FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Brooklyn, NY—February 12, 2014


Lauren Comito: Trying to Read Between the Lines

Exhibition: February 20th to March 15th, 2014.

Opening Reception: February 20th 8PM. Idiosyncrasy Gallery

Idiosyncrasy Gallery proudly presents “Trying to Read Between the Lines”, a solo-exhibition featuring the most recent works by contemporary artist, Lauren Comito. This latest work includes mixed media and installation pieces that celebrate the ambiguity of perception and the power of sensory experience. Comito’s work blends new media and more traditional technique, producing self-lit paintings and an impressionistic element in her film pieces. The low-lit exhibition invites the viewer to explore his or her relationship with light and image in a way that is simultaneously challenging to the senses and alluring to the intellect.

The work will be available for viewing at Idiosyncrasy Gallery beginning February 20th with the opening reception through March 15th. The Gallery is open weekends 12-5 and by appointment.

Contact: Pritchard@idiosyncrasybk.com for more information.

976 Grand Street, Studio D Brookyn, New York 11211 idiosyncrasybk.com

PAINTINGWALL (Janus at 8:16)
Touch Gallery
Cambridge, MA
January 2^nd –February 2^nd, 2014

Reception

Saturday, January 25^th, 3-6pm

Beverly Acha, Julia Bland, Will Brasfield, Ali Chitsaz, Gaby Collins Fernandez, Lauren Comito, Ala Dehghan, Sara Dehghan, Victoria Duffee, Jessie Edelman, Maria Elvira Dieppa, Eric Mack, Florencia Escudero, Kati Gegenheimer, Jennyfer Haddad, Omid Hallaj, Meena Hasan, George Heintz, Taha Heydari, Maryam Hosseini, Jon Peck, Haley Josephs, Doron Langberg, Austin Lee, Carlos Martinez, Wayde McIntosh, Romina Meric, Katrina Mortorff, Kristin Richards, Amy Rinaldi, Kenny Rivero, Chloé Rossetti, Jason Segall, Randi Shandroski, Vahid Sharifian, Cal Siegel, John Szlasa, Shabahang Tayyari, Karen Tepaz, Emmy Thelander, Courtney Tramposh, David V Whelan.
Curated by Ala Dehghan and Florencia Escudero.

Heralding the New Year is “PAINTINGWALL (Janus at 8:16),” a group show of paintings on a purpose-built central wooden wall, eight by sixteen feet, named, like the month of January, after the two-faced Roman god Janus. Each artist has contributed an even number of pieces—either two or four—to the wall, one or two on each side, back-to-back like those fabled godheads. To travel on foot around this wall is to embody Janus: As one walks around the wall, seeing first one side and then the other, one must use one’s figurative “second head,” looking back into memory, to recall the first works seen as the second ones come into view.

Janus, Roman god of beginnings, doors, gates, passages, transitions, endings, and time, was evoked at the beginning of most Roman ceremonies, regardless of the main deity to be honored. How fitting, then, to evoke Janus’ myth at the beginning of this year, during his namesake month, at the site of a wall, connoting Ianus geminus. The shrine, when closed during times of peace, formed a walled enclosure with gates at each end. Rarely, however, were the gates closed during the reign of the Roman Empire. Equally, the effect of this wall of paintings, though tranquil, is confrontational: to construct such a wall is to deny the existing white cube of the gallery space as structural support for the creative process.

Heightening this effect, the walls of the gallery itself are empty, numbered only with their dimensions in small black lettering on the center of each. Further, the wall of paintings is angled as such that the works cannot be seen through the gallery’s windows from outside, denying voyeurism. Indeed, the entire relationship between viewer and work is inverted; the paintings, crowded together in the center of the space, look back at the space, toward the white cube as well as the viewer, who is silhouetted against the empty walls.

Adding to this come-together effect is the lack of wall text for each work; though the works are from studios around the world (as near as Brooklyn and as far as Iran), in media as diverse as linen, yarn, bleach, oil, pastel, burnt canvas, glue, cement, sawdust, and clocks (moving anti-clockwise), and featuring imagery from angry Persian birds to pixels, roses to bees, snowflakes to sex, they gather anonymously; a faceless crowd of resistance.

The “PAINTINGWALL,” then, becomes its own entity, a roaming group show that points out the white cube as a site itself, a now-ubiquitous artworld structure initially created to negate site. As the wall could travel, moving in and out of different contexts, it no longer strictly needs the gallery space in order to function. “PAINTINGWALL” stands up for itself.

Chloé Rossetti is a New York-based artist, writer and filmmaker, a regular contributor to Artforum.com and The Brooklyn Rail.

If you find yourself in Philadelphia on September 26th go see my video About Face that is featured in this one night only screening!

Crane Arts is pleased to announce the 20/92 Video Screening, a one night event September 26, from 6-9pm, with a special performance by Bardo Pond immediately following.

52 videos, each one minute or less in length, will be screened in the Icebox Project Space, utilizing its unique projection system, capable of casting a continuous image at 20’ x 92’.

The evening’s program, selected from an open call, highlights varied approaches to video and motion, with a particular focus on scale.

All concession sales and donations during the event will directly support the collaborative efforts of Title Magazine, The Nicola Midnight St. Claire, and McCartney/Belknap projects in the upcoming “Citywide” exhibition this November.

Juried by Tim Belknap and Ryan McCartney, co-directors at the Icebox Project Space

Projekt722 is pleased to host an exhibition of work by the 2013 RISD Graduate Painters.

Exhibition Dates:

July 6th-28th 2013

Opening Reception:

Saturday, July 13th, 2013, 6:00pm-9:00pm

Location: Projekt722, 722 Metropolitan Ave, Second Floor, Brooklyn, New York 11211

https://projekt722.com/exhibitions/risd/

 Well / RISD MFA PAINTING 2013

July 6 – 28 / Opening Reception Sat. July 13 6-9pm

The Deepening Well

Imagine a ripe nectarine softened by the summer solstice’s warm embrace. You pluck and squeeze it, leaving riven what was hitherto pure and sweet. That is my heart. Then there is my shattered ego. Its restoration, even partially and imperfectly, is nigh impossible. How could you not love me forever after two years of commitment, of mutual nurture, of vibrant dialogue? I weep for that which was and that which could have been. And after tear ducts dry, I extract one after the other my desiccated eyeballs, smack them open on a stainless top slop sink, and grind the uneven shards into forearms bared. We had it perfect in Providence. How could you leave? Now, I bleed for you as if I bled for you always, and will continue bleeding.

A deep bell—a death knell?
(At least Jonathan Frioux won’t go to hell.)
From Claudia Bitran,
a ditty from Adele;

And from Zach Seegar, aka Guy Gilbert,
an article in a resuscitated Tel Quel.

Citadels from a perverted Dwell
build J. Bochynski, but can he spell?
Taniya Vaidya and Wally Dion:
Dresses in toile swell; controlled pell-mell.

A logo from Intel, spreadsheets from Excel?—
Lauren Comito, do tell.
Rebel yell! yells Douglas Burns,
and from Rachel Grobstein,
tableaux in the scale of mushrooms, morels.

All is well.

–Christopher K. Ho