STUDIO-ONLINE

Tierney Gearon. 2009. Courtesy Ace Gallery

The ACE Gallery presents photographs by Tierney Gearon, entitled Explosure. Gearon is known for her deeply personal and autobiographical photographs. Gearon explains, “It’s the diary of my soul and a way for me to process my issues.” Gearon explores her personal life, again photographing at home and on family trips yet creates surprising chance-narratives using double exposure techniques. By superimposing two, quite unrelated images, she invents believable scenes that are startling, surreal, and engaging yet also fleeting and ephemeral. This work is vastly different in character from her previous photographs in that they present a kaleidoscopic view of Gearon’s world that challenges perceptions of time, scale, and space.

To achieve her effects, the photographer carefully recorded the images that existed on countless rolls of film before she exposed them a second time. More often than not, the final images were unacceptable, but through experimentation, rejection, and planning she refined her technique. By applying this working method Gearon evokes the chaos of life, exploits the unpredictability of photography, and distills the “organized accidents” that result from her unusual approach to picture-making.

The exhibition’s title Explosure is coined from urban slang, meaning an explosive amount of exposure, particularly of the kind relating to mass media. Gearon herself experienced such scrutiny in England in 2001, when a number of her works were shown at the Saatchi Gallery in London and sparked a much-publicized debate in the British press, over issues of privacy and indecency. And while some observers found the large photographs of her daughter and son (then aged seven and four respectively) posing and playing naked at home and on the beach to be exploitive and pornographic many others saw them as innocent and devoid of sexual content. In the context of this exhibition, the intense exposure referred to in the title is also photographic in nature, referencing the double exposures Gearon uses to produce her compelling works.

ACE GALLERY at The Wilshire Tower
5514 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
www.acegallery.net

Opening reception:
Thursday, March 5, 2009, 6:00–8:00 pm

During the 1994 genocide, hundreds of thousands of Rwandan women were subjected to massive sexual violence by members of the infamous Hutu militia groups, known as the Interhamwe. Among the most isolated survivors are women who have borne children as a result of those rapes. Due to the stigma of rape and “having a child of the militia,” the women’s communities and few surviving relatives have largely shunned them. Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape brings together Jonathan Torgovnik’s remarkable portraits of these women and children, and their harrowing first-hand testimonies.

In February of 2006, Torgovnik traveled to East Africa to report on a story for Newsweek, coinciding with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the outbreak of HIV/AIDS. While in Rwanda, he heard an interview with Odette, a survivor who was raped during the Rwandan genocide and as a result of that rape, had a child and contracted HIV/AIDS. She described how her entire family had been killed and recounted the terrible abuse she experienced. Odette’s horrific story led Torgovnik to return to Rwanda to work on a personal project about women who, like her, were left pregnant as a result the militia’s heinous crimes. Over the next three years, he made repeated visits to photograph these women and their children, and record their heart-wrenching stories.

The exhibition on view at Aperture Gallery is comprised of thirty-one stunning individual portraits of these women with their children, accompanied by their testimonies—intensely personal accounts of what they have gone through, the daily challenges they continue to face, and their conflicted feelings about raising a child who is a reminder of horrors endured. The testimonies are presented in text panels and multimedia interviews projected in the center of the installation, produced by MediaStorm. The exhibition also features a large grid of sixteen portraits of the children, and a video interview with Torgovnik. (text provided by apeture.org)

Aperture Foundation
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor,
New York, NY 10001
www.aperture.org

Photo of Installation Provided by the Fowler Museum.

“Diverse visions, artistic practices, and forms of life…are shaping the contemporary African
imaginary today. …Given the scale of migration and the trans-national character of flows in
the globalising, postcolonial moment, they belong to a shared, deeply intertwined, but
highly uneven and unfinished global world, from whose impact none is excluded.”

Long dedicated to exploring the vast range of African artistic expression, the Fowler Museum at UCLA presents two concurrent exhibitions of contemporary art from or about the continent, including video and film, photography, painting, sculpture, and prints. Continental Rifts: Contemporary Time-Based Works of Africa features the work of five internationally acclaimed artists: Yto Barrada, Cláudia Cristóvão, Alfredo Jaar, Georgia Papageorge, and Berni Searle. Transformations: Recent Contemporary African Acquisitions includes two large-scale metal “tapestries” by celebrated artist El Anatsui, as well as paintings, prints and sculptures by seven other African artists. Both exhibitions will be on display at the Fowler from Feb. 22–June 14, 2009, and will be considered in a special presentation on Mar. 19 by noted critic/writer/ philosopher Simon Njami.

“The artists presented in these two exhibitions offer multiple perspectives on African artistic production today, fracturing any sense of a singular African aesthetic,” explains Polly Nooter Roberts, curator of both exhibitions and professor in UCLA’s department of World Arts and Cultures. “Their works offer a plurality of visions that destabilize and also disrupt the neatness of
continental categories or boundaries, while at the same time offering powerful prisms through which to see many Africas at once.”

