July 2, 2008

PRESS RELEASE

 

Iao PROJECTS

925 EAST 900 SOUTH SUITE 40

SALT LAKE CITY UT 84105

T. 801.879.1971

http://www.iao-gallery.com/

http://www.youtube.com/IaoProjects

 

YOUTUBE SOCKS
Sibyll Kalff, qi peng, Jeff Faerber, Michelle Kurtz (Circlegal), Stacey Wexler, Kurtz + peng, Amy Caron
May 15, 2008 - December 17, 2008

Iao PROJECTS is proud to announce an overview of internet video art by various artists from the Iao PROJECTS roster. Selected artists include Sibyll Kalff, Michelle Kurtz, Jeff Faerber, Amy Caron, Kurtz + peng, Stacey Wexler, and qi peng. This will be the first time that a commercial Utah gallery (not including non-profit spaces) will feature video art using an online setting. Curator Albert Wang had decided that since there was no physical space yet for the PROJECTS and that the roster of artists for Iao was international, the online video sharing service YouTube would become the ideal medium for presenting the PROJECTS' first exhibition which allows a diverse audience to experience the magic of art without having to travel to a designated space. It would be easier for the artists to bring their artwork to the audience's homes rather the other way around; this changes the direction and control of how these video works will interact with an everyday viewer.

For example, Sibyll Kalff in her video "little balcony drifting" has her cameraman Wolfgang Menke swing his device back and forth across the quaint townscape of a "German" place which is unnamed. However, elements from nature particularly flowers and plants intrude into what seems to be a simple panning shot. Is this a Zen meditation video? A parody of a real estate advertisement? Kalff's clip does not subscribe to anything more than an observational study of humanity mixing it up with nature. Or is it? The evident complexity in the interpretation is all dependent on the viewer's personal attitude.

 

Jeff Faerber, in his “Untitled” series, features a self-confession with the option as a single or dual channel video looped over and over. Ostensibly an introduction to his own artwork, Faerber takes the perfunctory television from the Home Shopping network and satirizes it with his deadpan approach while bringing footage of what would have been a studio visit film into the comfort of his own home. This domestic subversion of the media attacks the pigeonholing of unappreciated artwork as home decoration rather than profound statement of humanity.

Another example of probing nature includes qi peng ongoing series "15 seconds of fame..." which features random shots from a personal diary using his commonplace cellular phone. By attacking both concepts of Warhol's 15 minutes of fame and the highbrow nature of high-definition television, peng's lowbrow approach to video-making demonstrates the ultimate triumph of an individual personal's life over the mass celebrity culture infused within current-day culture. These random clips suggest that pretty much anything in one's own life can be famous as long as it is preserved for history and shown to a general public through the media such as YouTube or MySpace.

 

Stacey Wexler’s “Doesn’t Frighten Me” is an animated clip which reverses the concept of a horror movie by demonstrating the bravery of a heroic, presumably fearless female character passing through shadows. Her drawings suggests that everybody can triumph over death through a celebration of self-identity and artistic endeavors.

 

Kurtz + peng, a duo consisting of conceptual artist qi peng and abstract expressionist Michelle Kurtz (aka Circlegal) team tag for a series of “how-to-do” instructional videos entitled “in the beginning,” “the ground,” “the figure i,” “the figure ii,” “in the ending,” and “signature for circlegal” attack the Bob Ross approach to art where academic art is prepackaged for the viewer and potential buyer. By creating this series of graffiti instruction combined with a sly reference to a Hans Namuth-like footage by peng to document the Pollock-like ambition of Kurtz, Kurtz + peng mock the masculine propensity to execute huge murals as some heroic act. Feminism becomes evident in Kurtz’s Banksy-like approach to her animal drawing and the sudden juxtaposition of primitive cave art with postmodern issues smack dab in this random urban setting. Also two additional videos “still life” and “the night drawers” mock the academic analysis of art by jabbing a finger into the art documentaries which suffer from a pretense of destroying personal enjoyment of artworks through continued breakdowns of how artists do their thing.

Michelle Kurtz (aka Circlegal) presents “Not Your Studio Visit” as a visual tour-de-force parody of reality TV through its wobbly camera effects, the longwinded monologue about the style of her home, and the flaneur’s wanderings through piles and piles of unseen artwork. By running around the home room by room, Kurtz deconstructs real estate as a form of a playground based on the imagination rather than as a commodity while inviting the viewer into a world of personal fantasy and whimsy.

 

Finally, there is a brilliant preview of Amy Caron’s large-scale installation “Waves of Mu” which will be featured at Performance Space 122 in October 2008. According to Caron, “Large-scale installation/performance work connected to neuroscience and the discovery of mirror neurons.  A deeply layered work that winks and nods to hard science as it offers and experiential understanding of complex issues surrounding scientific process, the connection between mind and behavior, and the mysterious draw of what we do not know about ourselves.  Amy uses video, movement, theater, and a full-sensory installation pumping with dub reggae to build her twisted lab/lecture/experiment.  The work bravely challenges accepted behavioral norms and communicates the profundity of contemporary scientific research with a masterful delivery that is surprisingly fun (yes, damn it - it’s fun) and enlightening.” Her trailer features a full set-up of this installation by her assistants for a performance in Alaska.

Apparently YOUTUBE SOCKS challenges two predominant norms: that video art must always be depersonalized and that a commercial gallery must always exist in a physical location. With the advent of forthcoming technologies, the PROJECTS becomes an expression of how art can be made easier to access for a seemingly indifferent public obsessed with the ubiquity of banal imagery and proposes that an emerging gallery can adapt to newly discovered worlds such as a world reconstructed through user-made homemade videos or the internet which are not experienced by the typical sector of the art market. The question: Will this project cease to exist once Iao PROJECTS finds its new physical home or office space?

The curator suggests that the viewer log onto the YouTube website everyday to check for some of the other videos from these particular artists. Eventually, all of the exhibition’s clips from May to December 2008 will be collected onto both an open, readily available DVD for the public and a limited edition (numbered up to 5 including 2 artist's proofs) DVD signed by the owners of Iao PROJECTS for collectors.

 

For more information, please contact Shadna Sieger at (801) 336-0924 or shadna@iao-gallery.com or Albert Wang at (801) 879-1971 or albert@iao-gallery.com.