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Ondrej Brody & Kristofer Paetau: Wang Bin Torture in Commercial Quality, High Quality and Museum Quality
March 13th -April 6th
Opening: March 20th: 7-10pm
Ondrej Brody (CZ) & Kristofer Paetau’s (FIN) recent work: ‘Painting China Now’ (2007), is a collection of 30 oil paintings depicting instances of violence inflicted by the Chinese government upon their own citizens (Falun Dafa members). They were rendered with impeccable realism by Chinese craftsmen specialized in copying any picture you send them via e-mail. The series, censored and forbidden images at home, were executed in China and then exported to Europe for display.
In their new work: ‘Wang Bin Torture in Commercial Quality, High Quality and Museum Quality,’ the artists chose an extremely explicit photograph focusing on the massacred torso of a torture victim. Although the original photograph is unsharp, there is no doubt about what it is depicting. Using the Chinese painting companies’ own product quality grade system, Brody & Paetau commisioned the image to be painted in all three grades: Commercial Quality, High Quality and Museum Quality.
What at the first glance appears as cynical artistic exploitation can also be seen as a shock of realities revealed through a conceptual artistic process. On one hand, there is an oppressive political power exercising torture and censorship upon their citizens, on the other, western entities eager to profit from the cheap production forces and ruthless commercialism China offers.
Akiyuki Ina: Emitting Evanescent Beauty
Feb. 16th – Mar. 6th
Opening Reception: Feb. 20th, 7-10pm
left: “Empty Attention” I, tape, light and paint on wood, 96x 36x 36″
right: “New Ruin”, photograph, 25 x 14 x 2″
Due to the mortgage crisis of 2007, there is a preponderance of buildings whose construction has been indefinitely halted. Inspired by these ghostly structures, Ina has created an installation at OPEN SOURCE GALLERY that communicates his admiration for the strange beauty and evanescent nature of this unfolding process. These works utilize elements such as safety net coverings and lighted panels to recreate the fleeting clarity of these abandoned “monuments”.
*Three dimension works will be exhibited along with documentary
photographs taken from 2008 to the present.
John Coburn: Fairlane Marauder
Extended to Feb 7th 2010
In a group of new work situated between painting and sculpture entitled: “Fairlane Marauder” the artist John Coburn has produced a series of curiously shaped panel pieces the tones and finish of which resemble mass produced objects. The design language of things as diverse as automobiles, weaponry, electric guitars and heraldic shields is evoked in these works which reflect the playful menace of a culture that has imbued the objects of its daily peacetime consumption with a marshal spirit. John Coburn who keeps a studio in Jersey City has lived and worked in New York City for the past 15 years. He received an MFA from the New York Academy of Art and before that a BFA from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. This is the artist’s second solo show in New York. Further information concerning the artist can be obtained at johncoburn.com.
The force of habit has a heavy hand in the making of things. Vestiges of a previous practice may persist despite its obsolescence. Hence when carriage makers turned to making automobiles, carriage forms were carried over which no longer served a purpose, but which nonetheless seemed necessary symbolically. Something similar occurred after World War II when Detroit retooled for peacetime. The powerful steel shapes crafted in the production of bombers, tanks and fighter planes found their way into fenders, Dagmars (artillery shaped bumpers) and the grille work of newly designed automobiles. By the 1960s and early 1970s these forms remained a latent specter which undergirded the formal and symbolic language of car design (much like the Military Industrial Complex had become a permanent feature of the American economy). There was a conflict though between these vestigial images and the new suburban idyll the automobile had spawned; one was martial, the other domestic.
The title for this series of works refers to that hybrid of contradictory symbols using a couple of the evocative names given to cars at that time. But the origin of some of the formal content is of a more personal sort as well: that I associate my first strong aesthetic experience while growing up with my father’s ’67 Dodge Coronet Station Wagon. Shiny black, it had a red vinyl interior and a wide, flat hood that seemed to lock every turn in sights. The reach of its sinewy fender had a slight planar lift as it passed the backseat passenger door. And the impressive presence of this family car coincided with my earliest art-making activity.
These works also incorporate procedures from decorative and sign painting. They evoke the language of the blazon, those heraldic images which signal rank and belonging in a group or participation in great events and command positions in rooms beyond the eye-level read of conventional pictures. Others reference the shapes, finish and styling of electric guitars with their unusual pick guard forms – and hang aloft as well, to be ogled in guitar stores or themed burger joints. Finally, this work may also be seen against a backdrop of Modernist art, such a Jean Arp’s evocative yet abstract wooden silhouette pieces and the cubist collage of Braque and Picasso, which employed the faux-bois techniques of the decorator, as well as some early modern American Art, specifically that of Stuart Davis with its celebration of the machine aesthetic. There is a thread connecting these diverse references which extends beyond my personal associations with them. It is my intention that the totality of these combine in a condition which only poetry allows; the ambiguous cohabitation of many in a singular resonance.
read the review at: museumofperipheralart
Soup Kitchen 12.1 – 12.24
Each night in December (2008 and 2009), a different person signs up to cook a meal for approximately 15 -20 people to be served between 6 and 8pm every night. Kind of like an advent calendar of food. Most of the dishes are a one-pot meal–either a soup or stew which can be served in bowls with bread on the side.
Mostly, people from the neighborhood or artist or musician friends sign up to cook, but occasionally there is the new person who sees the sign up sheet and is up for a challenge. The people who come vary from working class people to self-employed artists and occasionally a neighborhood person who is down on their luck or simply hungry.
2009 was the second year of soup kitchen. Some nights up to 50 people were standing in line for the delicious food, other nights the conversation, wine and beer kept us up until 3am in the morning. Sometimes, the chef did incorporate an artistic element to the evening, either displaying photographs on the stark, white gallery walls or reading a monologue from a play he or she has written.
Sometimes the conversation flows easily and sometimes not, but the food is nearly always tasty (it’s new York after all–we have standards!).
2009 announcement:
For the month of December Open Source Gallery is about, Cooking, Eating, Sharing, Celebrating…
Dinner is served from 6-8pm
It’s time for the 2nd annual open source soup kitchen so if you want to participate, please reserve a date. We are looking for artists, cooks, friends and neighbors to join us for SOUP KITCHEN, where for as many days as we have volunteers, we will be offering a “one-pot meal” to all on a first-come, first-served basis. Unique dishes from any ethnic tradition are more than welcome. We will provide cookware, utensils and help with logistics. We ask that you supply the love. LET’S EAT!!!
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Calendar developed and supported by Kieran O'Shea
on view now
Peter Feigenbaum “Trainset Ghetto: Streetsmart”09.04.-09.30.2010 Opening: Saturday 09.04.2010 7-10pm In September 2010, Peter will be showing a new series of large-scale photographs at Open Source Gallery based on a site-specific installation of his “Trainset Ghetto” sets on the street in front of the gallery storefront space. The images will feature increasingly bizarre and phantasmagorical juxtapositions of time, scale, and [...]
upcoming
ORFI NYC: LIVE GIG 2010
Nobuko: wa
Pirmin Hagen: First
past
Images NYC
make Soap Box Racers for the Soap Box Derby
ONE BIG WINDMILL
Open Source Residency w/Austrian Artists
Patricia Watwood: Portraits 20/10
Cornucopias: Paintings by Rachel Youens
Ondrej Brody & Kristofer Paetau: Wang Bin Torture in Commercial Quality, High Quality and Museum Quality
Akiyuki Ina: Emitting Evanescent Beauty
John Coburn: Fairlane Marauder
Soup Kitchen 12.1 – 12.24