Press Release - Rupert Ravens Contemporary

85 Market Street, Newark, NJ 07102
973.679.7114 V; 800.886.4550 F
[email protected]
www.rupertravens.net
For immediate release:
OUTSIGHT INN
October 23 - EXTENDED thru March 6,2011
Adehla Lee
AK Airways
April Hava Shenkman
Bibi Flores
Cecilia Baigini-Dahlia Fischbein
Christopher Tanner
Elizabeth Riley
Ellis Gallagher
German Pitre
Grace Graupe-Pillard
Han Zeng
Jared Whitman
John Mendelsohn
Katherine Powers
Kati Vilim
Markus Baenziger
Matthew Stone
Mike Howard
Olu Oguibe
Rich Wislocky
Richard Iammarino
Ryan Doyle
Stefanie Nagorka
Svetlana Boym
Thomas Broadbent
Vicki DaSilva
Wahala Temi Studio
Gallery Hours: 12 - 6PM, Friday - Saturday / Appointments encouraged.
RRC presents 27 simultaneous solo projects in over 30,000 sq. ft. on four floors.
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“Instead of fast-changing prepositions—"post," "anti," "neo," "trans," and "sub"—that suggest
an implacable movement forward, against or beyond, and try desperately to be "in," I
propose to go off: "Off" as in "off kilter," off Broadway, "off the path," or "way off," off-brand,
off the wall and occasionally "off-color." "Off-modern" is a detour into the unexplored
potentials of the modern project.”
-- Svetlana Boym The Off-Modern Condition
With over 220 color-lush objects on three floors, Outsight Inn is a cloister for regenerative
visual systems. In quantum physics the "observer effect" refers to changes that the act of
observation makes on the phenomenon being experienced. Witness 27 Solo Projects where
examination flips the commonplace inside out. Similar to the topological single sided
Klein/Möbius bottle, art interiors meld with their own exteriors, sum greater than whole.
These artworks radiate a seductive invitation, simultaneously hiding and revealing a latent
reward for each guest. Sequestered visceral energy is released through the sheer physics,
economics, or memory of one’s sensory encounter with these adroit presentations. Ride the
wave, or is it a particle? For an interlude in real time, Outsight Inn opens the ludic door to
a quantum mindset.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Adehla Lee – NY/USA
Lee creates a monumental psychedelic gate into her fantasy world, inspired by her childhood
visits to the elaborate Buddhist temple with a spiritual aunt. She reinterprets her encounters
with the redoubtable realm beyond the mundane, replacing wood and stone with saturated
bubbles and bursts of color. With a spectacular use of garish fabric, plastic Easter eggs, pom
poms, pipe cleaners, and other textured craft supplies, Lee’s sculpture seems to float in one’s
mind more than occupy any recognizable area of space.
Previous exhibitions: Visual Arts Gallery (curator Alex Gartenfeld), Chelsea, NYC; School of
Visual Arts graduate Open Studios, NYC; APL Gallery, Albuquerque, NM; and Art Today, Seoul, Korea.
Lee was reviewed in Studio Visit magazine, Volume Twelve.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------AK Airways - FRANCE/USA
AK Airways' inflated and interior lit mammoth “Cuddlefish” invigorates space as when indoors, it
stuffs the architectural surroundings. Giant fire-orange corporeality challenges our social and
psychological expectations. Emphatic witnesses coated in the playa dust from the Nevada desert
of “Burning Man”, these tubular masses celebrate collaboration, kinesis, DIY, modularity, and
open sourcing,
Previous exhibitions: Museum of Modern Art, NYC; Collaboration with Pierre Huyghe to create an
inflatable environment for "The Journey That Wasn't," presented at the 2006 Whitney Biennial.
Art Viceroy, Miami, FL; Squishy Universe, Miami, FL; Eyebeam, NYC; SxSW, Austin, TX; and
many more locations worldwide.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------April Hava Shenkman – CA/USA
L.A. performance artist April Hava Shenkman enacts is a keyed up holiday party. It only exists,
NOW, in the present, but the experience breathes life through participant viewers jostled
memories via video sometime later. She stirs up the celebratory excess with emotive feelings
and neurosis that can’t be classified, nor easily forgotten.
