a pioneer of “Pixelvision”. In 1993, her videos appeared at the Whitney Biennial. In 2007, the Wexner Center organized “Sadie Benning: Suspended Animation,” which was her first museum retrospective.

Now showing at Toronto’s Power Plant is Benning’s 2006 video, Play Pause, directed in collaboration with Solveig Nelson. This two screen video installation is made from hundreds of Benning’s drawings which follow anonymous urban figures through public and private city spaces. Throughout the course of a day, the characters move through a city resembling Chicago, engaging in quotidian city activity which then leads to drinking and dancing at night. The video ends at the airport at dawn with a security guard scanning bags and two people having sex on the wing of the plane as it takes off. Play Pause is similar to Benning’s earlier work in that it follows characters as they go about the process of defining themselves and their sexuality.

In addition to her film and video practice, Benning is a former member and co-founder of the band Le Tigre.

This week marks the beginning of the 2008 New York art fairs (complete list). The most notable of them, The Armory Show, features 150 of the world’s top contemporary art galleries showcasing the latest in today’s artwork. The show historically dates to 1913, where the first International Art Fair took place in New York’s 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets. The vintage fair marked the first time in history that an American audience caught a glimpse at “Modern” art, which was predominately being made in Europe at the time. The Bridge Art Fair New York (which will take place in Chelsea) is an independent expose that runs in Berlin, London, and Miami simultaneously with the other fairs in those cities. Bridge is popular among up-and-coming art buyers, because they strive to cost-effectively sell the works of both established and emerging artists. Pulse: New York offers an alternative to the typical art fair. While approximately sixty galleries will be exhibiting their best artists and works, a number of performances, installations, multimedia and happenings are also scheduled as part of the “Impulse” segment where the winning artist receives a $1500 cash prize. Frere Independent, a not-for-profit arts organization whose mission is to provide artist awareness has organized two special additions to this year’s fair agenda: DiVA, which is the first fair dedicated to digital and video artwork and Pool Art Fair, a “meeting ground” for collectors, dealers, and the general public to view works by emerging artists who have yet to gain gallery representation which will take place in the rooms of the infamous Hotel Chelsea.

Most of the fair festivities commence on Thursday, March 27th and will continue until Sunday, March 30th.