PAST EXHIBITION

EVERYTHING THAT GATHERS BLOWS AWAY

Location:
126 Baxter Street, NYC

Curated by:
Abigail Simon

Exhibition Dates:
August 3, 2016 - August 8, 2016

Opening Reception:
August 3rd, 6-9pm

PAST EXHIBITION

EVERYTHING THAT GATHERS BLOWS AWAY

ESTHER BOESCHE, ANTHONY HAMBOUSSI, RANIA KHALIL, IZABELA JURCEWICZ, WAYNE LIU, TAMALYN MILLER, THERESA ORTOLANI, ABIGAIL SIMON, HANNA SOLIN, ANDREW SPANO, STEPHEN SPERA, MARINA ZURKOW

Embedded in each cultural construction there is a forlorn hope: a hope that the imposition of systems will make meaning, or lead to change, to order, …. but order is cosmically speaking, a symptom of decay.  Curation, a gesture of assemblage, is an attempt to construct an argument from different languages.  It is a way of making a case for a truth, but truth is unstable…it is subject to context, and shows up differently in different lights.

Each object we touch has the potential to function as a time machine. It is a translation device that makes a bridge between the experience of the host (artist) and guest (viewer). Each of us is the carrier of a unique distillation of our collective historical experience(s). We are all carriers of the same virus, but it isn’t (only) language, as Derrida famously said…it is also history.

The artists in this show explore the collision of personal and political, social and spiritual systems, regimes of capitalism and desire. They speak from across the globe in a cacophony of media.  Where do their narratives converge? Each in their own way attempts to think the unthinkable:  a future that is unimaginably alien, a present tense that is mysterious and unknowable, or heal a past full of wounds and loss.  What does it mean for the world as we know it to come to an end? And doesn’t that take place, in ways large and small, for all of us, every day?

There is a saying: Kali, the Hindu goddess of change, is terrifying to those that fear her, but beautiful to those who embrace her.

Please join us as we try and hold a thought in our memory for the brief moment it takes to share it, before it shifts, and fades, before it is no longer true, before the summer falls away and falls apart. All that remains to us is now—-which does not in fact remain at all.

Abigail Simon        July 2016

About the Curator:

Abigail Simon is an artist and curator who uses varied strategies and materials to conduct social and aesthetic research. Her portraits, videos and installations have been shown at The International Center of Photography, The Bronx Museum, The AIR Gallery, EFA Gallery, The Ace Hotel, Los Angeles Community Center, The Staten Island Museum and Governor’s Island. She received an MFA in 2006 from the ICP/Bard Program in Advanced Photographic Studies She has taught at Pratt Institute, Eyebeam Atelier, ITP at Tisch School of the Arts/NYU and is a core faculty member of the General Studies Program at ICP.

About the Artist:

Esther Boesche is a multidisciplinary artist who was born in Northern Germany and lives and works in Brooklyn. In her work she is observing influences and characteristics of social, political and anthropological systems. Esther Boesche has studied Design and Photography at the Muthesius School of Arts in Germany and recently received her MFA from the International Center of Photography in New York. She has exhibited in various places in Germany and the United States. She was awarded with the DAAD Artist Grand for the year 2013 and the ICP Director`s Scholarship from 2013 to 2015.

About the Artist:

Anthony Hamboussi is an Egyptian-American photographer, born in Brooklyn, NY in 1969. He has exhibited in the Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, MoMA/PS1, Americas Society, Queens Museum and Sculpture Center, New York.  His book, Newtown Creek: A Photographic Survey of New York’s Industrial Waterway was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2010. Hamboussi has received grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Jerome Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts in Architecture, Planning & Design.

About the Artist:

Izabela Jurcewicz is a Polish photographer based in New York City. A graduate of the International Center of Photography (one-year program), University of Arts in Poznan (bachelor from Photography at Multimedia Department) and Warsaw University (master’s degree in Sociology), her works have been exhibited, among others, at the International Center of Photography and MONA Museum of the Newest Art in Poznan and during such international photography festivals as Month of Photography in Bratislava (OFF), 12th Fotofestival in Lodz, 8th Biennale of Photography in Poznan.

