SOUTHFIRST 60 N6th Street  Brooklyn, NY  11211  www.southfirst.org     ph 718 599 4884

 

 

TRANCE, CHANCE, DREAMS & THE UNCONSCIOUS

Jonah Bokaer, Jesse Bransford, Peter Clough, Ariel Dill, Jacob Dyrenforth, Jack Early, Michelle Grabner & Brad Killam, Rashawn Griffin, Fabienne Lasserre, Elwyn Palmerton, Jeffrey Perkins, Jeremy Sigler, Joao Simoes, Michael Taussig & Juan Bosco Diaz,  Leslie Thornton

26 June - 2 August, 2009

 

SOUTHFIRST is proud to present TRANCE, CHANCE, DREAMS & THE UNCONSCIOUS, an group show of work by Jonah Bokaer, Jesse Bransford, Peter Clough, Ariel Dill, Jacob Dyrenforth, Jack Early, Michelle Grabner & Brad Killam, Rashawn Griffin, Fabienne Lasserre, Elwyn Palmerton, Jeffrey Perkins, Jeremy Sigler, Joao Simoes, Michael Taussig & Juan Bosco Diaz, and Leslie Thornton on view from June 26 – August 2, 2009.

Perhaps the most influential strategies for avoiding mimesis, and certainly the most fascinating. Trance, Chance, Dreams and the Unconscious is about what happens when visual artists, a choreographer, a curator, a poet and an anthropologist work in pursuit of representing the invisible, turn from ocular vision and linear narrative, and begin to surprise with their  results. The exhibition includes work which is at once erotic, scatological, strangely colored, comical, ironic and romantic. Although chance was the initial impulse for the show, trance and obsessive repetition, and work based in sound and hallucinogenic experience, seem to have taken over the stage.

With Ariel DillÕs paintings inspired by Johannes IttenÕs color theory, Elwyn PalmertonÕs obsessive, sometimes drug-driven daily drawing practice, Jonah BokaerÕs chance-based choreography, Jesse BransfordÕs acrylic, watercolor and graphite pieces combining dripping and delicate drawings of esoteric symbols, Peter CloughÕs video tracking his bodyÕs movements through a dark room in almost-graphite-rendered shades of grey, Jacob DyrenforthÕs embroidered re-presentations of 1970s American cult figures as a recouped and phantasmagoric family, Michelle Grabner & Brad KillamÕs suspended silverpoint tondo mobile, Leslie ThorntonÕs looped prismatic and hallucinogenic three-minute video, Bob Bob, Rashawn GriffinÕs crafty and sculptural wall drawing, interviews Jeffrey Perkins conducted while driving a taxi cab between 1994-2001, Jack EarlyÕs songs and free associative oral history of his childhood in North Carolina and early years in the New York art world, and Fabienne LasserreÕs tantalizingly tactile and erotic sculpture.

Anthropologist Michael Taussig has lent the exhibition original drawings and photographs from his historical field work in Colombia, Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man, including drawings by Juan Bosco D’az; this book was a common point of interest for many artists in the exhibition. In a piece which is at once in the gallery and on-line, architect and curator Joao Simoes uses open-source text code to open up a ÒghostÓ space on his homepage for a curatorial practice making text-based works available Òto nerds that surf the codes of websites;Ó he presents work by Vito Acconci, Fia Backstršm, Amir Mogharabi, Dan Graham and Gertrude Stein, among others. Jeremy Sigler will read his trance poetry Wednesday, July 8 at 7:30 PM.

 

SOUTHFIRST is located at 60 N6th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn between Wythe and Kent Avenues. Gallery hours are Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 1-6 PM and by appointment. Subway: L train to Bedford Avenue.  For more information, please contact Maika Pollack at 718 599 4884 or info@southfirst.org.