This Is Not A Connection

Cirrus 2015-2016

November 21st, 2015 March 12th, 2016 Cirrus Gallery 2011 S. Santa Fe Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90021

Cirrus 2015-2016

ARTISTS Laurie Anderson

Suzanne Lacy

Eleanor Antin

Glenn Ligon

Ida Applebroog

Lee Mullican

Cory Arcangel

Bruce Nauman

KutluÄ&#x; Ataman

Dennis Oppenheim

John Baldessari

Tyler Matthew Oyer

Brice Bischoff

Paul Pfieffer

Mark Bradford

Seth Price

Chris Burden

Michael Ray-Von

Peter Campus

Martha Rosler

Paul Chan

Ed Ruscha

Guy de Cointet

Barbara T. Smith

Gilbert and George

Michael Smith

David Hockney

Eve Sonneman

Kim Jones

Frances Stark

Miranda July

Eddo Stern

Ed Kienholz

Despina Stokou

Jeff Koons

Stan Vanderbeek

Barbara Kruger

Siebren Versteeg

This Is Not A Connection Introduction

Since its inception in 1970, Cirrus has never limited its vision to traditional art forms, but embraced young artists who were incorporating new mediums such as computers (Barbara Smith’s Field Piece), performance (Guy de Cointet), sculptural sound installation (Michael Brewster), transformative environments (Eric Orr, Robert Overby), Light and Space work (Greg Card, David Trowbridge), text based works (Ed Ruscha, Bruce Nauman, Alexis Smith, Chris Burden) and deconstructed material painting (Charles Hill, Eugene Sturman, Karen Carson, and Jay McCafferty).

Continuing with the gallery’s vision, the inaugural exhibition in the new space examines the relationship between image, text and technology. The rapidity of new tools and forms of communication has brought about not only an interweaving of images, text and sound, but also a blurring of lines between creative disciplines - opening up a collaborative world that is available on a global, 24/7 basis if the creators so desire.

Using Magritte’s The Treachery of Images and Seth Price’s

Dispersion as springboards, the show considers the various ways in which technology has influenced the progression of language and the creative process. While representing painting (Tyler Matthew Oyer, Despina Stokou and Siebren Versteeg) and drawing and coding (Guy de Cointet, Ed Kienholz and Ed Ruscha) that employ or co-opt both the aesthetic quality or function of technology, the exhibition continues the conversation with video and film (Kutluğ Ataman, John Baldessari, Brice Bischoff, Miranda July and Bruce Nauman), television (Chris Burden), Xerox (Kim Jones, Barbara Smith), FAX (David Hockney), mail art (Eleanor Antin, Ida Applebroog, and Suzanne Lacy), appropriation (Barbara Kruger), land art (Dennis Oppenheim), computer games (Eddo Stern, (interglobal.vision [Michael Ray-Von, Carlos Solares and Patrick Best]), Polaroid (Eve Sonneman), digital printing (Lee Mullican, Siebren Versteeg), and web art (interglobal.vision).

Beyond the works represented in the gallery, there will be a number of other relevant pieces that will be accessible through both virtual and non-virtual environments.

Exhibition Opening, November 21st, 2015

Paul Chan’s Sade for Fonts Sake, for example, will be available for those wanting to participate in a call for the most tantalizing erotica. There will also be access to a number of performances via YouTube, and links (such as Satellite Collective’s Telephone and Cory Arcangel’s website), that also dialogue with the

possibilities technology has brought.

A panel discussion focusing on how the logic of computers and the Internet is influencing new strategies for the convergence of text and image in the aesthetic realm will be will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition. The panel is organized

by Heber Rodriguez and will be

Exhibition Opening, November 21st, 2015

presented on February 27th, 2016 at Cirrus.

In Summer 2016, New York-based Haeler Echo (Josephine Shokrian, Rachel Valinsky, and Lulu Wolf) will present a public program expanding on the contemporary resonances of Guy de Cointet’s publications

and artist’s books in performance, sculpture, and film. The program will take place in New York and Los Angeles and investigate the artist’s use of language across other practices and disciplines.

Exhibition Opening, November 21st, 2015

The Convergence of Text, Image, and Aesthetics after Computers and the Internet “Evidently, code works like poetry in that it plays with structures of language itself, as well as our corresponding perceptions.�

Geoff Cox, Alex McLean, and Adrian Ward in The Aesthetics of Generative Code

Saturday, February 27, 3pm Cirrus Gallery, 2011 S Santa Fe Ave Los Angeles, CA 90021 Art.Exe is a series of presentations that

some of the languages that form the software,

will focus on developments in the aesthetic

websites, and applications that populate the

realm due in part to the novel understanding

net and the de-vices we interact with on a daily

of the convergence of text and image after

basis. The entirety of the Internet is itself a

computers and the Internet. Presenters include

domain of language. Every part of the web is

Gaby Cepeda, Sterling Crispin, Eddo Stern,

interpreted and archived through text-based

and Charlie White.

processes. The virtual sphere is a hologram knitted from the fabric of language.