Previous performances include: Chinatown, Ciao! at Celebration Theatre, L.A., The Talk Show
with George Earth Hyperion Tavern at Silver Lake, China-Cake-8 at Echo Curio, Echo Parl, A.M.P.
at Edgar Valdez Gallery, L.A., The Tomorrow Show at Steven Allen Theatre, Red Velvet Vaudeville
Variety Show, Echo Curio, Echo Park, CA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Bibi Flores– NY/USA/Mexico
Flores’s pieces emerge from her desire to mesh nature’s random patterning with mechanical and human
hand touched decorative elements. In the searing colors of sun-drenched Mexico, harmony is found
among synthetic and organic shapes, materials, and textures. In fact, her juxtapositions sing
similarities between the woof and warp of controlled man made systems such as maps in collision with
the vibrancy of unfettered emotion.
Previous exhibitions: Arte A.C., Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico; Museo del Centenario, San Pedro,
Garza Garcia, Nuevo Leon, Mexico; Music Conservatory for BC&T, Prague, Czech Republic; AIR Gallery,
NYC; Perry Rubinstein Gallery, curated by Dan Cameron, and X Initiative at Dia Space, New York, NYC,
among others.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Cecilia Biagini/Dahlia Fishbein– NY/USA
As the video collective Sharpy, founded in 2004, Biagini and Fishbein channel cerebral celestial animation.
In Searching for Fractals, Sharpy buzzes a non-narrative stop-motion action. Created using a random
improvisational composition and music score, vivid vari-colored wooden blocks fold in and out as they
construct and deconstruct themselves into kaleidoscoping patterns and arrangements. The motion of their
proportions and scale seems indefinite and random. Spectators find themselves standing in a zone where
micro and macro visions become one and not-one over and over.
Previous exhibitions: Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, South Bend Regional Museum of Art, Pace
University Gallery, Gallery W52, Weiss Pollack Gallery
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Christopher Tanner– NY/USA
Tanner's extravagant, theatrical, mixed-media assemblages celebrate themselves in ostentatious
frivolous majesty. These be-jeweled treasure troves are seemingly “on fire” from within, as each
claims the throne of spectacle. Bedazzled, serpentine shapes of metallic leather, mirrors, gems and
glitzy costume electricity wrap skin tight around the natural curves of raw wood and organic swells in
sensuous bliss of biting bling.
Previous solo exhibitions: Pavel Zoubok Gallery, NY; Atrium Gallery, MO; Carol Solway Gallery, OH;
Boulder Museum of contemporary Art, CO; Flatland Gallery, Holland; Gallery Juno, NY;
Bridgewater/Lustberg Gallery, NY; Gallery Oz, France; The Kitchen, NY; Courtland Jessup Gallery, MA;
Fahey-Klein gallery, CA; La MaMa, E.T.C. Galleria, NY. (Works courtesy of Pavel Zoubok Gallery, NYC)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Elizabeth Riley-NY/USA
Riley memorializes the urban inhabitant’s multi-sensory observation in New York City, where one is
constantly exposed to a plethora and wealth of micro and macro visual information. She freezes vast
images, sometimes confining their action within multiple digital concentric abstracted circles and imbues
other discs within this framework as movie frames, mimicking a view which appears sucked into a
swirling vortex of the constructed world where she wishes us to tread. She also playfully creates a
tabletop model world of a futuristic park wildly out of proportion.
Previous exhibitions: Sugar, curated by Elliot Lessing, NY; Casita Gallery, NY; Jamaica Center for the Arts
NY; Nurture Art, NY; Chelsea Museum, NY; Sideshow Gallery, NY; Aljira, Newark; Directors Lounge,
Germany; among others.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ellis Gallagher – NJ/USA
Ellis Gallagher’s shadow chalk drawings honor the late night execution of urban speed on the run.
He emblazons the halo of exalted beauty of mundane objects and everyday settings that are
routinely overlooked. Light signals the fuse that ignites these drawings of bicycles, signage, fire
extinguishers, fences, and hand rails, all inspiring curiosity while encouraging the viewer to pause,
and re-observe with a renewed sense of optimism.
Previous exhibitions: Ouchi Gallery, NY; Black River Art Festival, Austria; Kunsthalle Kade,
Holland; Scope Art Fair, FL; Appearances in numerous countries around the world including
several cameos in motion pictures.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------German Pitre– NJ/USA
Pitre's paintings challenge the perception of a secure existence. We become witness to the
tragedy which befalls the plush loved talismans of childhood. Their innocence is not only ripped
apart violently, but then quagmired in the moment of now as they are forever relegated to the
synthetic tar pit of their discarded entrapment. The sardonic and visceral are a fervent
determination to scrutinize the reality of “truth” and “justice”.
