Internationally-known photography icon Larry Fink will give a free gallery talk on Saturday, February 19 at 11 a.m. at the Sheldon Art Galleries in conjunction with the exhibit, Larry Fink: Attraction and Desire – 50 Years in Photography. This overview of work by Fink includes over 120 photographs spanning his 50-year career and runs through May 21.

Visit www.thesheldon.org for more details about this major retrospective.

Jeremy Sigler is the type of person many students of the arts want to be when they “grow up”. If you don’t know much about him, learning about his extensive work in contemporary art and poetry definitely compells broad admiration. Having received his BFA from the University of Pennsylvania and his MFA in sculpture from the University of California, Los Angeles, Sigler has made a career out of crafting experimental work in multiple genres, earning him the position of Lecturer in sculpture at Yale University. Artists in the academic realm do not always cross over into the public sphere, but Sigler makes a consistent point of it, most recently with a two-page, malleable clay journal called Rational/Irrational, installed in the bookstore café of MoMA’s P.S. 1.

Sigler is also an artist with words, bridging the realms of prose and poetry. He has published four books: To and To (Left Hand Books, 1998), Mallet Eyes (Left Hand Books, 2000), Led Almost by my Tie (with Jessica Stockholder, Ruth Lingen Editions, 2007), and Math (Ubuweb Editions, 2008). In addition to publishing his most recent book, Crackpot Poet, with The Brooklyn Rail (Black Square Editions), Sigler also contributes regularly to the monthly journal as a columnist. In a recent interview with poet and novelist Eileen Myles, the two writers bonded over their common love of the film and novel Being There and how writing poetry is like releasing a valve (read full interview here).

Tomorrow evening at 8 PM, Jeremy will be reading his own humorous poetry at White Flag, to compliment the current exhibition Time Wounds All Heels, an examination of humor’s potential effect on form and perception.

For more information about tomorrow’s event, our current show and other upcoming programs and events at White Flag, visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

What may seem like a mere supplement for the lack of gallery visibility from external view, White Flag Projects’ vinyl banners were initially produced to hide the street-facing garage door. Slowly evolving from a witty, ad-hoc solution that functioned as an oversized poster – including text to advertise events and exhibitions – the banner now operates as a public art initiative, enlisting artists to create new work within the 13 x 13′ space.

The banner’s transformation into an art object began with the 2009 exhibition FX3, when the banner revisited the most memorable bikini scene in cinema history, presenting an enlarged, cropped film still of Phoebe Cates just before unclasping her red bikini top. Themes and scenes from the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High were appropriated in fragmentary distillation as images to promote the third iteration of the Fast Times student exhibition series. Introducing the banner as public art, the provocative image at once became a platform for controversy as it elicited several complaints from the local government and members of a nearby senior living home. In an attempt to quell complaints, a citation was made against White Flag Projects but ultimately failed as an insufficient case of impropriety.

The second “fine art” banner was created for the exhibition Destroy All Monsters: Hungry for Death. Celebrating 1970s Detroit-based noise band, White Flag showcased items culled from the collective’s large archive. The exhibition’s banner, a recreation of an original collage by Jim Shaw, displayed a highly graphic image of Charles Manson’s face against a winsome blue and cloudy sky, with the text “Love means never having to say you’re sorry – Erich Legal, Love Story”. Juxtaposing the tagline of the popular 1970 melodrama with the image of the notorious 60s counterculture cult leader and serial killer generated both emotional and volatile responses from viewers. One evening at the building’s entrance, Matt Strauss recalls the angered reaction of a middle-aged woman drawing her knife in an agitated state of rage at the sight of Charles Manson. The lady showed ready signs of slashing the banner with her weapon, but was eventually calmed, as Matt assured her that a member of the arts collective would gladly answer any questions she had about the banner’s content if she attended the exhibition’s opening – thus redirecting her wrath.

In September 2010, the New York-based artist Garth Weiser produced a new painting as the banner for his solo exhibition. Starting with a blank square of white vinyl, Weiser rendered in water-soluble media a new work his highly graphic practice of geometric abstraction. Originally designed as a time-based piece that would erode from wind and precipitation, the blue acrylic paint remained steadfast, not bleeding into the white areas or disintegrating as Weiser anticipated. Thus the banner now remains a lasting piece from Weiser’s show, accompanying the his two other works exploring temporal effects.

