Works on view by Freya Powell in the Project Room and Carolyn Salas in the Atrium.
Through July 20, 2013.
In theater, the memory-play format relies on the protagonist’s initial declaration of self-awareness, introducing the narrative to the audience, as remembered by the narrator. As the play progresses the protagonist immerses himself into the narrative, eventually “stepping out” in the final act to deliver conclusive remarks. In experimental theatre, the play is typically dissected and presented in layered ambiguity, utilizing the play’s text, visual, audio, and other stage elements. To quote Tennessee Williams in his production notes for his seminal memory-play The Glass Menagerie: “These remarks are not meant as a preface only to this particular play. They have to do with a conception of a new, plastic theatre which must take the place of the exhausted theatre of realistic conventions if the theatre is to resume vitality as a part of our culture.”
The series of paintings presented by Gutierrez titled Night-work function as both abstract paintings and promotional material for the exhibition. The paintings’ poster substrate was designed by an outsourced graphic designer. In this action of managerial resourcefulness and authorial mark-making, Gutierrez leverages various methods of labor into a complete expression. The Elevated Surface series of sculptures are rendered in inexpensive construction material, lacking embellishment or surface consideration.
Implying their own physical occupation, they function less like art-objects and more like gestures that allude to the performative aspects of an artistic practice. Also on view will be Studio-work, a series of videos created to function like stock shots; single pieces of stock footage that have the potential to be utilized in larger narratives. The videos stand-in as cinematic portrayals of a central figure, completing the whole of the scene; an act in reaction and reflection of itself.
Alan Gutierrez was born in Miami, where he lives and works. With Low Lives, a multi-venue group exhibition of video-performance, his work has exhibited both nationally and abroad in institutions that include the Yamaguchi Institute of Contemporary Art (Japan), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Bogotá (Colombia), Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Salt Lake City, UT), Center for Performance Research (Brooklyn, NY), and SOMArts (San Francisco, CA). In 2012, Gutierrez was commissioned by the Miami Downtown Development Authority to create a public piece in the Miami Art Museum plaza. Gutierrez received a 2013 Tigertail Artist Access Grant from the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. In January 2014, Gutierrez will exhibit at Locust Projects, a not-for-profit exhibition space in Miami.
Project Room
Freya Powell: i’ll smile and i’m not sad
Freya Powell explores history, mortality, and language’s relationship to memory, both personal and collective. Emerson Dorsch presents Powell’s moving video i’ll smile and i’m not sad (2012) in the Project Room. Writ in spare, white text, Texan inmates’ last testaments emerge from blackness. The video is silent. The date of the execution precedes each statement. To experience the methodical appearance and disappearance of the 475 dates and statements for the hour that follows is to consider the values of life and the way death punctuates time’s passing.
Freya Powell was born in London, England and is currently based in New York City. Powell’s work has been exhibited across the U.S. and internationally. In 2011 she was awarded the William Graf Travel Grant, to make audio recordings of the coastal military Sound Mirrors in England, and she is currently in residence at the
Bronx Museum through the Artist in the Marketplace program. Her practice incorporates video, photography, artist books and printmaking. She is interested in the imaginative space, making truth felt rather than just telling it. Working with a minimalist aesthetic and the use of abstraction her work moves beyond documentary status, slowing perception and engaging common experiences. She received a B.A. from Bard College in 2006, and a M.F.A. from Hunter College in 2012.
Atrium
Works by Carolyn Salas
Carolyn Salas’ nine-foot tall Untitled 1 & 2 canvases hang on the wall near the entry. Unraveled threads hang vertically from the raw canvas, and the resulting tassels are dyed black in one and a vivid color spectrum in the other. The tassels move a little when you pass, giving the impression of freedom, or a passing spirit, depending on your mood.
Salas writes, “using geometric abstraction to define space, the panel’s veil-like structures undulate with organic patterns that ooze with color, while balancing the fragility in texture and make-up of construction. The work acts as an intersection between painting and sculpture. Commenting on a world in flux, the work acknowledges its own incompleteness, its potential for new form.”
Carolyn Salas was born in Hollywood, California. She received her MFA from CUNY Hunter College, NY in 2005. In 2011/2012 she was a Grant Nominee for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Award. Salas has exhibited at museums including The Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY and The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA. Recent gallery exhibitions include Kate Werble Gallery, New York, NY; BRIC Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Abrons Art Center, New York, NY and Casey Kaplan, New York, NY. Salas has recently completed the artist in residence program at the New York Art Residency & Studios (NARS) Foundation, NY. In 2013 she will participate in residency programs at Fountainhead, FL, and the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai, China. She most recently completed a solo exhibition at Dodge Gallery in New York. Salas lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Emerson Dorsch
151 NW 24th Street
Miami, FL 33127
305.576.1278
www.emersondorsch.com
Be the first to comment