Previous exhibitions: Newark Museum, NJ; Jersey City Museum, NJ; NJ State Museum, Trenton,
NJ; Artists Space, NJ; City Without Walls, NJ; Aljira Gallery, NJ; Art Basel, FL; Red Saw, NJ;
Mason Gross School Arts Gallery, NJ; among numerous other galleries and museums.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Grace Graupe Pillard- NY/USA
Graupe Pillard's polychromatic paintings reveal the inherent beauty of an artist’s artist journey as
a brazen colorist rescuing the landscapes that have been desecrated by war and violence in the
middle east. The fissures, cracks and pock-marks of terror are not visible in these luscious
panoramas, but their history is embedded in the roots and ancestry of the land. Both pre and post
evolution is envisioned in the collective of these pastoral perspective paintings.
Previous exhibitions: The Proposition, NYC, Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago Ill, Frist Center for the
Visual Arts, Nashville TN, The Women’s Media Center, NYC, Westnorth Studio, Baltimore, MD and
in several group shows curated by Rupert Ravens in NJ. Her work is in many public and private
collections including New Jersey Transit, AT&T, Coca Cola, Newark Museum, NJ State Museum,
The Margulies Collection, Miami, and Malcolm Forbes Collection, NYC. Graupe-Pillard is also the
coordinator of The Abbey Mural Workshop at The National Academy Museum in NYC.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Han Zeng - GUANGZHOU/CHINA
Zeng’s large-scale prints explore Chinese locations of both countryside and urban landscapes with a
photographic investigation. With pinpoint targeted precision. Zeng captures the psychological
energy of: historic opera characters, TV celebrities, “World of Warcraft” costumed avatars, and
‘dress-up’ manga role-playing youth. With the crispness of a corporate yearbook, all taunt with
grand scheme and authentic splendor.
Previous exhibitions: Guangdong Art Museum, Guangdong; Star Photography Gallery, Shanghai;
Nanjing Museum, Nanjing; Ming Yuan Art Center, Shanghai; Art Scenery Gallery, Shanghai; Berne
Art Gallery, Switzerland; Lianzhou, Guangdong; among other global locations
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Jared Whitham - NY/USA
Whitham re-focuses the world’s view on objects and their functions in his never-ending life-long
wonder called the Garage Sale. Whitham recreates a full size scale house of his youth inside
the gallery, with a non-conventional style, which combines construction with painting,
installation and performance to create his vision American Art commerce. He enjoys standing
next-to and inside his work all the while, offering witty commentary that builds upon the
absurdity of both found-obsolete and his own eclectic invented devices. As part of the current
installation, he will broadcast - A LIVE "real time" online streaming performance show that will
air on the Garage Sale Channel.
Previous exhibitions: Rene Vara Arts, NYC; Art Basel, Miami, FL; Venice, FL; RRC, Newark, NJ;
The Jared Whitham Show – Broadcast 24/7 via analog TV Station NYC
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------John Mendelsohn- NY/USA
Like waves or mistakes or thoughts, these paintings grow by repeated but shifting elements.
These are visual fields in flux, like an image that is trying to form itself.
Previous exhibitions: PS1, Long Island, NY; Bruce Museum, NYC; New Museum, NYC; Pelavin Gallery,
NYC; Concord Gallery, NYC; Michael Walls, NYC; Artists Space, NYC; Trans Hudson Gallery, NYC; among
others. Mendelsohn’s work has been extensively reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America,
ArtNet, Arts Magazine and elsewhere.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Katherine Powers- NY/USA
Powers’ pieces breathe life into everyday commercial discards like plastic bags and aluminum foil.
She is fascinated by the paradoxical activity of dissolving physicality and giving form to the
ephemeral. She records fleeting moments such as changing light in a garden onto byproducts of our
faced-paced “to go” life in a subtle sensitive transparent and translucent color bath.