In the following group exhibition, Which Witch is Which? and/or Summertime, artist Tamar Halpern created two original works using the exhibition banner as a template – producing one for the gallery floor and the other, titled See No Evil, for its usual spot at the building’s exterior. Resisting strict formal categorizations, Halpern presented the banner as a sculptural art object. For both works, Halpern printed a black and white image onto the banners’ surface, leaving a border of blank white vinyl instead of covering the whole area. This gesture plays against the banner’s parameters, asserting the work’s pictorial value while calling attention to the banner’s physical presence, material and form. The placement of Untitled on the gallery floor re-iterated this experience as viewers were allowed to walk across the work, as image and material exchanged roles.

Loosely constructed around ways in which humor informs art, the group exhibition Time Wounds All Heels presents the banner as an original artwork in a piece by Adam McEwen. Currently on view, McEwen’s banner enlarges publicly what was once a much more private, virtual form of exchange –a text message. In a practice that focuses heavily on society’s perception of human progress, this work emerges from McEwen’s collection of text messages sent from friends, as he refigures them into framed works on paper – or in this case, in a work on vinyl. Untitled Text Msg (Vicodin), an inkjet print on vinyl, displays a reproduced image of a private caller’s text to McEwan’s cell phone: “Hey happy new year. Do u know anyone I can buy vicodin from?”. This work, along with others from the text message series, upsets the banal and the familiar by thrusting it into a context with an unaccustomed degree of public exposure – i.e. the highly trafficked, municipal route of Manchester Boulevard.

The transformation of White Flag Project’s banner into an art object is traced along a natural line of collaboration between the curatorial and the art practice. No longer a means to merely advertise exhibitions, the banner is now property of several artists’ bodies of work. Whether facing the busy thoroughfare on the building’s exterior or within the gallery space, the banner has become absorbed as a signature fixture of White Flag Projects’ programming.

Time Wounds All Heels is open through Saturday, February 26, 2011. For more information about this exhibition and other upcoming programs and events at White Flag, please visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

The last few weeks at Laumeier have been a duel between incandescent warm and bone-chilling cold.  The cold of course is the 105 acres of frozen tundra that has become territory for the brave and adventurous.  The warmth has been the increasing luminescence in the indoor galleries as Chief Preparator Nick Lang and crew have been installing ten quirky sculptures by Jessica Stockholder, most of which radiant warmth and light when their tail-like electrical cords are plugged into the wall.

On Saturday, February 12, Laumeier Sculpture Park will host the opening reception for Jessica Stockholder: Grab grassy this moment your I’s.  If you love contemporary art, if you enjoy sculpture, if you want to see a lamp, a coffee cup, a shower curtain or a music stand in an entirely new way—don’t miss this exhibition!  The parking lot and sidewalks are plowed, the sun is supposed to be shining so get out of the house and come inside the galleries for a great show and good times.  The member’s preview and artist talk begins at 4 PM with the public reception running from 5-7 PM.

With generous support from Alison and John Ferring, Laumeier, in collaboration with TOKY Branding + Design, St. Louis has produced an artist’s book that pairs images of Stockholder’s work with interpretive poems by St. Louis poet Mary Jo Bang.  You can purchase this unique publication on Saturday and have both the artist and poet sign your copy.

Time Wounds All Heels makes the audience reconsider the purpose and creation of the works that it features. Upon first glance at the gallery space, one immediately questions the unity of the ecclectic pieces presented, but upon closer examination, the link becomes clear: duplicity.

A prime example of this is Do The Right Thing, 2009 by Donelle Woolford. The piece is composed of different pieces of wood put together like a puzzle. Each piece of wood has a different thickness than the one adjacent to it, making this work more of a relief sculpture than a traditionally hung rectangular composition. What makes Woolford’s work so interesting is that it is actually the product of a fictional character created by the artist Joe Scanlan, who hires actresses to play the role of Donelle. After completing a number of wood assemblages, like the one included in Time Wounds All Heels, Scanlan felt that they did not fit within his body of work; hence, he decided to invent the alternate persona of Donelle Woolford – a young African-American female who harnesses aspects of her cultural identity to create abstract compositions. In hiring an actress to claim responsibility for the works, Scanlan makes us question the importance of artistic ownership and the role of personal identity in informing a given artwork.

The Spanish-born artist Jaime Pitarch’s Theory of Evolution, 2009 also fits perfectly into the exhibition’s exploration of duplicity. This spiral arrangement of household cleaning products on the floor of the gallery immediately catches the viewer off guard and makes one question how cleaning products can be considered art. I walked around the piece for a while before I decided to look up its name. Then it hit me: Theory of Evolution was an arrangement of cleaning products that chronicle the creation of the earth, plant, animals, and mankind. Beginning with Big Bang, the spiral finds its end with Mr. Clean.