By its very design, the computer is an interface for text and image. Since the 1980s, with

We have come to understand and experience

the advent of personal computers, they

computer languages through interactions

have been a combination of keyboard and

mediated by visual inter-faces. For example,

screen. This call and response between the

when we open a .jpg file on a computer we

textual and visual coupled with the rise of

expect to see an image, not the code that pro-

ubiquitous computing has allowed for the

duces that image. Yet, one cannot exist without

development of alternative language modes.

the other. The computer translating the code is

But the connection between the computer and

what allows us to perceive visual information

language extends much deeper. Language

instead of some undecipherable computer

lies at the core of how computers and

jargon. In this context, text and image exist as

subsequently the Internet function. HyperText

one.

Markup Language, Java, and Python are just

As computers and the Internet increasingly

in museums and galleries worldwide and

inform art and visual culture, our understanding has been published in Frieze, Wired, BOMB, of text and image begins to mirror the logic

Rhizome, Creators Project, Fast Company,

facilitated by these technologies. This is a

Y-Combinator’s Hacker News, and the Post

moment where information can vacillate

Internet Survival Guide. He was an invited

be-tween text and image. Text can be

speaker at the first annual Drones and Aerial

activated; it can be performed visually as a

Robotics Conference in NYC as coauthor of

script or command. Images can be generated

OpenDroneControl, an open source software

from autonomous code and can operate

platform for developing interactive artworks

linguistically.

and re-search projects with aerial robotics.

Lectures include Stanford, NYU ITP, LACMA

Art.Exe is organized by Heber Rodriguez.

Art + Technology Lab, SFAQ, YouTube LA, and UCLA Art Sci Center.

Gaby Cepeda is an independent curator, art writer and artist, born in Veracruz in 1985,

Eddo Stern is an artist, game designer, and

currently based in Mexico City. Her work

professor at UCLA’s Design | Media Arts

focuses on the confluence of feminist theory

Department. His work ex-plores the uneasy

and the Internet in contemporary art, with

and otherwise unconscious connections

re-search specifically located in the Americas.

between physical existence and electronic

She obtained her BA in Photography from the

simulation, surrounding the subject matters

Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (MX),

of violence, memory and identification. He

is working on her thesis for MA on Curating of

works with various media including computer

Visual Arts at Uneversidad Nacional 3 de Fe-

software & hardware, game design, live

brero (AR), and was a participant of the Artists

performance, digital video, and kinetic

& Curators’ Program at Universidad Torcuato

sculpture. His work has been widely exhibited

DiTella (Buenos Ai-res, 2013). She has curated at international venues including The Tate and participated in exhibitions at Bikini Wax,

Gallery Liverpool, The Sundance Film Festival,

Mexico City; Museo Nacional de Bellas

The Haifa Museum of Art, Museo Reina Sofia,

Artes, Buenos Aires; Sala Luis Miró Quesada

Electronic Entertainment Expo(E3), MuHKA,

Garland, Lima; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto;

The Walker Art Cen-ter, The Game Developers

Church of Temple-head, Chicago; and White

Conference, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, The

Box Art Center, New York.

Institute of Contemporary Art, The New Museum for Contemporary Art, IndieCade, The

Sterling Crispin is an artist and technologist

Rotterdam Film Festival, The Kitchen, The

born in 1985 in Maui, Hawaii. His work

Hammer Museum, Light Industry, ICC Tokyo,

explores the relationships be-tween the

The Australian Center of the Moving Image,

exponentially growing technological-other

The Art Gallery of Ontario, Machine Project,

as it relates to our human bodies, minds,

Forum des Images, Image Forum Tokyo,

and psyches. He received his Master of Fine

The British Film Institute, The Adelaide Film

Arts and Master of Science in Multimedia

Festival. He is a recipient of a Rockefeller

Engineering from the University of California

Foundation new media fellowship, an

Santa Barbara. His work has been exhibited

emerging fields grant from the Creative Capital

Foundation, and a Media Arts stipend from the Edith Russ Foundation.

Charlie White is an artist and academic whose work ranges from photography, film, and animation, to public events, popular entertainment, and documentary archives.

White received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and his MFA from Art Center College of Design. His work has exhibited at institutions such as the Oslo Kunstforening, Norway; Magasin 3, Sweden; Domus Artium, Spain; Oberösterreichische Landesmuseen, Austria; Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, China; PS 1, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Harvard University; and many others. White’s writing has appeared in ARTFORUM magazine, Words Without Pictures published by Aperture, and most recently Vision Anew: The Lens and Screen Arts, published by the University of California Press. His films have screened at the Sundance Film Festival and at Director’s Fortnight at Cannes. Six monographs of his work have been published, most recently Such Appetite (Little Brown Mushroom, 2013), and American Minor (JPR | Ringier, 2009).

White is the editor of THE ENEMY, an online journal of art, culture, and positions, and holds the position of Professor of Fine Art at the University of Southern California.

Heber Rodriguez is a Los Angeles-based curator and writer whose research areas include Art and Technology, Internet culture, and experimental sound practices.

Treachery of Images For their contribution to the exhibition,

adventure functions as an alternate catalog for

interglobal.vision have created a text-based

the exhibition and forefronts questions of the

adventure game, Treachery of Images. As a

translation of experience and the transference of

player you explore the world of the exhibition,

ideas. The game may be played at

moving in space and performing tasks by

http://treacheryofimag.es

entering single-word text commands. The

Treachery of Images screenshot

This Is Not A Connection Artist Images

The following text is an exerpt from the Treachery of Images text-adventure written by Michael Ray-Von for the exhibition.

