FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
1:100
DCKT Contemporary
summer group exhibition
curated by Glowlab
July 01 - August 27 . 2004
Opening Reception: July 01, 6-8 pm
With: Corin Hewitt, Shih-Chieh Huang, Paul Ramirez Jonas, kanarinka, Mario M. Muller, ON/Megumi Akiyoshi, Christina Ray, Swoon, Alex Villar, Lee Walton
DCKT Contemporary is pleased to present 1:100, curated by Glowlab, in which 1 foot of interior space is equivalent to 100 feet of the city. By enlarging the gallery floor plan and placing it over a map of the surrounding neighborhood, Glowlab transforms the gallery space into a three-dimensional map of the area. According to this hybrid map: Chelsea Waterside Park is located at the gallery’s main entrance, the High Line elevated railway travels north through Gallery 1, and, in Gallery 2, Madison Square Garden is located near the east wall and the General Post Office is in the center of the room. Each artist has selected a section of the gallery / neighborhood and created new work in response to his or her chosen location.
By focusing the viewer’s awareness on the surrounding urban landscape, each artist creates a link between the interior space of the gallery and the exterior space of the city. Several artists work with locally gathered materials. Shih-Chieh Huang creates a sculptural installation of plastic containers, relay circuits and microcontrollers, all found or purchased at dollar stores, pet shops and hardware stores in the neighborhood. Corin Hewitt uses the dirt swept from a local street corner to cast his sculpture of a discarded plastic trash bag. Embedded in the dirt and resin are discarded materials and refuse, turning the idea of the receptacle inside out. Paul Ramirez Jonas scours the neighborhood for stray bricks, bringing them into the gallery and building a section of brick wall. Although dividing or supporting nothing in particular, the unused bricks are given an optimistic second life as work of art. Mario M. Muller’s ink on paper works correspond to the four cardinal points and are placed accordingly within the gallery. These “urban canyons” offer long views of the light and architecture extending beyond the confines of the neighborhood map.
Other artists’ works invite direct interaction with the streets immediately surrounding the gallery. kanarinka provides the means to investigate “infinitely small things” in the area and record them as part of a larger work. In addition to a documentary installation, she offers two group expeditions during the course of the show. Street artist Swoon adds peep-holes throughout the neighborhood, through which one sees fictitious scenes that could be occurring behind that very wall. These miniature images are reproduced as three-dimensional works in the gallery. Christina Ray offers a guide to navigating the city by the patterns and locations of its brightly colored corner news-boxes. A printed guide will be available in the gallery and distributed in neighborhood news-boxes throughout the summer, and a walking tour using the guide will take place on the final day of the exhibition. Ray also presents a series of small drawings based on her walks.
Attention to street fixtures and other objects that help and hinder our passage through the city is also evident in a number of performance works. Alex Villar’s depiction of an absurd way of using a curbside mailbox disrupts the solemnity of the James A Farley Station (8th Avenue between 32nd & 33rd Streets) that appears as the background for his intervention. ON/Megumi Akiyoshi, dressed in her signature “ON Gallery” attire, wheels a gumball machine throughout the neighborhood as a mobile gallery, allowing customers to purchase the small works of art inside to wear while walking through the Chelsea art district. The gumball machine and video documentation of her performance will be shown in the gallery. Lee Walton’s performance, documented as a video work, is a series of scripted actions selected and enacted on a specific street corner in combinations chosen by the other artists in the exhibition. As an extension of this piece, Walton offers a real time performative piece in which he will dribble a basketball up and down 36th Street every morning of the exhibition.
About the Curator: Glowlab is a Brooklyn-based arts lab dedicated to the production, documentation and presentation of multi-media work in psychogeography and public-space arts. They produce events and lectures, organize collaborative projects and exhibitions, and maintain an online lab at www.glowlab.com. Psychogeography is an open and highly experimental discipline concerned with the ways in which the geographic environment affects emotions and behavior. Approaches to psychogeography vary, and include artistic, political, philosophical and scientific work in fields ranging from archaeology and cartography to programming, performance and street art. Glowlab aims to bring together these diverse perspectives and engage in dialogue on the methods and practice of psychogeography.
Additional Events:
Friday, July 23, 7PM, and Friday, August 20, 7PM: Infinitely Small Things expeditions with kanarinka (meet outside DCKT Contemporary).
Friday, August 27, 7PM: NewsBoxWalk with Glowlab (meet outside DCKT Contemporary).
July 01 – August 27, 7-8AM: Performance by Lee Walton, 36th Street between 7th and 9th Avenues.
The exhibition will be on view at DCKT Contemporary, 537 West 24th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in Chelsea. Hours are 10am to 5pm, Monday - Friday; tel: 212.741.9955
For further information, please visit http://glowlab.blogs.com/1_100/ or contact Dennis Christie or Ken Tyburski at the gallery.
credits:
maps by Red Maps
exhibition concept, curation and website by Glowlab