Fowler Museum at UCLA
www.fowler.ucla.edu
Tele: 310-206-5663

Bahrain I, 2005. © Andreas Gursky/BUS 2008

C-Print, 302,2 x 219,6 x 6,2 cm
Courtesy: Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers, Cologne Munich London

Born in Leipzig in 1955 and living in Düsseldorf, Andreas Gursky has long been considered one of the world’s leading photographers. Works 80-08 presents his entire oeuvre. The artist has selected more than 140 works from nearly three decades, the earliest of which were taken from his immediate surroundings, followed by images from an ever expanding radius, and ending in a global perspective. From distant and elevated vantage points, Andreas Gursky creates photographs that exceed the registering capacity of the eye. By revisiting locations and events repeatedly over an extended period of time, he not only sheds light on various forms of social contexts, such as mass meetings of a Capitalist or Communist nature, but also depicts structures in transformation. The photographs of large corporations and stock markets from the 1980s and onwards are examples of this.

In the catalogue essay, Dr. Martin Hentschel at Kunstmuseen Krefeld writes:

However fruitful Gursky’s experiments with abstract visual forms may have been for the overall development of his oeuvre, there is no mistaking his lofty ambitions and the ethics behind his goal, which is directed to the “human species”. His singular achievement consists in bringing together abstraction and representation on a metaphorical level. He manages to capture itinerant parts of the world that at first sight seem to have no cohesion, but which from his perspective are “pieces in the puzzle” that interact when faced with the totality of the world.

The exhibition Works 80-08, featuring many photographs never previously shown, presents both the side of the artist where an individual image becomes an entire universe – the latest images are in Gursky’s well-known large format – as well as his encyclopaedic side. Offering space for the artist’s entire oeuvre has been made possible by the fact that he has produced small-scale copies of earlier works. This radical approach presents a generous opportunity to follow Gursky’s artistic development while at the same time conveying a whole new perspective on the individual art-works.

Andreas Gursky’s Swedish debut took place in 1995 at the Rooseum in Malmö, but since then his works have only been shown on a few separate occasions. We are therefore delighted at the prospect of introducing the artist to a broader public as well as providing those already interested a chance to delve into Gursky’s rich production.

Curated by Fredrik Liew, the exhibition has been organised by Dr. Martin Hentschel, Kunstmuseen Krefeld in collaboration with the Moderna Museet and Vancouver Art Gallery.

Moderna Museet
Skeppsholmen, Stockholm
Tel: +46 8 5195 5279
Web: www.modernamuseet.se

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

Edna Ferber’s 1924 novel So Big won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize. A bestseller in its day, So Big’s commercial success has overshadowed its place as one of the most cogent expressions of Midwestern American life in the early twentieth century. The book’s success surprised the author, who doubted its commercial viability and felt it served best as serialized fiction in Women’s Home Companion (where it appeared under the title Selina). Luckily, a prescient editor recognized its appeal to a broad audience. Its indomitable heroine and precise portrayal of Chicago and its surrounding farmland reflected the lives of many at every level of society. (more…)

Elizabeth Perez. Spider Madonna, 2009

Barbara Carrasco creates small concentrated bites of intense, yet delicate, drawings. Strong feminism can be seen in the content of her work as women, many of them self-portraits, populate her work. Barbara created numerous works which have been exhibited throughout the US, Europe, and Latin America: The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Armand Hammer Museum, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Museo del Chopo, Mexico, and the Mexican Museum.

J. Michael Walker fresh from his one-man exhibition at the Autry National Center, J. Michael makes a 180˚ turn from his Saints series, exhibiting large colored pencil nudes of unusual beauty. An exhibiting artist since 1984, J. Michael has participated in more than 100 exhibitions; received a dozen grants, fellowships and residencies; and enjoyed solo shows at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard; el Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, Mexico City; the National Museum of Catholic Art and History, East Harlem, New York City; and the Arkansas Arts Center; among others.

Elizabeth Perez Her portraits of tattooed people look defiantly at the viewer. Interesting in that these people hold no political or economic power, but their intense gaze holds our attention, we are almost afraid to look away. We each own a little power in the space we possess.

John Valadez, a realist painter and muralist who takes as his subject the urban landscape and people of Los Angeles, was born, raised, and continues to live in L.A. His style might be compared to that of photorealists, such as Richard Estes, who gained prominence in the 1970s. However, his work is not a purely documentary reflection of mainstream society.