Suzanne Lacy, Anatomy Lesson no 1: Chickens Coming Home to Roost 1975-1976, postcards from video performance 4 parts: 5” x 7” each

You see four postcards in four frames hung in two lines of two on the wall.

Each postcard is a photograph depicting Lacy nude, facing the camera, at a kitchen table with a tray of cooked chicken parts. You see that in each photograph she is eating a different piece of chicken.

In the top two postcards she is eating the chicken’s wings. In the first she has her head turned sharply to right, with her right elbow on the table as she feeds her mouth with her right hand, and her left arm stretched forward toward the table. Below her right arm is printed the word: ‘wing’, and below her left arm: ‘arm’. You think that her right arm as it touches elbow to table and bends back up to feed herself does in its triangular

posture resemble a wing. And you can see that her other arm as it is outstretched on the table in repose is more human in its posture.

In the third postcard she is eating the chicken’s leg. She has her own leg up on the table in front of her and you take notice of its shoeless dirty foot. She leans toward her leg like a dancer as she gnaws into the chicken leg eyes closed and elbows up. In the caption below her you red: ‘leg’.

In the final postcard she is eating the chicken’s breast. In the other photographs her eyelids were closed in enjoyment, but here her eyes gaze through the camera, through the postcard, through time, and into your own. Both elbows are on the table as she feeds herself

Kim Jones, Mud Man: Performance Stills 1981, mimeograph on paper 4 parts: 8.5” x 11” each

with both hands, her breasts framing the tray of chicken parts below them.

The caption reads: ‘breast’.

You remember Jones did public appearances like this in Los Angeles as his alter-ego known as Mudman.

Four framed mimeographs are hung two-by-two on the wall. Each is about letter-size and each shows you a black-and-white photograph with an irregular white margin on the page.

Captured in the photograph is Jones a man on a rooftop. He is nude aside from a costume of sticks and mud formed in some arrangement varying between each.

Mudman takes power stances on the roof and you think there is some energy in the clumps of mud. You imagine meeting Mudman in the street in downtown Los Angeles and the speechless exchange of presence that you would pass together.

Kim Jones, Mud Man detail

Eleanor Antin, 100 Boots 1971-1973, halftone reproductions on 51 cards 7 examples: 4.5” x 7” each

Seven postcards are framed in seven frames on the wall. The first six are photographs of landscapes, and you see that each landscape is unique between them. You see a hillside, a field, a harbor, a bar empty save for a belly dancer, an abandoned interior and an on-location movie shoot.

You are certain that though there are other figures and objects present in the photos the protagonist in each is a congregation of many cowboy boots in the landscape, and you estimate at least 30 boots are shown in each. The boots are standing upright, as if worn by an invisible cowboy, and in lines or rows or other groupings.

The final postcard is a photgraph of a woman sitting in a chair with one leg crossing the other, her hand against

her chin in thought. Next to her on a small table you see she has some implements you can’t make out. And below her photo a block of text on a white background reads: ‘...Not that the work of the modern artist must by any means resemble the past, but he must show some sense of it, a realization of its presence and attraction. Otherwise he dissipates himself in sheer quality and fails to impose that order and shaping which are indispensable concomitants of high art, and without which the truly cultivated spectator is left thirsty. High art resumes everything that precedes it, otherwise it is less than high.’ Clement Greenberg (Partisan Review, July, 1948)

Three staple-bound books are displayed on a shelf. Of each book are displayed two copies from its edition, one closed to show the cover and one open to show a spread of pages. On each book cover you see a title in bold capital letters, followed by the words ‘A PERFORMANCE’, and finally, ‘IDA APPLEBROOG’. You wonder if these are performance scores or performance documentation.

The first book has a blue cover and the title you read: I MEAN IT The open spread has two drawings in a kind of cartoon style, one on each page of the spread, and to you the two appear identical. They are printed in

only blue ink and depict a wide frame around two men. The men are shaking hands, one man turned out slightly more toward their audience. They cast dramatic shadows on the background.

The second book has a maroon cover and the title reads: YOU’LL SEE The open spread again shows you two drawings in the same cartoon style.

Again there is one per page of the spread, and this time you are certain they are identical. They are printed in only maroon ink and now show you a stage, curtains drawn. Onstage you see a holding in a casual business attire. He is holding his jacket open with his right hand. You think he’s

Ida Applebroog, But I Wasn’t There: A Performance 1979, 3 book examples (“I Mean It”, “You’ll See”, and “Say Something”) 7.75” x 6.25” each

either putting his jacket on, or he could be taking it off... Below him, across the horizon of the stage, lays a woman in bed. You imagine the man is leaving her early in the morning, or perhaps arriving late at night.

The third book has a black cover and the title you read: SAY SOME-THING The spread follows all the same formal characteristics as the prior 2 books, but this time is printed in black ink (of course). Again we see a stage with curtains drawn. Onstage you see a figure in mourning, draped in long cloth, and another figure embracing the first. Upstage and above them, apparently in flight, an angel: a figure in a tunic with large wings hung behind.

You decide these are neither scores nor documentation, but they, as books, are performances. You imagine taking the book in your hands and turning through its moments.