Finally, Adam McEwen’s Untitled (Richard), 2007 is a fake obituary written for the artist Richard Prince. The odd thing is, Prince is not deceased. This faux chronicle of Prince’s life makes the viewer question McEwen’s intent when he created the work. McEwen exemplifies again how multiple meanings can inhabit the same piece. What the underlying social critique of Untitled is, I am not able to tease out; but, perhaps there is no neat punch-line in this, or any of the displayed artworks.

Time Wounds All Heels is currently on view through Saturday, February 26. For more information about this exhibition and other upcoming programs at White Flag, please visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

SPRING 2011 OPENING CELEBRATION
Friday, January 28
Member Preview: 6-7 pm
Public Opening: 7-9 pm

Plan to stop by the Kemper Art Museum for this special event to get the first look at our newest exhibitions while enjoying light refreshments and a cash bar. RSVP on Facebook and invite your friends! >>

EXHIBITION DETAILS
Ghost: Elizabeth Peyton
Luis Camnitzer: Foreword and Last Words
Island Press: Three Decades of Printmaking
in the Teaching Gallery: Dada and Surrealism: Rethinking Reason

RELATED EVENT
Artist Dialogue with Elizabeth Peyton
Saturday, January 29
11 am, Steinberg Auditorium
more info >>

Ruckus Roboticus, “Here We Go” (Live), Grease Records

This Saturday is the closing of Ann Hamilton’s stylus, and there’s a lot on the schedule for the day. For one thing, Ruckus Roboticus, a deejay and performer, will be playing grown-up-friendly children’s music from 1pm to 3:30pm. Below are some words from Chris DeVille, a writer and fan, about the bot and what to expect on Saturday.

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Ruckus Roboticus is an entertainer of many stripes, and he’ll show most of them Saturday when he plays the closing reception for Ann Hamilton’s stylus.

“Play” is the operative word whenever Ruckus steps behind his extensive technological rig. The Dayton native, born Dan Haug, brings a youthful zest to his work, from his award-winning DJ mixes to his production work for TV networks such as Nickelodeon and MTV.

Then there’s “Playing With Scratches”, his 2008 debut album for Grease Records. The album found Haug building funky sound collages to tell a story about the wonder and confusion of childhood-think Girl Talk with more obscure samples but just as much playful ingenuity.

His cartoonish flair captivated kids but also struck a chord with grown-ups-everyone from Spin to NPR piled on the accolades, and stars like Bloc Party and Vampire Weekend lined up for remixes…--Chris DeVille

Read the rest of this post at 2buildings1blog.

White Flag’s upcoming exhibition, Time Wounds All Heels, features a black and white photograph, which you can view here, by the artist Jane Hammond, titled “October First (Mom’s Birthday)”—and, indeed, it is a picture taken on the artist’s mother’s birthday, in her mother’s living room. You have the family present, as on any other birthday (the artist herself is in the background), you have balloons, you have an ordinary living room in which you can see stuffed chairs and a boxy television set, and…you also have a young woman, situated front and center, who sits in one of the armchairs and lifts her pantyhose-clad legs to expose her vagina. What kind of a birthday is this, you ask? The most natural one in the world.

In 2002, nearly 600 Nigerian women staged protests against petroleum pollution in their country by threatening to do as the woman in Hammond’s photo does – expose their genitals, that is. This threat had serious leverage in a region that responds to the “Curse of Nakedness,” which promises shame and harm to men who view female strangers’ naked bodies, especially married and elderly women. Anthropologist Terisa Turner explains,

“We all come into the world through the vagina. By exposing the vagina, the women are saying: ‘We are hereby taking back the life we gave you.’ It’s about bringing forth life and denying life through social ostracism, which is a kind of social execution. Men who are exposed are viewed as dead. No one will cook for them, marry them, enter into any kind of contract with them or buy anything from them.” (Source.)

Is this the ultimate form of female empowerment? Reclaiming the vagina from its sexual connotations and putting it to use as a political weapon? Or does it just reinforce possibly harmful taboos?

Like these Nigerian women, the woman in the photo exercises complete agency – she is in control of her body and her sexuality. She is the one telling the inappropriate joke at the dinner table. “Birthday,” she says, “Get it? Birth day.” She is the visual equivalent of a good pun – explicitly, painfully obvious but knowingly sophisticated. Sexuality, birth, pleasure, femininity, domesticity—these are all overlapping spheres that influence and interact with each other. And when they’re all present at once and made explicit, this reality can provoke our discomfort. She rocks the boat in the otherwise placid waters of domesticity.

