May 12, 2005
The best press releases of 2004-05
Now that the exhibition season is coming to a close, I thought I'd share a selection of excerpts from press releases I received between September 2004 and May 2005. Names are redacted to protect the innocent.
01. "These two projects pivot on the double in a way that is reminiscent of the split infinitive—an ungrammatical proposition. Both projects renegotiate allusion, body, continuity, diptych, discontinuity, fashion, figure, frame, genre, geometry, gesture, history, hybrid, index, landscape, making, monochrome, the new, oeuvre, palette, self-portraiture, and still life—among other characteristics and operations—according to disparate logics. The dissolution of "to be" that obtains becomes the occasion for embarkation."
02. "[The artist]'s first solo show is both an homage to and catharsis of the modal valence that connects identity and location, performed against the setting of metropolitan Los Angeles. From the minute to the grandiose, the work reflects the phenomenological becoming of identity as it is stratified throughout one's environment; there is a sense of 'when' one is in relation to where one is. Thus, there is a specific type of temporality at play in the pieces, one that corresponds between the past and the present in hopes of marking the becoming of a fluid process of identification, one in which each tense communicates freely with the next, in any possible direction, in order to effect a new way of engaging with place."
03. "In contrast, the distribution of energy in the full-throttle pudendathon of her black and white 'Self Portrait' video is dramatically polarized by a close up of the artist's crotch."
04. "[The artist] is an LA-based, self-diagnosed agoraphobic. Since 1983, [last name] has found it difficult to leave her house, let alone take a trip. Recently, however, she has pondered what items she would bring if she were to leave. Currently, the list includes her new journal, running shoe, 3 bras, shampoo, a pillow, cute shoes, underwear and a hair dryer."
05. "For almost thirty years [the artist], at times single-handedly, has kept the tradition of abstract painting vital and renewed. Employing a vocabulary of horizontal and vertical forms that is deceptively reductive, the artist both humanizes and sanctifies the formal language of painting."
06. "[The artist's] highly lyrical work in video has been termed 'video drawing' which goes some way toward conveying its spontaneity and expressive power. After working for a number of years as a buyer for a fashion house, the artist began to produce her own video and digital animation works, many of which feature the artist herself, or an unidentified teenage girl that stands for her, as it does for all of us."