Ida Applebroog, SAY SOME-THING detail

Bruce Nauman, Raw War 1971, lithograph 22.5” x 28.25”

You see a lithograph displaying the word ‘WAR’ in uppercase red letters.

You squint your eyes and see that behind ‘WAR’ is the word ‘RAW’, slightly fainter. Behind that ‘WAR’ again and then ‘RAW’ and it seems to repeat on as it disappears in the pitch black space. You wonder if the text is like a neon sign, and if the depth is a play with time. The oscillation between ‘WAR’ and ‘RAW’ brings to your mind some oscillating dichotomies in the work such as one between image and text...or another between stillness and motion.

A large stretched canvas is on the wall, and you feel its maybe the size of your body with your arms and legs stretched out. Drawn with a thick pencil or maybe charcoal over the entire surface of the canvas are lines of emoji characters, about 15 lines in total, 10 emojis per line. You recognize this emoji character set specifically from apple devices. About half of the hand-drawn emojis have been filled in with color paint, the rest are left as pencil outlines. You start by viewing the composition as a single whole, blurring your eyes. Then you catch yourself and remember

Despina Stokou, Recently Used #8892 2015, charcoal and collage on linen 72� x 48�

that each discrete emoji character indicates some single meaning in its given context.

Beginning at the top left, you read the lines of emojis like a story, thinking that this maybe function like lines of text. The emojis are like hieroglyphs, their vague individual meanings resting on the context of their neighbors like a house of cards, a precarious architecture of imprecise signification. But reading this emoji story left to right and top to bottom yields little save for the experience of grasping for

connections and drawing conclusions.

You try instead to read the story in another direction, first from top to bottom and left to right, and then from right to left and top to bottom, and so on. Each direction tells you a new story but with no more coherence than the others. You think the problem is of scale. If this is a story, then each character in the script might be an object or a memory, a feeling or an encounter and nothing in these heiroglyphs tell you which is which.

Lee Mullican, Untitled (from Shatter Special) 1982-1988, archival K3 inkjet on paper 22.375� x 24�

Ed Ruscha, Waves of Advancing Technology 1983, watercolor on paper 23” x 29”

A digital print by Lee Mullican is framed in white on the wall in front of you. ‘I didn’t know he made digital prints’, you think. The colors are wonderfully rich and the forms are diverse and evocative and move in painterly stripes. The geometry gives you a sense of space that you can’t trace. You think of roads and cities and lights and Matt Mullican.

Framed in wood on the wall in front of you is a drawing. It depicts three lines of white block text advancing or receding through an indigo haze. You read the words:

WAVES OF ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY And you sense the tinge of significance. You think of some dark sky high above the ground on a clear night in Los Angeles and an ominous prophecy floating through a thin smog unnoticed by the humans busy actualizing it below. You think of the technology of Ruscha’s mark as it filled the picture plane with this thin blue field. You think of the question of advancement in the technology of art production and the risk of adopting new methods.

Miranda July, Somebody 2014, digital video made in conjuction with the app Runtime - 10:15

You arrive at a monitor on the wall.

You see two girls wearing the same thing arguing about something. An elderly woman walks up and tells them, ‘Blanca, it’s me Yolanda. I dont want to be in no fight with you flaca, you my homegirl.

This is stupid. Come on bruja look at me’.

They are relieved and embrace, but suddenly become upset with the woman as she toddles away. They tell her they will rate her super low. You are amused.

Eddo Stern, Vietnam Romance 2015, video game

You watch as side-scrolling scenes of richly colored watercolor landscapes fall from right to left across a large flat-screen monitor in the center of the floor you stand on. You crouch down momentarily to meet the screen at eye-level. The scenes before you switch between clouds and cities and war zones and deserts (some road in a rainy rural Vietnam, an airport in the Mojave desert, an airport cafe, a stormy night sky high in the clouds with airplanes struggling to stay in flight, a desert road with tanks trudging across).

Occasionally text appears onscreen with video game prompts: ‘press any button to play’, or dialogue floating above characters heads. You decide that this is in-game video from a video game, but the aesthetic of the watercolor graphics is unfamiliar.

You watch as a tank travels up a hill annhiliating giant text characters with its mounted machine gun.

Barbara T. Smith, Field Piece 1971, early tele-type computer print-out 15” x 11”

Hung in a gold frame nearest the left end of the wall you approach what appears like a drawing of dots. The top and bottom edges of the paper are each lined with a single line of punched holes.

You recognize that this is a dot matrix print on continuous form paper, an now far outdated technique of computer printout. The image on the paper is formed by evenly spaced dots of different widths and densities.

You see at the upper half of the paper the dots form the image of a white cloud, the word ‘CIRRUS’ in its center.

At the lower half of the paper you see the dots form the image of a hill, the words ‘FIELD PIECE’ spelled out across it in negative space. Both the cloud and the hill appear to you to be emanating some kind of atmosphere.

‘They’re trying to merge’, you think.

In the bottom left corner of the hill, written perpendicular to the horizon of the dot landscape, in characters the same height and width of the dots in the matrix, are the details of an exhibition: BARBARA TURNER SMITH 708 MANHATTAN PLACE LOS ANGELES (NR MELROSE & WESTERN) SEPT 9 THRU SEPT 27, 1971 HOURS: MON THRU SAT 10AM TO 4PM RECEPTION: THURS SEPT 9 8PM TO 10 PM

In the bottom righthand corner, in the same font as the exhibition details, you see the letters ‘RR’ and think, ‘... those must be initials.’ You think of the term ‘immaterial labor’ and decide you don’t quite know what that means.