Avenue 50 Studio
131 N. Avenue 50
Highland Park, CA 90042
323 258 1435
www.avenue50studio.com

Guillermo Esparza in his studio in front of his Green Seraph painting, photo credit Gil Ortiz

An exhibit of sacred art - Arcanum Angelorum (Mystery of the Angels) - with works by Guillermo Esparza, award-winning, internationally recognized American iconographer, painter, and sculptor, will be displayed in St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. The opening reception is on Thursday, February 26 from 6 to 9 pm and the show will run through July 31, 2009. The exhibit will commemorate the Bicentennial Celebration of the Cathedral located in the historic SoHo neighborhood in New York City and the restoration of the tabernacle of the church by the artist-in-residence, Guillermo Esparza. The exhibition will feature recent paintings of angels in oil, icons in egg tempera and gold, drawings, as well as sculptures and mural designs. The exhibit will take place in the undercroft of the Old Cathedral in the Holy Name Chapel, opposite 263 Mulberry Street.

The artist’s works are in the permanent collections at the Vatican Museum in Rome, the Phanar Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, the US National Archives, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, as well as numerous cathedrals, churches, museums, and private collections. Guillermo Esparza, is considered a visionary in the world of public art in the US, is the first recipient of the “Percent-For-Art” public commission from the State of Arizona in 1986, thus opening the door to the next generation of artists competing for public commissions. His permanent installations of sculpture, monuments, and murals are located throughout the US. Guillermo Esparza works in the figurative manner, drawing from Byzantine, Classical and Alexandrian influences to create an original conception of light and color. An observer of natural phenomena, his work is infused with poetic reasoning and the constant movement of light on forms.

The exhibition will feature recent paintings of angels in oil, icons in egg tempera and gold, drawings, as well as sculptures and mural designs by Guillermo Esparza

Opening Reception With The Artist:
Thursday, February 26, 2009
6 pm to 9 pm

Holy Name Chapel,
(opposite) 263 Mulberry Street,
New York, NY, 10012
Please note: The exhibit will take place in the undercroft of the Old Cathedral.

For exhibition hours, please contact the Cathedral’s office at (212) 226-8075

For further information, please visit:
http://www.guillermoesparza.com
http://www.andriasovaesparza.com

Erin Cosgrove. TEH LAM, 2009. Cel-vinyl on one-sided film, archival ink & liquid leaf, 48 x 38 inch.

Erin Cosgrove’s show at Carl Berg Gallery, also titled “What Manner Art of Person Art Thou?” presents two characters, Yoder and Troyer, and weaves them through a complex tale of new and clashing worlds.

Elijah Yoder and Enoch Troyer are the only survivors of a deadly epidemic that struck two small, adjacent colonies somewhere in the Northwestern United States. Because the completely isolated colonies’ manner of living hadn’t changed much since the 17th century, Yoder and Troyer fail to adapt to the confounding ways of the early 21st century. It is from their archaically religious viewpoint that we encounter contemporary life, its foibles and vices.

The show will feature three elements including “What Manner of Person Art Thou? (Scroll),” 2008, “Mysteries of the Hertson Scroll,” (7-minute documentary video), 2008 and What Manner of Person Art Thou? (Paintings),” 2009

What Manner of Person Art Thou? (Scroll), 2008

The scroll is the supposed origins of the What Manner of Person Art Thou? video. The 15-foot scroll produced in a book form depicts Yoder and Troyer’s tale starting from the beginning of time itself and ending in apocalypse.

The lettering in both scroll and video is an update of the Latin stitched onto the Bayeux Tapestry. Instead of using a dead language that few understood, Cosgrove uses an ultra contemporary language that few understand: “leet.” Leet, or 1337, is an elite computer language used by the young and silly, or the old and nerdy. This mixture of current (digital video/leet/ink jet prints) and medieval mediums is iconographic of the medieval/anti-humanistic thinking prevalent today.

“Mysteries of the Hertson Scroll,” 7-minute documentary video, 2008

“Mysteries of the Hertson Scroll” introduces Nigel Hertson, a now deceased urban recluse, who purportedly created the enigmatic scroll. The mini documentary attempts to unravel the scroll’s content, but fails, mostly because the writing in the scroll remains inexplicable to the filmmakers.

What Manner of Person Art Thou? (Paintings), 2009

The paintings are also created by Nigel Hertson and represent his continuing devotion to, and re-imagining of, Yoder and Troyer. The one-sided film and cell vinyl paintings lie somewhere between cartoon cells and illuminated manuscripts.

The formatting of the paintings takes after illuminated manuscript folios, complete with marginalia, gold paint, and writing.

Carl Berg Gallery
6018 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles CA 90036
tel: 323-931-6060
www.carlberggallery.com

Born in San Francisco in 1925 and a 60‐year resident of Claremont, James Hueter epitomizes a generation of artists who, attracted to Claremont and the surrounding region after World War II, established their reputations here, contributing importantly to the creation of the art‐rich environment enjoyed today. A 1948 graduate of Pomona College, Hueter holds an M.F.A. from the Claremont Graduate School (1951). His life as an artist still continues to be as productive as ever.