Like any lady comedian, she makes a joke out of the elephant in the room—her very lady-ness. Though she has two things in common – her anatomy, and her determined control of it – with the Nigerian women, her mission couldn’t be more different: to make light of “the source of all things,” and to expose it for what it is and all it really is.

The opening reception for Time Wounds All Heels take place at this Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 7 PM. For more information about this exhibition and other upcoming programs at White Flag, please visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

It’s difficult to dig under the sheen of colored Plexiglas. You may scratch at its surface, tap it, and click your nails against its brilliant color, but still fail to uncover a point of entry. In Liam Gillick’s work, reticence of this nature is the point. Though it’s hard to deny the formal beauty of his objects, Gillick’s ambition lies not in the allure of their pristine surfaces but in the discourse surrounding them.

Gillick is an artist, critic, architect, designer, and writer, and his creative output reflects the synthesis of these roles. In addition to his signature Plexiglas sculptures, he creates installations of sculptural text, such as this one for his show Literally (with Projects 79) at the Museum of Modern Art:

These text works introduce a certain kind of discourse into the gallery space and remind viewers of the significant body of writing Gillick has produced in his ongoing examination of social structures and ideologies.

Gillick’s work is known for its evasive maneuvers, which shun singular interpretations in favor of opening up new avenues of thought. In 1848!!! (2010), a collaborative film recorded for No More Presence at the invitation of curator Ajay Kurian (organizer of White Flag’s current show, of which Gillick is also a part), the viewer sees the narrator address someone off-screen, but her words are made inaudible by the soundtrack of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. A paper banner displays the transcript of the narration, which relays the revolutionary historical events that took place in Europe in the late 1890s; but viewers are left to puzzle-out the unstated association. This maneuvering of relationships and shifting of content creates ambiguity within apparent historical and ideological authority.

Art, according to Gillick, is “a convenient term for a mid-space location,” and a “mid-space” is exactly the space he sets up for viewers. His work received a retrospective, entitled Three perspectives and a short scenario (2009-10), at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Gillick was also a representative artist for the German Pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale. White Flag’s current exhibit, Which Witch is Which? and/or Summertime, curated by Ajay Kurian, includes a collaborative film of Liam Gillick’s, which is on view until December 18.

Vicinato 2 (made in collaboration with Douglas Gordan, Carsten Holler, Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, and Rirkrit Tiravanija) opens with a nighttime shot of Monte Carlo and a robotic narrator. The developing “narrative”, which consists of shots of the four friends conversing and occasional scenes of the city, is based on a conversation between the film collaborators. “When you feel good, you are more likely to speculate and less likely to plan,” says the the robot narrator, while one of the friends states, “Real change is right in front of your eyes. You’re just not lazy enough to see it. You have to be drunk, I guess.” The video piece introduces theoretical discourse into the space, functioning much as Gillick’s text pieces do. In this way, past ideologies float next to more present ways of thinking, in a seemingly endless open-ended dialogue.

Which Witch is Which? and/or Summertime is on view through Saturday, December 18.  For more information about this exhibit and other events at White Flag, please visit www.whiteflagprojects.org.

On view thru November 28, 2010, the exhibition at the Front Room, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, presents an installation of the Belgium-based organization, Agency, alongside a series of photographs by Miriam Böhm.

Agency, the invention of Kobe Matthys, serves as a platform for highly systematic investigations that make formal inquiry into issues of authorship, copyright, and intellectual property. Existing as a compendium amassed and catalogued by Matthys, Agency gathers facts, subjects, objects, collectives, humans and non-humans to perform speculations and conduct Agency’s exhibitions. In this installation, titled Assembly, Agency displays evidence for the copyright infringement of a certain artist’s renderings of Place des Terreaux – Fontaine Bartholdi et Hôtel de Ville, wherein dubious distribution was enacted. “Thing 001408 (Lyone (Rhône)” bears witness in the Front Room, as testament to the problematic events that take place in the realm of artistic property.

Miriam Böhm, Berlin-based artist, presents a series of recent photographs that, like Agency’s Assembly, demonstrate shifting events of perspective. Böhm’s process begins with photographing marble slabs and faux marble paintings, followed by staging the prints against a textured backdrop, which she then re-photographs – producing a different image altogether. The work emerges, much like the marble slab itself, as a layered tablet of materiality – a compression of pictorial illusion, revealing the limitations of representation.

Image Credits:

Agency & Miriam Böhm, Installation in The Front Room, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2010. Photos by Alex Elmestad.