Exhibitions include: Sideshow, Brooklyn, NY; Pierogi, Brooklyn, NY; Big & Small/Casual Gallery,
Long Island City, NY; Eyewash, Brooklyn, NY; The Brewery, Los Angeles, CA; Bucheon Gallery, San
Franscisco, CA; im n iL gallery, Brooklyn NY; Galapagos, Brooklyn, NY; Kitchen, NYC; among others.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Kati Vilim – NJ/USA
Vilim paints the dark with geometric light to elicit constructs of varied patterns based on the rhythm
of the forms in specific space. As this interaction abounds, she also introduces projected video
elements of fluid morphing forms which provide a second opportunity to realize how we move and
experience the three dimensional world we inhabit
Exhibitions include: Mu-Terem Gallery, Budapest, Hungary; Red Saw Gallery, NJ; Gallery of Artist's
Colony, Szentendre, Hungary; VAN Gallery, Budapest, Hungary; RRC, Newark, NJ
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Markus Baenziger –NY/USA
Baenziger’s pieces question the enticement of nature and her shapes. His sculptures, forcefully
constructed of both organic and synthetic elements, seem to further exaggerate the tension
between the manmade and nature spawned.
Previous exhibitions: Cohen Gallery; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery; Bonakdar Jancou Gallery; Edward
Thorp Gallery; Rose Art Museum, the Walker Art Center; Yale University Art Gallery;
Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa. Recipient of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Fellowship, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art Artist Residency Fellowship, State of Connecticut
Commission on the Arts Fellowship.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Matt Stone – NY/USA
Stone’s raw, aggressively new-material sculptures emerge sublime as an “inward turn” equal to
discovering Nature’s wonder in every crevice. He breathes life into ordinary materials by blending
physical forces of gravity with forms that seem as though they are destined to be birthed in a new
universe.
Previous exhibitions: Kingston Gallery, MA; Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht; Visual Art Gallery,
NY; Parlor Antics, NY; Perry Rubinstein Gallery, curated by Dan Cameron, NY; Aqua Art Fair, FL
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mike Howard – NY/AL/USA
Howard celebrates MOP - Museum of Ordinary People. His bite size 8”x10” 100+ paintings celebrate
Americana - from the history of collectible baseball signatures and athletic heroes to country corner
store items such as peaches, RC Colas, and Moon Pies. His paintings ask: What is collectible? What is
disposable? What is cherished for its value and what is cherished for its placement in history? What is
the taste of the common man? What is the value of this taste?
Previous exhibitions: Museum of Ordinary People, Hurtsboro, AL; Jason Rubell Gallery, Miami, FL;
Virginia Commonwealth University Museum, Richmond, VA; Michael Walls Gallery, NYC; Gracie Mansion
Gallery, NYC; PS1, Long Island, NY; The Clocktower, NYC; Frankln Furnace, NYC; Whitney Museum,
NYC; Carl Solway Gallery, Cincinnati, OH; and RRC, Newark, NJ, among many others.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Olu Oguibe – CT/USA/Nigeria
Oguibe’s large scale abstract images were effloresced from his drawing with the iPad, then meticulously
and archively pigmented on canvas. They sing of paint and weaving. Each surface, a pristinely-applied
maximum of saturated colors. The sensation is one of light, of tablet-ease of creation, while
simultaneously pushing the boundaries of current printing technology. Oguibe is also an acclaimed
Nigerian curator/writer.
Previous exhibitions: Major venues around the world including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the
Irish Museum of Modern Art, London Whitechapel Gallery and the Johannesburg, Havana, Busan and
Venice biennials, among others. He has also curated important exhibitions for venues such as the Venice
biennial, the Tate Gallery in London (Tate Modern), the Municipal Museum of Mexico City, and others.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rich Wislocky – NJ/USA
A combination of ritual, Mardi Gras, Native American mythology, dreams and fantasy, Wislocky’s full room
installation, the “Anything Everything Box”, challenges the viewer to enter and focus on a hidden spiritual
realm within. Masks representing demon-fighting falcon, owl and eagle spirits are the accouterments of the
artist’s personal mythology and are worn in performance. Altars of love and peace abound in a maze of
mirrors ,and a myriad of colored lights evoke a 3AM disco full of magic powers.
Previous exhibitions: Rupert Ravens Contemporary, NJ; Squishy Universe, Miami, FL, Art Viceroy, Miami, FL;
Performance at Gershwin Hotel, Limelight Night Club, NY, and Electoro Class Festival (1&2); ABC Gallery,
NY; Ultra Gallery; NY; Has been featured in TimeOut New York “Fisher Spooner” DVD and Exactly Magazine.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Richard Iammarino – MA/USA
Methodical seas of turbulent lines, carry away and undulate the squinted moment of perception
and experience. Zeroing in on the surface and texture of subtle and obsessive marks, strokes
and bands of color wash any sentiment of the literal away with the Tsunami of optical movement.
