Into the Neon
a group exhibition and curatorial collaboration
chashama @ +aRt 540 West 28th Street
January 27 - February 12, 2011
Gallery hours: Tue-Sat 12p-6p
Opening: Jan 27 6p-8p
Closing ritual: Feb 11 7p
Into the Neon, rather than attempting to present a smooth and sparkling surface of collective cohesion or queer monoculture, exists as a living space, where the work of twelve artists will breathe - maybe rapid, maybe muted, maybe deep.
As visual artists involved in the convergence of community and art, as a loose network of friends of friends, we present this self-curated show, which stands in conversation with the art being bought and sold next door.
The works included range in approach from conceptual to object-based to process-oriented, taking shape as installation, video, photography, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, performance.
www.intotheneon.com
Contact: Quito Ziegler aqziegler@gmail.com
612-432-2410
Amy Agony curates an interactive transient collection of zines housed in the gallery. Angela Beallor’s installation uses text and sculptural form to explore ambivalence and ambiguity in political movement, identity, language, and history. Blaise’s interactive, spiritually evocative, and grounding “Queer Fruit Tree” marks an inviting, comfortable space where folk can engage in projects of queer cultural continuation. Daniel Lang/Levitsky constructs a landscape-based cardboard peepshow about a police murder in a cruising park in Newark. Daniel Luedtke distills queer imagery into graphic works using a self-designed printmaking process. Jaime Shearn Coan explores queer lineage through ghost-voices and offers a structure for connection through letter-writing. Lizxnn Disaster meditates on place and the movement of energy in her drawings. Niknaz Tavakolian’s electronic sculptures highlight the complexities of dichotomies and create a sense of intersubjectivity. Quito Ziegler’s grainy black and white images memorialize wild unicorns, glitterponies, and other queens of the night. Rebecca Greenberg’s photographs explore the nature of identity and self-representation. Tuesday Smillie’s haunting digital print oscillates between passing and failing, being beautiful and horrific, being magical and monstrous. Zavé G. Martohardjono’s videos explore the vast possibilities and inherent limits of identity through experimental self-portraiture.
As our work comes together in this space for the first time at Into the Neon, we cannot predict, but only witness, the conversation that will emerge. Like an artist roundtable, our pieces await the start of the show to begin to speak. We hope not only to mark our moment, but to project beyond it. We invite the public into our process(es); we invite you to share our vulnerability, our movement, our living archive.
Additional programming includes two curated evenings of performance art, a film screening in conjunction with MIX NYC, a poetry reading, and an inter-generational dialogue. Ritual performances mark the opening and closing events.
We present our work in +aRt, a 13-story new construction building located at 540 West 28th Street. The development features 91 artfully designed condominium residences, from studios to three bedrooms.
www.540W28.com
All events held at chashama @ 540 W 28 +aRt.