Seth Price, Dispersion 2002, changing 20 page essay 8.5” x 11”

You open a booklet hanging from the wall and read:

...the uninvitingly “tomb-like” Conceptualism of the 1960s.

The definition of artistic activity occurs, first of all, in the field of distribution.

Marcel Broodthaers

You read about ‘authenticity’ as the objective of the record keeping of art works by the institutios of art. You read about the alternative ‘popular archive’ and a distribution that seeks a fractured and ‘horizontal’ existence for art works.

You read on. You read about the distribution of art works and art ideas.

You think about the manner in which the works you are experiencing in this exhibition are arriving in your proximity. You read:

Chris Burden, Untitled 1974, lithograph with hand-coloring 20” x 16”

An untitled print by Chris Burden shows you some handwriting and a photo of upturned palms. You walk closer to inspect it. You read the blue handwriting quietly to yourself: CHRIS — TOOK BUS TO WORK. CAN NOT DO NAILS. COULDN’T SLEEP. Below the words, centered horizontally, you see the photo. You look closer and see that the palms are upturned to show a fresh wound in each. You think it reminds you of the wounds of Christ and remember a performance by Burden called ‘TransFixed’ in which he was crucified on a VW Beetle. You think on the roles that text and photography have played in his actions. You wonder who wrote the note and who drove the nails through his hands when the writer could not.

The thin lithograph framed before you by a thin pane of glass is wider than it is tall. It has three simple elements.

The first, and most prominent by size, is a black halftone of two human eyes gazing off to your left, disregarding you. The second, and most prominent by color, is a hot pink rectangle censoring the bridge of the gazer’s nose with white text reading: YOU’RE RIGHT And third, locked below the hot pink strip is a green block with white text reading: AND YOU KNOW IT AND SO SHOULD EVERYONE ELSE

Barbara Kruger, You’re Right 2010, lithograph 9” x 24”

Ed Kienholz, For A Mitre Saw 1969, inkstamp and watercolor on woven paper 12” x 16”

You think of the distribution of the artist’s thoughts and the egoism and almost divinity implied therein. You suppose that any speech act is a mechanism to manifest the body of the speaker in some supreme manner superior to the arguably questionable physical presence of that body. You think this is pessimistic and you leave it at that.

On the wall you see a thin steel frame weathered and framing a work on watercolor paper. The work is about

the width of your shoulders when you were a child. There is a pale yellow wash striping the white plane of paper like a horizon. And on that, in a black handmade type of some antique style, you read: For A MITRE SAW ‘Like a price tag’, you think and you wonder about the commerce of artworks. You wonder how to draw an equivilancy between a mitre saw and this drawing before you.

Tyler Matthew Oyer, Marquee #68 2015, acrylic on canvas 46” x 26”

There on the wall in front of you is a painted canvas stretched on a frame. You think its about the size of a young boy. The picture plane shows you three graphic layers: a pitch black background, then a silhouette of a giant golden hand, then 5 lines of large white uppercase text. The golden hand is graphic yet ornate. It begins at the top from its wrist, haloed by a frilly golden sleeve. The golden wrist continues down the picture to the golden hand. The golden hand leads to golden fingers. The tip of each golden finger terminates in a golden

flower, and each of the flowers appear to be of a unique variety. You think that each finger bestows a unique character on the field. On top of the golden hand is the white text which reads: MINDR EBORN BYSKY THATI STORN And it takes you a moment to decifer but then recognize it reads as, ‘MIND

Guy de Cointet, A Lady and Two Popes 1978, ink on paper 25.5” x 40.125”

REBORN BY SKY THAT IS TORN’.

To you this reads like a line from a poem or a song. But then you remember the magic golden fingers of the golden hand and think the text is also like a spell.

You’re standing in front of a framed print of very thin lines on big white paper. The lines are a thicket of sharp angles and it appears to you that lines could be just one line crossing over itself many times at different angles.

‘But of course not, there are many endings,’ you think to yourself.

The small, handwritten caption at the bottom reads ‘A lady and two

popes’ and you think that sounds like the beginning of a joke. You see it’s also signed on the bottom-right, ‘Guy de Cointet’. The shape of the drawing looks to you like a block of text because of the way it finishes at the bottom like the last line of a paragraph. You remember those drawings of de Cointet that are like cryptographic poems and think, ‘This must be one of them’. You think about cryptography in your daily life... barcodes...passwords. You think of Bitcoin and the Silk Road...Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning.

David Hockney, Views of the Sea 1989, India ink, crayon, gouache, and uni-paint marker on paper 8 1/2” x 11” © David Hockney Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt

Two frames are on the wall in front of you side-by-side, each supporting two works on paper, one above the other. The top work of each frame is a moody blue-grey drawing on watercolor paper. The drawings are done in variety of materials: ink, guache, crayon and paint, and with an even greater variety of mark-making.

drawings above them. You feel that in the reproduction some emotion has been lost; they feel dead to you.