Mighty in their cohesive strength, these drawings are one of the spare most resonant forms
coming from the dedicated repetitive motion of Iammarino’s hand.
Previous exhibitions: Sideshow, Brooklyn, NY; and other various US galleries.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ryan C. Doyle- MI/CA/USA
Doyle’s interactive works including his propane gas powered Regurgitator, aim to push the
limits of participant perceived “safety.” If art’s true nature is to change the emotions of the
viewer, his pieces offer an opportunity for the audience to be terrified, exhausted, and
hopefully empowered after volunteering to ‘ride’ them. He has also transformed a new gallery
area of RRC into a simulated burnt-out, abandoned building hailing from Detroit. There are
multiple elements of collaborative graffiti covering walls, floors ceiling and surfaces, including
a fluorescent masterpiece, “Half Dead & Dynamite”, by Mickey, another member of BLBC
(Brooklyn).
Doyle is a member of Black Label Bike Club; He has been featured on Junk Yard Wars, Monster Nation,
FUSE’s Rock and Roll Acid Test, a documentary B.I.K.E., and has shown his work in North America and Europe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Stefani Nagorka – NJ/USA
Nagorka’s floating sculpture installation, “My America,” reflects on a time when America was a
golden breadbasket beckoning many to the United States, the land of opportunities and unity. Each
state is a unique porcelain fired piece painted in a limited 2D-map-palette on its face. The states
which “hang” together, yet separately seem to ask the question: Can we re-claim our past and step
back into a time of united plenty, with respect and care for the environment, ourselves and each
other, 0r, are we just making hay?
Previous exhibitions: NYU Square East Galleries, NY; Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC;
State Museum at Trenton, NJ; Carnegie Art Museum; PA; Post Gallery, Los Angeles;
The Montclair Art Museum, NJ; Yale Architecture Gallery, CT.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Svetlana Boym- MA/USA
Where are the technological errors of the digital world? Photographs are pulled out prematurely from
the printer - this human error makes each print one of a kind. Through this gesture, she defies the
understanding of photography as an art of mechanical or digital reproduction. Boym thinks of this
process as experimental and productive, not destructive. All is evidence of the random and “off
modern”.
Exhibitions: Royal Academy of Art, Copenhagen, Denmark; Gallerijia 101, Kaunas, Lithuania; Centro
De Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid, Spain; Harvard University, Boston, MA; Nailya Alexander Gallery, NYC;
Teatro di Plazza Santa Margherita, Venice, Italy; among others. Boym is also a writer and theorist.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thomas Broadbent – NY/USA
Broadbent’s pieces are comprised of objects inflated out of context, sewn together to create
installations that often take over an entire space. His pieces provide the viewer with a journey
beyond 2-dimesions and tease the viewer with signals that simultaneously call out “play” and
“don’t touch.”
Previous exhibitions: Visual Arts Center of New Jersey; Front Room Gallery, NY; NY Bridge Art Fair;
Croxhapoz Gallery, Belgium; Jan Colle Gallery, Belgium; Voorkamer Gallery; Shores Space,
Holland; Art Page Gallery, NY; and recently, in Beijing, China.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Vicki DaSilva- PA/USA
DaSilva’s saturated color photographic works combine painting, sculpture, performance,
environmental and installation art as they are derived from a single-frame, timed night exposure.
Each photograph is site-specific, and happens in real time. She paints time and space with
glowing polychromatic fluorescent lamps to create unique patterns and color-movement sitespecific memory.
Previous exhibitions: Art Gotham, NY; Tompkins Gallery, PA; Flanders Art Gallery, NC; Nexus
Foundation, PA; Art Basel, Miami, FL
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wahala Temi Studio-NY/USA
With Wahala Temi’s installation we think about both the fragility and strength of our own anatomical
makeup. Initially, the abstract shapes give the appearance of a Calder-like mobile, but upon closer
look, the threaded materials provoke a much more visceral response.
Previous exhibitions: Museum of Art and Design, NYC; MoCADA, Brooklyn, NY; CWOW & ALJIRA, NJ
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For further information, please contact RRC at 973 679 7114 email: [email protected]