The James Hueter Retrospective surveys his long and fertile career, from the early realist paintings influenced by teacher and mentor Henry Lee McFee, to his most recent works combining multiple interests in painting, sculpture, representation, and illusion. The exhibition will introduce to new generations an artist diligently devotional to his craft through decades
of drawing, painting, photography, and sculpture.

While widely admired by those knowledgeable about the arts, James Hueter is one of the best‐kept secrets of the arts in Claremont. This exhibition aspires to reveal and celebrate Hueter’s work, while realizing a core mission of the Claremont Museum of Art to celebrate the region’s rich artistic heritage through in‐depth exhibitions of its most prominent local heroes.

The generous sponsors of James Hueter: A Retrospec1ve has been provided by Gould Asset Management, an investment management firm based in Claremont, CA, Dr. Janet Myhre, Mathematical Research Analysis Corporation, Schenck & Schenck Photography, Bunny Gunner Art Services, and Swan Graphics.

Claremont 
Museum
 of
 Art

536 
West
 First 
Street

Claremont,
CA 
91711

909.621.3200

www.claremontmuseum.org



The Rite, 2009

Down With Me, an exhibition of new paintings by Enrique Martínez Celaya. Working in sculpture, photography and painting as well as publishing, this is the artist’s first gallery exhibition of solely paintings in ten years and marks his second solo exhibition at Sara Meltzer Gallery.

Martínez Celaya’s work emerges from a philosophical and literary mindfulness and a commitment to the origins of art, literature, philosophy and science. Influences on his most recent body of work include Søren Kierkegaard, particularly Fear and Trembling and Purity of Heart is To Will One Thing, as well as the critical book Robert Frost: The Ethics of Ambiguity by John H. Timmerman. With an emphasis on the fragility of human hopes, particularly as is embodied in our children and our “legacy,” Down With Me expands on Martinez Celaya’s concern with the landscape as an embodiment of the absolute as well as witness to human frailty.

While the iconography in Down With Me suggests a narration, the works are neither figurative nor narrative. They are rather a series of scenes that withhold clear resolution from the viewer. Down With Me revolves around an apple orchard, the immediate beauty of which is shrouded by the artist’s dark palette and use of a mixture of oil and wax. This technique, by means of its physical insistence, emphasizes the instability of content and thereby meaning.

While each of the works presents an aspect of landscape, most draw attention to empty spaces and threatening elements; the sky or light may seem beautiful against the expectations set up by the scene, suggesting something has happened or a strong impulse toward a particular course of action. Apples covered in ice may suggest truncated hopes or renewal. A young boy appears at times in wait, and at times yielding a weapon. The orchard peers out of a vast and seemingly endless body of water.  Fields of dandelions suggest spring and the earth’s call on change through the violence of the elements.  The paintings in Down With Me depict existential landscapes that contrast faith with resignation, ultimately capturing the impassiveness of the Universe to our lives.

Born in Cuba and raised in Spain and Puerto Rico, Enrique Martínez Celaya lives and works in Florida. Martínez Celaya studied Applied Physics and electrical engineering at Cornell University and pursued a Ph.D. in Quantum Electronics at the University of California, Berkeley. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Maine and received his M.F.A from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Martínez Celaya has created projects for art venues such as the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig and the Miami Art Museum as well as non-visual art institutions such as the Berliner Philharmonie and St. Mary’s Church in Limerick, Ireland.

Martínez Celaya lectures on art internationally often on its relation to literature and ethics and his essays have appeared in many contexts, including Journal of Aesthetic Education, and works + conversations, published by the University of Nebraska Press. In 1998 he founded the publishing house Whale & Star, which publishes books in the areas of art, poetry, art practice and critical theory. He has served as Associate Professor of Art at Pomona College and the Claremont Graduate University (1994-2003), was awarded the Anderson Ranch National Artist Award (2007) and is currently Visiting Presidential Professor at the University of Nebraska. His artwork is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig and others. Upcoming exhibitions include a survey at The State Russian Museum in St Petersburg, Russia (2009), Selected Works by Enrique Martínez Celaya from a Private Collection, Boca Raton Museum of Art (2009-2010) as well as a mid-career survey organized by Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA, traveling to the Caribbean, South America and North America (2010-2012).  CA; PS1 MOMA, New York, NY; Public Art Fund, City Hall Park, New York, NY; Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia; Akira Ikeda Gallery, New York, NY; and Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, Colorado.  This is the artist’s first solo exhibition at Sara Meltzer Gallery.

Opening reception: Thursday, February 19, 6-8pm

Sara Meltzer Gallery
525-531 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001
Phone: 212.727.9330
Web: www.sarameltzergallery.com