SOUTHFIRST 60 N6th Street Brooklyn, NY 11211 718.599.4884 www.southfirst.org
04
JANUARY 2003
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
1/2003-2/2003
SOUTHFIRST
gallery presents “NEW YORK FUCKING CITY,” a group exhibition by
Simon Aldridge, Michel Auder, Sean Dack, Rainer Ganahl, Tracy Nakayama, and
Matthew Thurber, from JANUARY 10-FEBRUARY 23, 2003. “New York Fucking
City” explores themes including living, working, terrorism, pornography
and skate-boarding in New York.
The exhibition also marks the opening of the gallery’s third site
in Williamsburg. Since September
11, 2001 New York has undergone a self-examination as intense as psychotherapy,
and with equally inconclusive results.
Simon
Aldridge’s “Office
Manual” refers to work that he began in 2001 during a Lower Manhattan
Cultural Council residency at the World Trade Center. “I saw a connection between the way I, as an artist in an
office building, related to the space in the same way that skateboarders and
bmx riders re-appropriate urban forms as sites of action for their
sport,” says Aldridge. The title “Office Manual”
refers both to corporate culture and a skateboarding trick. Aldridge’s plexi and spray-paint wall pieces redefine formalism
through the lens of street culture.
Rainer Ganahl’s video “Homeland
Security,” 2002-2003, depicts the artist saying the phrase “I am
not a terrorist” in languages including English, German, Japanese,
French, Chinese, and Arabic, against a background tapestry of popular media
images from the past year. The
artist commissioned the tapestry to be sewn by Pashtun workers living at the
Afghani boarder in Pakastan. The
tapestry is also on display. The
Austrian artist, whose 1999 Venice Biennale installation documented him
studying several foreign languages for 500 hours each, says, “I am not afraid
of terrorism but I am more and more afraid of the United States’ actions
against terrorism since many actions violate the US constitution, recognized
international laws, peaceful incoercible relations between nations, people and
religions and human rights.”
Some
of the pieces in the show speak to the lighter side of life in New York. Hawaiian-born painter Tracy
Nakayama’s
watercolor portraits depict couples engaged in sex. Nostalgic both in their warm brown palate and playful and
consensual nature of the scenes, the untrimmed pubic hair of the participants
refers to 1970s soft-porn, yet their miniature scale and attention to detail is
reminiscent of 18th century French boudoir painting.
Michel Auder is one of the pioneers of
video art. Part of the group
around the Factory in the 1970s, he filmed “Chelsea Girls” with
Andy Warhol and was married to the actress Viva. His thousands of hours of video work documents in an almost
Proustian fashion the world of glamour, ambition, drugs and gossip. His videos “Rooftops” and
“Chelsea Girls” alternate during the exhibition, contrasting
interior and exterior, slices of society from New York and a voyeuristic look
at the city from the vantage point of rooftop surveillance.
Matthew Thurber is a comic-book illustrator
who graduated from The Cooper Union in 2000. This is his first gallery exhibition.
Sean Dack’s video installation
“No Encore” showed at Southfirst in January, 2002, and has since
shown at the Frankfurter Kunstverein and is currently on view at Cité de
la Musique in Paris. His untitled photographic tryptich, taken from the World
Trade Center South observation deck in 2000, captures the city from a vanished
perspective: the familiar streets and avenues are partially obscured by fog. The city looks vast, unchanging, and
romantic.
All
the artists in the exhibition live and work in New York. The exhibition opens January 10 from 7-9 PM. Gallery hours are Fri. 1-9 PM, Sat. 1-9
PM, and Sun. 1-7 PM and by appointment.
The subway is the L to Bedford Avenue.
For more information please contact Maika Pollack, gallery
director, at 718 599 4884 or info@southfirst.org.
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