About the Artist:

Rania Khalil is an artist using performance and moving image.  Her work has been shown in such places as the La Mama Galleria,  Al Ma’mal Contemporary Art Foundation Palestine and the 2015 Venice Biennale.  Born to Egyptian Parents in the U.S., Rania lives and works between Cairo and Helsinki and has recently returned to New York City.

About the Artist:

Wayne Liu has spent his life transitioning back and forth between Taiwan, his birth country, and the USA. His connection with and confusion about both culture and location informs his work, as does his sense that he is truly migrant and never immigrant. His work has been exhibited internationally in China, Europe and the USA including exhibitions at the Musee Quai Branly in Paris and the Museum of the Chinese in the Americas in New York City.

About the Artist:

Tamalyn Miller is a visual artist, musician and poet. Her poetry is included in The Funk and Wag from A – Z  (Menil Collection, 2014) and she is the author of five collections of poetry as handcrafted book works.  Among her visual works is SPIRIT HOUSE, a site-specific installation presented at Project Row Houses (Houston, TX) investigating magical methods used for house protection, As a musician and songwriter, she is a founding member of the psychedelic folk trio Goddess which released their second album Paradise in 2015. She works as a hypno- and aroma-therapist.

About the Artist:

Theresa Ortolani is a Brooklyn-based Multimedia Artist, PhD candidate at the European Graduate School and Dean’s Scholar in the ICP-Bard MFA program. She received a BFA in Sculpture from Boston.  An 8-time PDN winner and a “30 Photographers to Watch” nominee, her photographs have been included in three consecutive New York Photo Festivals, the Seoul International Photo Festival and Klompching Gallery’s FRESH exhibit. Visura Multimedia Grant 1st place Finalist, IPA/Lucie 2nd place Winner and 16 IPA/Lucie Honorable Mentions are also highlighted among her recent accolades. Ortolani’s first monograph, “Endurance,” and her multimedia short, “Saudade,” were selected as PDN Annual winners.

About the Artist:

Hanna Solin is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in dance. Her work is often focused on the nature of relationships and connection. Her process is driven by rhythm and by the deconstruction and reconstruction of structure and order. She is engaged in the study of the human condition and ongoing narratives of inner life. Solin was recently awarded an honorable mention in the Moscow International Foto Awards 2016. She has been featured in The Eye of Photography and has exhibited at The Upstream Gallery in Hastings-on-Hudson, in their juried show Photography Takes Over 2015, and at The International Center of Photography, Rita K Hillman Gallery in 2016.

About the Artist:

Andrew Spano writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He also writes about the political, psychological, and social effects of language through psycholinguistics. His artwork includes performance, music, and multimedia. He has a Ph.D. in Media Philosophy from the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. He also has a M.A. in English from the University of Vermont. For ten years as a journalist he served, variously, as China correspondent, editorial page editor, copy editor, general assignment reporter, feature writer, and photographer. His two books – one on psycholinguistics titled Abduction Topology and one of poetry in collaboration with artist Ivana Masic titled HARDSCAPE/ABC — are available on Amazon. Until August 31st he is a clinical assistant professor at New York University. After that, he will become a professional FLANEUR.

About the Artist:

Stephen Spera has been exhibiting and performing since he was eighteen. He has spent most of his life in one or another photographic pursuit. His latest works examine the spirit world vs the ‘material’. He created new digital beings from compressions of many old ones, and Spera’s the spirit radio is a new element- adding it to the library of self made and exceptional devices used in his sound art.

About the Artist:

Marina Zurkow is a media artist focused on near-impossible nature and culture intersections. She uses life science, materials, and technologies to foster intimate connections between people and non-human agents. She is a 2011 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow, and has been granted awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Creative Capital. She is on faculty at ITP / Tisch School of the Arts, and is represented by bitforms gallery.

Location:
126 Baxter Street, NYC

Curated by:
Abigail Simon

Exhibition Dates:
August 3, 2016 - August 8, 2016

Opening Reception:
August 3rd, 6-9pm