On the left edge of each facsimile is printed computer text reading perpendicular to the picture plane (the top of the letter-size copy paper).

You read the text from the facsimile of ‘Views of the Sea’:

The frame on the left is ‘Views of the Sea’ and indeed depicts something of an ocean scenario. ‘Maybe a beach’, you think, as you notice in the bottomright corner of the picture something that resembles a palm tree. The frame on the right is ‘Geometric Waves’ and indeed depict something of a cubist sea storm. The waves jut out of patterned seas as dramatic cones.

APR 27 ‘95 16:57 D H STUDIO

Below the drawings in each frame is a fascimile of the drawing above it of the same dimensions (letter). They are black-and-white doubles of the

You read the text from the facsimile of ‘Geometric Waves’: APR 27 ‘95 17:09 D H STUDIO ‘Twelve minues later,’ you think, and you can tell this text is the mark of a recieved telefax. You notice more than the loss of color in the facsimile, you and of weather systems.

David Hockney, Geometric Waves 1989, India ink, crayon, gouache, and uni-paint marker on paper 8 1/2” x 11” © David Hockney Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt

You sit down and on the table in front of you are a black computer keyboard and a black computer mouse and a modestly sized black computer monitor. Open onscreen is a blank Microsoft Word document titled: ‘OPEN FOR PAUL CHAN PIECE’. A sheet of paper on the table to the left of the keyboard tells you that installed on this computer are fonts designed

by Chan that transform any text into Sadean erotics. The selected font is ‘Oh Juliette’. You type, ‘Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes’, but the font causes the words to spell out something else: you sissy fuck me please christ oh god don’t stop, keep going fuck me so wet oh god please yes oh god don’t stop, harder more so wet yes more don’t stop, yes yes please harder yes harder harder yes yes more yes harder

You feel warm. You look over to your left and then back at the screen. You stand up from your chair and leave.

Paul Chan, Sade For Fonts Sake 2009, DVD containing a set of 21 computer fonts and a collection of digital artworks

Brice Bischoff, Night Drive 2014, projection on unique C-print mounted on sintra, neon burns, archival inkjet, aluminum, and UV lamination 55.5” x 13” x 52”

There is a large black steel frame on some wide stucco pedestal in the corner of the room. Streched within the frame is a kind of plastic screen or scrim with a few thin blue and yellow colored strokes gesturing across it.

‘They’re like spray paint’, you think, or some remainder of a photographic process.

On the floor by your feet, more toward the center of the room, is a small white pedestal with a

projector pointed toward the screen.

The projector is throwing a parade of greyscale images onto the screen in front of you. The images meander from left to right at different speeds and depths. The images are photographs from the street. You think how they are so reminiscent of the streets of Los Angeles, but that many streets in many cities could yield images like these. The way the projected images play with the colored strokes is very friendly as they crest and intersect.

Brice Bischoff, NIght Drive installation

Dennis Oppenheim, Ghost Trip 1976, 3 parts: offset printed photos, folded topographical map 30” x 111.5”

You see on the wall a triptych of large paper works framed in plexiglass. The one on the left: a rather blue bird’s eye photograph of terrain. On the second of the three panels you read black text on white: GHOST TRIP 1976. PROJECT PROPOSAL FOR: WESTERN UNITED STATES. DIMENSIONS: 400 FEET. MATERIALS: PLOWED EARTH. You think of the approximation of physical space in data...and the limitations of the documentation of art. The third panel of the triptych is a map and you wonder if it resembles at all the other two panels. You recall something from Borges, an introduction to a story maybe, that spoke something of a map so precise it became as large as the area it was meant to represent. You think you

remember something from Baudrillard that mentioned that verse but you quickly give up on remembering.

Hung before you is a photographic print, ‘about the size of a baby crib’, you think. The photograph depicts two silhouettes of the same human form, side-by-side, the right one half the size of the left. You recognize the silhouettes are of the discus thrower; the greek athlete posed at the peak of potential energy. Both silhouettes are lit by colored spotlights, circles of color defining the silhouettes form on the black background. One light is a powder green and the other is yellow and blue concentrically. To you they look like planets.

You check the title sheet for the material of the piece: Polaroid Sonnegram, and you recognize ‘sonne’ as the German for ‘sun’.

Eve Sonneman, Discus Thrower 1998, polaroid Sonnegram 20” x 24”

Kutluğ Ataman, Animated Words - Nothing 2003, looping digital video

You see a gently undulating flower of white calligraphy. You think that it isn’t a flower at all but two identical forms of 8-point symmetry perfectly overlapped and turning in opposite directions on a black background. The turning creates a sensation for you both seductive and repulsive. Each time the two forms align you feel a tightness in your chest. You continue to watch the hypnotic spinning forms and see that they are indeed calligraphy of Arabic or Islamic origin.

You think that even if you could read the characters you wouldn’t be able to decipher the text with them spiraling like this.

Siebren Versteeg, ANChORESs 2015, algorithmically generated image printed on canvas 60” x 90”

John Baldessari, Teaching a Plant the Alphabet 1972, digital video from B&W 8mm film Runtime - 18:40

A video monitor is on a white pedestal about the height of your waist.

