The Project Gallery

The Project Gallery

Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Curated by Jeffrey Uslip
July 29 – August 21, 2004

Opening reception Thursday, July 29 from 6 to 8 pm
Summer Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am – 5:30 pm

Urban Repercussions is a photographic investigation of the Las Vegas strip in relation to popular culture and the cinematic effect. These investigations have a psychogeographic nuance (according to the press release) in their analysis of the "effects cinematic representations [have] on the formation of the individual".

(Excerpt from press release)

Urban Repercussions

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s Learning from Las Vegas (2003), the most recent of the artists’ signature “suitcase artworks”, appropriates Robert Venturi’s book to categorize the architectural vernacular of the Las Vegas strip. Learning from Las Vegas’ digital archive of 21 films including Casino, Showgirls, Godfather II, and Viva Las Vegas, is an attempt to analyze the effects cinematic representations have on the formation of the individual. Julie Becker’s staged photographs reconstruct notions of personal history within the framework of Los Angeles. Becker’s photographic series Whole (2002) analyzes the omnipresence of the federal bank building in the center of Echo Park, California. Becker’s tableaux juxtapose elements from a recently deceased friend’s home with a small scale model of the bank, employing nostalgia to suggest a political critique of the creation of home.