BLUE-SKY THINKING CURATED BY COREY OBERLANDER & LINDSEY STAPLETON
SPRING/BREAK ART SHOW MARCH 1-7, 2016 ROOM 4104 360 W. 33RD SREET, NEW YORK SPRINGBREAKARTSHOW.COM
BLUE-SKY THINKING CURATED BY COREY OBERLANDER & LINDSEY STAPLETON PIPER BRETT SHAMUS CLISSET SANDRA ERBACHER SCOTT LAWRENCE CLARK MCLEAN GRAHAM EDDIE VILLANUEVA GRINPROVIDENCE.COM
BLUE-SKY THINKING CURATED BY COREY OBERLANDER & LINDSEY STAPLETON PIPER BRETT SHAMUS CLISSET SANDRA ERBACHER SCOTT LAWRENCE CLARK MCLEAN GRAHAM EDDIE VILLANUEVA Employing appropriated found object, image, and installation accoutrements, artists offer new works taunting repetitive norms of our day-to-day prescribed present
culture.
Blue-Sky
Curators Thinking,
Corey
Oberlander
surveying
and
suburban
Lindsey
Stapleton
disenchantment
in
two
distinct environments. Emphasizing the pre-existing architecture in Moynihan Station, works by Sandra Erbacher, Scott Lawrence, and Shamus Clisset are placed in the setting
of
copy/paste pressed
the
pencil
holding
trousers
pusher;
cell, and
the
the
office.
paperweights,
clock
puncher;
Complete this
with
portion
of
in
the
cubicles, Blue-Sky
daytime flat
files,
Thinking
critiques an eye-rolling cycle for many, the nine-to-five. On all walls, photographs by Sandra Erbacher present mundane functional objects reproduced and re-contextualized as standard stock photography. Her large-format prints monumentalize both the object and the imagined lore behind the object's alteration. Monument, a 4x6 foot photograph of a cactus, employs stock image style-guides to present the item as an institutional object rather than a personal plant. In spite of the imposing scale and phallic form, any potential importance carried by the image is undermined by a sense of banality and pathos of the format. An avocado-colored phone sits quietly alongside the looming photographs. When
the receiver is picked up, a stream of emotionless and dutiful words spew out of the earpiece. Likening the tone to a fictitious official, much like
the
character
of
Gerd
Wiesler
in
the
movie
The
Lives
of
the
Others, Erbacher uses her voice as part of an on-going investigation into language as a system through which ideologies can be established, perpetuated, and undermined. Scott Lawrence approaches minimalism by appropriating everyday objects into cheeky, yet sophisticated sculptures. In the series Pants Sculptures, store-bought pants are stretched over flat, geometric frameworks and displayed as sculptures. In Lawrence's hands, pants become a skin, stretched to their limits and re-objectified in works whose appearance can range from the hopelessly clumsy to the positively elegant - somewhere between high-minded Minimalism and dive-bar joke.
In the corner
lies Folded Chair, the casualty of the artist "misunderstanding the concept" and steadfastly bending a metal chair in the wrong direction. Shamus Clisset presents digital animations presented on computer monitors as screen savers on loop, created with 3D renders of images found through a casual internet search. Combining, altering, and erasing these renders to compose his animations, Clisset gives his compositions character, purpose and tone. The pieces in Blue-Sky Thinking are simultaneously wrought with boredom and violence. In an isolated area nearby, works by Eddie Villanueva, Piper Brett, and Clark Mclean Graham confront the often mundane wake of the work day; where past-times become binding contracts devoid of sincere enjoyment. When TV Guide is the honest-to-goodness truth and the answer for "what do you want to do tonight?" falls short. By juxtaposing familiar domestic
articles
typically
associated
with
elation,
the
artists
instead
pose unsettling scenarios. A coin-operated guitar sits atop a repurposed grocery store kiddie ride, functioning as the centerpiece for the room. Energized by a single quarter, the guitar lunges into action playing the self-actualized drone of The Beatles; Tomorrow Never Knows, the seminal masterpiece and closing track of Revolver. The song is a single prolonged C-chord with
reverse tape loops and Ringo's constant drumbeat. The lyrics; based on passages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In close proximity, a series of mirrors are plastered with silhouetted pop-culture icons. Pulling directly from the branded merchandise mirrors of the 1980's; Villanueva's versions are stark and devoid of color. Clark McLean Graham works primarily as a collagist, fabricating physical and digital montages in an attempt to create contemporary relics with nods to suburban pop culture. Making time-based minimalist works utilizing mundane, easily forgettable moments, the artist creates a subjective, and subversive world. The Smooch presents side-by-side found clips of a
vintage
film
couple
engaging
in
a
never-ending
monotonous
kiss,
accompanied by an organ and heavy breathing. Piper Brett's The Pool is spread over much of the floor. Brett includes a crudely inflated basketball with a metal handle. A working replica of Manneken Pis by HiĂŤronymus Duquesnoy slowly urinates into a tote of water at the top of a workman's stool. Brett uses these objects to recreate a nostalgic, yet begrudged memory-scape reminding her of the indifferent days in the neighborhood, poolside.