Onscreen you see a black-and-white film is playing. Pictured in the frame in the foreground is a small potted house plant is set on a stool. You recognize this stool from CalArts. Just behind the plant you see Baldessari’s hand enter and leave the frame, each time holding a letter-size card with a letter from the English alphabet. He’s going through the alphabet in sequence and each time saying the name of the letter 10 or 15 times, and taking a brief pause between each letter.

‘It’s a futile excersize, teaching the alphabet to a houseplant’, you think.

You wonder if the transmission of ideas between discrete objects, be they persons or plants, is any use at all. You sense Baldessari had some playful frustration with effectiveness of language.

The painting on the wall is quite large - taller and wider than you, you think.

You can see that this painting is really a print on canvas. The telltale brush strokes of a digital brush. And you see collaged in the digital paint images of text and texture.

You think of fantasy and dragons but you don’t know why. Maybe its the fonts used in the collaged text, you think. One reminds you of Game of Thrones and the other of Medieval Times.

You remember that Versteeg has an algorithm for generating these paintings. You think of all the different possible iterations and you remember that infinity, like desire, is insatiable.

This Is Not A Connection YouTube Screenshots

The following are screenshots and links taken from a YouTube playlist curated for the exhibition.

Click on the highlighted links below to view the selected videos.

Chris Burden, TV Commercials 1973-1977 Published Dec. 11th, 2013 https://youtu.be/XelIqsYFu3I

Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Movie Published Sept. 27th, 2010 https://youtu.be/_2vjnBF_oXY

Frances Stark, One Question, Transcribing Gaga’s Telephone Published Feb. 12th, 2012 and Aug. 21st, 2010 https://youtu.be/ZJgc2T3MuSg https://youtu.be/rlnLtQ00zzs

Bruce Nauman, Performances 1968-1969 Published Mar. 5th, 2008 https://youtu.be/JXieUZ_RNG4

Michael Smith, Minimal Message Movement Published Jan. 17th, 2009 https://youtu.be/OggxOn-dtb8

Guy de Cointet, Espahor Ledet Ko Uluner!

Published Nov. 19th, 2013 https://youtu.be/e81_BwqT0hg

Gilbert and George, Art in the 1960s Published Jan. 14th, 2011 https://youtu.be/4xl6bAVQQDE

Suzanne Lacy, Gender Agendas Published Nov. 14th, 2014 https://youtu.be/TOd0B8KLRW4

Laurie Anderson, O Superman Published Mar. 9th, 2015 https://youtu.be/QH2x5pARGdE

Stan Vanderbeek, The Computer Generation Published Dec. 29th, 2011 https://youtu.be/mg_DowyLuT8

Martha Rosler, Semiotics of the Kitchen Published Jun. 3rd, 2012 https://youtu.be/Vm5vZaE8Ysc

Peter Campus, Three Transitions Published Feb. 27th, 2008 https://youtu.be/Ar99AfOJ2o8

Glen Ligon, AMERICA Published Feb. 27th, 2008 https://youtu.be/BiPk-rAZVV8

Mark Bradford, Super 8 Movies Published Mar. 12th, 2008 https://youtu.be/aN8o1-h9pY0

Paul Pfieffer, Art in the 21st Century Published Apr. 1st, 2008 https://youtu.be/tIj4IpTATLM

Jeff Koons, Legacy and Mortality Published Oct. 27th, 2015 https://youtu.be/uVJAqsC2uyM

This Is Not A Connection Website Links

The following are links to websites of additional interest to explore, curated for the exhibition

Cori Arcangel http://www.coryarcangel.com/ Art Metropole: No Internet No Art http://artmetropole.com/shop/12201 Kutluğ Ataman http://www.kutlugataman.com/site/main ASLAP is homage to John Cage composition “ORGAN2/ASLSP” (1987) http://www.aslongaspossible.com/ Badlands http://badlandsunlimited.com/ Cirrus Gallery Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cirrusgallery/ Petra Cortright http://www.petracortright.com/hello.html the Creators Project http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_us DIS Magazine (essay or link) http://dismagazine.com/ Eyebeam http://www.eyebeam.org/ Miranda July http://www.mirandajuly.com/ Daniel Lopatin http://wwwartnewscom/2015/11/04watchjonrafmananddaniellopatinsnewvideofor oneothrixpointnever/ Invaluable online auction platform http://www.artnews.com/2015/08/14/ thelaptopisgoingtoreplacethevelvetropeinvaluableceoonpartneringwithsothebys/ interglobal.vision http://treacheryofimag.es Messhof http://messhof.com/

Tom Moody https://www.tommoody.us/archives/2015/09/16/domenicoquarantaonsurfclubs/ Nasty Nets http://archive.rhizome.org/artbase/53981/nastynets.com/ New Museum http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/firstlookbrushes1\ Rhizome http://rhizome.org/ sEditions (digital desktop artÍž Jenny Holzer, RafaĂŤl Rozendaal, Yoko Ono, Tracy Emin, Bill Viola) http://www.seditionart.com/ photojojo online camera store https://photojojo.com/store/ Seth Price http://distributedhistory.com/ Andrew Schneider http://andrewjs.com/ Molly Soda http://mollysoda.tumblr.com/ Tromarama at the Stedalijk Museum http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/arts/design/ anartcollectivetakesoverstedelijksinstagramfeed.html?_r=0 Despina Stokou blog http://bpigs.com/blogs/despinastokou Telephone http://telephone.satellitecollective.org/ Useless Press http://uselesspress.org/ Siebren Versteeg http://www.siebrenversteeg.com/ William Wegman http://www.wegmanworld.com/videos

