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