PIPER BRETT Piper Brett is an artist based in Philadelphia and holds a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. “I make artwork that details aspects of my personal history and experiences in a non linear format by way of sculpture, appropriated photography and cell phone videos. "Punctum" is a term used by the French Philosopher and Photographer Roland Barthes to describe being psychically pierced by an image. Punctum is the lasting effect the image has on one’s psyche, which is an emotional agitation that sticks in the mind. I often feel connected to an object or image that in turn serves as a reference to my past. Being pierced means not being able to shake the image, object or idea from my mind. The resulting synthesis is heavy in symbolism, dry humor, song titles, pornographic ephemera, film and literature references.” piperbrett.com
CLARK MCLEAN GRAHAM Clark Mclean Graham works primarily as a collagist, fabricating physical and digital montages in an attempt to create modern day relics with nods to American pop culture and consumerism. His current body of work draws heavily from Freud’s idea of “repetiition compulsion”. Revisiting imagery he was involuntarily subjected to as a child, Graham creates time based minimalist video collages utilizing mundane, easily forgettable moments to create a subjective, and subversive world that feels familiar and safe. On the surface these pieces serve as time based wall decor or video vignettes that are suited to the average attention span of the MTV generation. clarkmcleangraham.com
SHAMUS CLISSET Shamus Clisset lives and works in Hell’s Kitchen, NY. FakeShamus is a sort of imaginary-friend character who lives and explores these alternate realities - a digital golem wreaking havoc on everything around him. He morphs from scene to scene, melding with objects of my own mental obsessions and personal history: the Lamborghini Countach that I drew compulsively as a kid; the nature and suburban landscapes of my upbringing in Colorado; Bazooka subwoofers that I lusted after even before I owned a car to put them in; the aesthetics of beer, guns and violence. fakeshamus.com
SANDRA ERBACHER Sandra Erbacher’s latest works examine the institutional as an abstract, formless, and bureaucratic entity. The objects incorporated in her work, whether photographic or sculptural in form are typically found within an institutional setting: an ordinary office plant, cream-coloured carpeting, a standard beige box fan, or a uniform, avocado green wall-mounted telephone. The sole purpose of the existence of these objects seems to be to organize human activity, to maximize efficiency, maintain order and thus aid in the imposition of a rule-based hierarchical system of rational control. What happens though, if said objects refuse to conform to their standard mode of operation? This is the question at the heart of Erbacher’s inquiry. Her objects are activated through material interventions and, as a result, display a rebelliousness that could potentially pose a threat to the institutional order: A carpet covering a gallery wall with an anarchy symbol shaved into its fibres; a larger-than-life photograph of a small box fan filled with concrete; and an HVAC system that emits a muffled version of Roxette’s ‘Dangerous’. Instead of promoting an efficient work-flow, Erbacher s objects are unruly. They break down, become dysfunctional and fail to fulfil their purpose. Yet it is exactly their failure that holds their potential to subvert the systems and structures they are supposed to perpetuate from within. Sandra Erbacher is a German artist living and working in Providence, RI. She has earned her BFA from Camberwell College of Art, London (2009) and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2014). Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Mana Contemporary Chicago, Circuit 12 Contemporary, Dallas, The Contemporary, London, Kunstverein Speyer, Germany, Umbrella Gallery, Leeds, and Five Years, London. She is the recipient of the 2014 Chazen Prize to an Outstanding MFA Student, a University of Wisconsin fellowship and the Blink Grant for Public Art 2013 awarded by the city of Madison. She is represented by GRIN in Providencece, RI. sandraerbacher.com
SCOTT LAWRENCE Scott Lawrence's work suggests a dialectics of poetics at odds with the practical. Lawrence manipulates and illustrates common objects and materials, through careful attention and experimentation invests them with both a winsome humor and traces of a seemingly crushing burden. Scott Lawrence (b. 1975) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Providence, RI and Brooklyn, NY. He holds an MFA from the School of Visual Arts (NY), a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art (GA) and a B. Arch. From Auburn University (AL). In 2002 he co-founded the award-winning Atlanta art collective Dos Pestaneos. His work has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, Art Papers Magazine, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the book Architectural Inventions: Visionary Drawings of Buildings (Matt Bua and Maximilian Goldfarb, 2012). His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in venues such as Interstate Projects (NY), NURTUREart (NY), Bullet Space (NY), Jen Bekman Gallery (NY), Fosdick Nelson Gallery at Alfred University, Mass MoCA, Saltworks (Atlanta), Transient Projects (Paris), Brain Factory (Seoul), and Mastul e.V. (Berlin). He was included in Memphis Social in association with New York's Apex Art, and in the Brucennial, in association with the Bruce High Quality Foundation. His work can be found in White Columns' Artist Registry and at www.scottlawrencestudio.com.