This Is Not A Connection Pricelist

Siebren Versteeg, ANChORESs 2015, algorithmically generated image printed on canvas 60” x 90” $15,000

Kutluğ Ataman, Animated Words - Nothing 2003, looping digital video Edition 2 of 6 + AP $46,000

Eve Sonneman, Discus Thrower 1998, polaroid Sonnegram 20” x 24”, Edition of 3 $15,000

Dennis Oppenheim, Ghost Trip 1976, 3 parts: offset printed photos, folded topographical map 30” x 111.5” $75,000

David Hockney, Geometric Waves 1989, India ink, crayon, gouache, and uni-paint marker on paper 8 1/2” x 11” © David Hockney Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt

David Hockney, Views of the Sea 1989, India ink, crayon, gouache, and uni-paint marker on paper 8 1/2” x 11” © David Hockney Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt

Brice Bischoff, Night Drive 2014, projection on unique C-print mounted on sintra, neon burns, archival inkjet, aluminum, and UV lamination 55.5” x 13” x 52” $5,500 Paul Chan, Sade For Fonts Sake 2009, DVD containing a set of 21 computer fonts and a collection of digital artworks Available for purchase through Amazon.com, $70

Ed Ruscha, Waves of Advancing Technology 1983, watercolor on paper 23” x 29” 001-89-ER NFS Miranda July, Somebody 2014, digital video made in conjuction with the app Runtime - 10:15 Courtesy of the artist and Miu Miu

Lee Mullican, Untitled (from Shatter Special) 1985, digital print produced on an early personal computer, IBM 5170 PC AT in a lab at UCLA from 1982-1988 22.375” x 24” Exhibition proof, courtesy of the Lee Mullican estate Despina Stokou, Recently Used #8892 2015, charcoal and collage on linen 72” x 48” $16,000

Ida Applebroog, But I Wasn’t There: A Performance 1979, 3 book examples (“I Mean It”, “You’ll See”, and “Say Something”) 7.75” x 6.25” each 003-81-IA Cirrus Archive copy, NFS

Suzanne Lacy, Anatomy Lesson no 1: Chickens Coming Home to Roost (For Rose Mountain and Pauline) 1975-1976, postcards from video performance 4 parts: 5” x 7” each

Eleanor Antin, 100 Boots 1971-1973, halftone reproductions on 51 cards 7 examples: 4.5” x 7” each Cirrus Archive copy, NFS

Kim Jones, Mud Man: Performance Stills 1981, mimeograph on paper 4 parts: 8.5” x 11” each Cirrus Archive Copy, NFS

This Is Not A Connection Pricelist (cont.)

Bruce Nauman, Raw War 1971, lithograph 22.5” x 28.25”, Edition of 100 004-71-BR Cirrus Archive proof, NFS

Eddo Stern, Vietnam Romance 2015, video game presenting a fictionalized history of the Vietnam War in a culturally commodified mash-up told in 9 sequences Courtesy of the artist, NFS

Guy de Cointet, A Lady and Two Popes 1978, ink on paper 25.5” x 40.125” NFS

Tyler Matthew Oyer, Marquee #68 2015, acrylic on canvas 46” x 26” 071-15-TO $5,500

Barbara Kruger, You’re Right 2010, lithograph 9” x 24”, Edition of 200 001-10-BK NFS

Ed Kienholz, For A Mitre Saw (From a series of works by the artist used as “trade”) 1969, inkstamp and watercolor on woven paper 12” x 16” 001-69-EK $10,000 Chris Burden, Untitled 1974, lithograph with hand-coloring 20” x 16” 169c-CB74 Cirrus Archive Proof, NFS

Seth Price, Dispersion 2002, changing 20 page essay from his web page, distributedhistory, and originally concieved in NYC for the exhibition Free (curated by Bettina Fincke) 8.5” x 11”

Barbara T. Smith, Field Piece 1971, Early tele-type computer print-out programmed with IBM punch-cards to create an image used as mailer for her show at the original Cirrus Gallery 15” x 11” Cirrus Archive proof, NFS John Baldessari, Teaching a Plant the Alphabet 1972, digital video from B&W 8mm film of the same, complete with sound Runtime - 18:40 Exhibition only, archive copy courtesy of EAI

interglobal.vision, Treachery of Images (Michael Ray-Von, Carlos Solares, and Patrick Best) 2015, Text-based adventure game cataloguing exhibition The game can be played at treacheryofimag.es

Contact: Jean R. Milant Gallery Hours Tues-Sat, 10am-5pm www. cirrusgallery.com • cirrus@cirrusgallery.com CONTEMPORARY PAINTING AND SCULPTURE • PUBLISHERS OF FINE ART GRAPHICS 2011 South Santa Fe Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90021 • T 213.680.3473

Artist text courtesy of Michael Ray-Von Exhibition opening images courtesy of Michael Jiroch “Views of the Sea” and “Geometric Waves” images courtesy of David Hockney Inc. and Richard Schmidt For more information visit www.cirrusgallery.com

Cirrus 2015-2016

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