November, Again
30 Jul - 20 Sep 2008
NOVEMBER, AGAIN
Francesca Dimattio, Jason Dungan, Shana Lutker, Yasue Maetake, Marco Rios, Kianja Strobert, Kara Tanaka, Robert Zungu
Curated by Jeffrey Uslip
July 30 – 20 September 2008
Opening reception Wednesday, July 30, 6 - 8 pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Friday 11 to 6
Harris Lieberman is pleased to present November, Again, a restaging of an
exhibition curated by Jeffrey Uslip at the gallery in 2006. Revisiting the exhibition demonstrates a commitment to a group of artists, most of whom are not represented by the gallery, in an effort to afford viewers consistency in their examination of these artists' development over the course of two years. November brought together artists whose work examines issues of the body in flux and responds to the immediacy and urgency of the (then) current socio-political climate. November, Again seeks to highlight its aftermath. Now, the body is presented as a cyborg gesture, the focus on the individual is substituted for global and environmental concerns. Building on themes presented in the first exhibition, November, Again narrows the original group of fourteen artists to eight, focusing specifically on those artists whose work shares this common ground.
Francesca DiMattio presents a new large-scale painting with a series of intimate still lives that continue to suture memory with cultural debris. DiMattio's surfaces appear charred, acid washed, and her signature use of birds and architectural elements appear more enmeshed and less abundant; Jason Dungan's video installation documents his father's geological research of a volcanic crater in Chile. Here, Dungan personalizes geologic conditions and shifts in our planet's bedrock by demonstrating how he and his father seek to analyze how this crater has progressed over the course of two years; Shana Lutker presents a series of looming, framed mirrors whose surfaces are etched to depict traditional architectural columns. Lutker creates an encounter where viewers are made to
bear witness to architectural and cultural negation; Yasue Maetake creates a post-apocalyptic sculpture formed from biological waste and mechanical scraps.
Here, a recycled metal folding screen adorned with fish heads serves as a support for an abstracted fiberglass and resin animal skull, as well as, a corporeal, topographical landscape formed by tiling cross sections of animal bones into an elaborate mosaic; Marco Rios uses the opening scene in Dario Argento's "The Bird With The Crystal Plummage," as a point of departure to further Argento's staging of the white box gallery space as a site for murder.
For November, Again, Rios is the victim. The gallery floor and walls appear to be smeared with the artist's blood, poetically transformed from organic material into plasticized red vinyl; Kianja Strobert's new body of paintings on carpet fragments recall Jazz and transitory urban conditions to create altered, meditative states; Kara Tanaka presents a futuristic, multi-media space bound
escape pod. Her emergency vessel juxtaposes Buddhist forms with traditional NASA schematics to poetize an exodus from this current socio-political climate; Robert Zungu re-stages a 1940s National Geographic photograph, in which amateur bird enthusiast Patrick Lambert is depicted examining a canary that was blinded by lightning. The notes on the back of the original photograph made mention that Lambert held the bird "securely without injury to feathers or other parts," as it was examined. Here, Zungu employs a taxidermized canary to meticulously recreate this image, without Patrick Lambert.
Francesca Dimattio, Jason Dungan, Shana Lutker, Yasue Maetake, Marco Rios, Kianja Strobert, Kara Tanaka, Robert Zungu
Curated by Jeffrey Uslip
July 30 – 20 September 2008
Opening reception Wednesday, July 30, 6 - 8 pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Friday 11 to 6
Harris Lieberman is pleased to present November, Again, a restaging of an
exhibition curated by Jeffrey Uslip at the gallery in 2006. Revisiting the exhibition demonstrates a commitment to a group of artists, most of whom are not represented by the gallery, in an effort to afford viewers consistency in their examination of these artists' development over the course of two years. November brought together artists whose work examines issues of the body in flux and responds to the immediacy and urgency of the (then) current socio-political climate. November, Again seeks to highlight its aftermath. Now, the body is presented as a cyborg gesture, the focus on the individual is substituted for global and environmental concerns. Building on themes presented in the first exhibition, November, Again narrows the original group of fourteen artists to eight, focusing specifically on those artists whose work shares this common ground.
Francesca DiMattio presents a new large-scale painting with a series of intimate still lives that continue to suture memory with cultural debris. DiMattio's surfaces appear charred, acid washed, and her signature use of birds and architectural elements appear more enmeshed and less abundant; Jason Dungan's video installation documents his father's geological research of a volcanic crater in Chile. Here, Dungan personalizes geologic conditions and shifts in our planet's bedrock by demonstrating how he and his father seek to analyze how this crater has progressed over the course of two years; Shana Lutker presents a series of looming, framed mirrors whose surfaces are etched to depict traditional architectural columns. Lutker creates an encounter where viewers are made to
bear witness to architectural and cultural negation; Yasue Maetake creates a post-apocalyptic sculpture formed from biological waste and mechanical scraps.
Here, a recycled metal folding screen adorned with fish heads serves as a support for an abstracted fiberglass and resin animal skull, as well as, a corporeal, topographical landscape formed by tiling cross sections of animal bones into an elaborate mosaic; Marco Rios uses the opening scene in Dario Argento's "The Bird With The Crystal Plummage," as a point of departure to further Argento's staging of the white box gallery space as a site for murder.
For November, Again, Rios is the victim. The gallery floor and walls appear to be smeared with the artist's blood, poetically transformed from organic material into plasticized red vinyl; Kianja Strobert's new body of paintings on carpet fragments recall Jazz and transitory urban conditions to create altered, meditative states; Kara Tanaka presents a futuristic, multi-media space bound
escape pod. Her emergency vessel juxtaposes Buddhist forms with traditional NASA schematics to poetize an exodus from this current socio-political climate; Robert Zungu re-stages a 1940s National Geographic photograph, in which amateur bird enthusiast Patrick Lambert is depicted examining a canary that was blinded by lightning. The notes on the back of the original photograph made mention that Lambert held the bird "securely without injury to feathers or other parts," as it was examined. Here, Zungu employs a taxidermized canary to meticulously recreate this image, without Patrick Lambert.