EDDIE VILLANUEVA Eddie Villanueva (b.1983, Milwaukee) received his B.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work has been featured at the SCOPE Art Fair, Miami, and in Global Positioning System at the School of Visual Arts, New York, the North American Graduate Art Survey at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Minneapolis, and the Wisconsin Triennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. He received a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant in 2012, and a Mary L. Nohl Emerging Artist Fellowship in 2013. He has taught at UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Richland. Villanueva is currently teaching at Brown University. "My work operates within an expanded field of inquiry into socially and culturally sanctioned versions of a hetero-normative masculinity. I explore the formation of my own gender identity by mining my personal history as a collection of events, experiences, thoughts, and lessons that have had a profound formative effect on the development of my sense of self; this embodied and emotionally complex sense of self often stands in sharp contrast with external cultural conventions and expectations of manhood found in the social realm. I am interested in the ways by which male identity manifests itself both publicly and privately. How gender, and in my case male gender, is performed and how a chasm between the personal experience and the cultural creation and sanctioning of gender identity can lead to a sense of double consciousness or personal rift within one’s sense of self. Subjects addressed in my work include emotional vulnerability, violence, control, sexuality, legacy, social hierarchies, and childhood development. Early on, I explored these subjects through abstract painting and installation, but more recently my attention has shifted away from creating emotionally charged physical spaces, to examining the literal signifiers of my lived experiences, the objects and media that trigger memories and associations. My media interests have expanded to include sculpture, found objects, performance, audio and video, programming, and new technologies. Through my work, I am questioning established patriarchal gender hierarchies through the lens of my own fractured and multi-faceted experience of masculinity as embedded within the broader socio-cultural realm. In my self exploration, I present points of reflection for the largely hidden phenomenological reality of the secret lives of men." -Eddie Villanueva (website) eddievillanueva.com
LISTED WORKS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE SANDRA ERBACHER LADY 50x36 IN ARCHIVAL INKJET PRINT 2016 SCOTT LAWRENCE PANTS SCULPTURE IV 18X19X36 IN PANTS, WOOD 2009 PIPER BRETT FOUNTAIN VARIABLE DIMENSIONS FAUX STONE, RESIN, REPLICA OF THE MANEKEN PIS FOUNTAIN BASIN, STOOL, PUMP AND WATER 2014 PIPER BRETT GOLDEN STAR 29X29 IN BASKETBALL, HANDLE, SCREWS 2014 PIPER BRETT MISTY IN AMSTERDAM CELL PHONE PICTURE OF A COMPUTER SCREEN ONLINE IMAGE SEARCH FOR MISTY RAIN, TRANSPARENCY PAPER 8X6 IN 2015 SHAMUS CLISSET KNIFEWORK VARIABLE DIMENSIONS GIF 2015 SHAMUS CLISSET COUNTERTOP BANISHING RITUAL VARIABLE DIMENSIONS GIF 2015 CLARK MCLEAN GRAHAM THE SMOOCH VARIABLE DIMENSIONS SINGLE CHANNEL VIDEO 2015
SANDRA ERBACHER HUM 9.5x5.5x5.5 IN ROTARY PHONE, SOUND EQUIPMENT 2014 SANDRA ERBACHER CTRL ALT DEL 22X42 IN ARCHIVAL INKJET PRINT 2015 SANDRA ERBACHER MONUMENT 43X460 IN ARCHIVAL INKJET PRINT 2014 SCOTT LAWRENCE FOLDING CHAIR VARIABLE DIMENSIONS SINGLE CHANNEL VIDEO 2012 SCOTT LAWRENCE PANTS SCULPTURE VII 30X24.5X18 IN PANTS, WOOD 2009 SCOTT LAWRENCE PANTS SCULPTURE VI 17X34X34 IN PAINTED PANTS, WOOD 2009 EDDIE VILLANUEVA GUITAR VARIABLE DIMENSIONS GUITAR 2015 EDDIE VILLANUEVA MIRRORS 1-8 12X12 IN ACRYLIC ON MIRROR 2015
ABOUT THE CURATORS Corey Oberlander and Lindsey Stapleton are independent curators as well as the founders and directors of GRIN. GRIN is a contemporary art gallery located at The Plant in the historic Olneyville District of Providence, Rhode Island. Directed by Corey Oberlander and Lindsey Stapleton, GRIN was founded in 2013 as a space for artists to develop and exhibit their work with a steady curatorial hand. Our intent is to develop an intellectually demanding yet aesthetically pleasing program, focusing on emerging artists working across mediums. Our hope is to stimulate fresh dialogue while continuing to promote the development of the local creative community. Our mission is to support the careers of underexposed artists with a devotion to craft and conceptual advancement. coreyoberlander.com lindseystapleton.com grinprovidence.com
CONTACT 60 Valley Street, Unit 3, Providence, Rhode Island 02909 e. contact@grinprovidence.com p. 401 272 0796 Open Saturdays 12PM - 5PM by announcement, appointment and chance.
www.springbreakartshow.com