Max Presneill, an artist and curator. He is currently the Head Curator at the Torrance Art Museum and is the Founder and Director of Raid Projects in Los Angeles. From 2005-8 he was the Director/Curator for the Mark Moore Gallery. He has extensive international curatorial experience, having developed exhibitions for museums, institutes and galleries in London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Mexico City, Sydney, Istanbul, Paris,  as well as numerous projects throughout the US.

www.raidprojects.com

www.torranceartmuseum.com

Please find below;

Artistic Statement

Exhibition resume

Chronology of Raid Projects

List of some artists I have worked with

Artistic Statement

Combining and investigating various theoretical positions regarding Knowledge, such as Meme Theory and Dinosaur Theory, these paintings follow my intuitive and subjective mental wanderings and linkages of interest, via the Internet and lateral thinking exercises, to form nebulous narratives of memeplexes which isolate the viewer into an understanding of the essential separateness of experience regardless of the shared societal and cultural origins of the sources of Information.

My paintings reflect upon Hermetic moments within reconstructed histories and mythologized experiences and reconfigured relationships between fact and fiction. These forged connections that play between remembering, invention and the act of painting allow for fluid identities and the heightened poignancy of self-aware entropy, of the passage of one’s own time and essential singularity in the world, regardless of attempts at connection via others and through painting itself.

The paintings touch upon aspects of memory, transience, and maleness. These allude to situations, both specific and general, factual and imagined, in a form of visual existentialism.  Isolated and de-contextualized, the source materials float in a sea of uncertainty, like our own reflection in a mirror, somewhat familiar but not quite us, what is seen differing from what is felt.

The spatial relationships deliberately destabilize the picture plane and heighten ambiguity as well as provide the perceptual infrastructure to support conceptual instability, social/political and personal, maintained in a state of flux.  This figurative/abstract status of the resulting image is explored both as a painterly concern as well as metaphor for social/political positioning and an epistemological critique. A meeting point of irregularities and intuitions, logic and reason, they are the site for (both cognitive and political) decisions and choices, Acts and ultimately responsibility as the nexus point for reestablishing one's own existential identity (the subjective body), in relation to the social or what is essentially corporate space.

Using a combination of negotiable, changing rules, manipulations and reinventions in relation to intuition (an allowance of the personal) and formal painterly decisions to recontextualize the source materials, the work becomes about painting itself, while maintaining references to the personal and to the cultural.

In the end they are the remnants and evidence of the cognitive, problem-solving nature of painting and the human experience, or at least mine…

Exhibition Resume

Selected solo and group exhibitions

2009

Rant, Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, CA

Manifestation, Carl Berg Projects, Los Angeles, CA

Invisible Empire/Undefined Spaces, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, NL

On The Shoulders of Davids, JAUS, Los Angeles, CA

Psychic Hearts, La Verne University Gallery, La Verne, CA

PS 1999 – 2009, Kunstruimte09, Groningen, Netherlands

Tupajumi, Hudson Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Gunshow, Space B, New York City

Doin’ It, Kruglak Gallery, Mira Costa, CA

2008

“um…My, gallery”, The Brewery Arts Complex, Los Angeles, CA

From Similar Origins to Remarkable Visions, Main Art Gallery, CSUF, Fullerton, CA

Plush, Eagle Rock Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, CA

2007

Wish List, Freight & Volume, New York City (solo)

ANFSCD, La Estacion Arte Contemporaneo, Chihuahua, Mexico (solo)

artLA Art Fair, Los Angeles, with Raid FC

2006

Sex Sells, Red House Gallery, Venice Beach, CA (as part of artLA)

2005

Quickening, MOCA, Tuscon, AZ

Just Visiting, Huntington Beach Art Center

artLA. The LA art fair, LA, with Raid Projects

A Warlike People, M Gallery, Phoenix, Arizona, curated by Lara Taubman

Register The Distance, Borusan Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey, curated by Beral Madra (curator of Istanbul Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2005 and 2 previous Istanbul Biennials)

2004

The Armory Show, New York

LA Driveby Part 2, MOP Gallery, Sydney, Australia

LA Driveby Part 1, Kyubidou Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Network, De Parel, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Nexus 1 by nTOPIA, Art and Idea, Mexico City

PLA, Raid Projects, Los Angeles

2003

Turschlusspanik, Kontainer Gallery, LA (solo)

Midas, POST, Los Angeles

Raid In Chicago, Standard Gallery, Chicago

Scope Art Fair, Standard Hotel, Los Angeles

Tinsel Town, Domestic Setting, Los Angeles

Images of Desire 2, Winston Hotel, Amsterdam

Fragment, PS Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Miniatures, Kyubidou Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (catalog)

The Stray Show Art Fair, Chicago

GAP, SCA Gallery, Pomona, CA (solo)

2002

Curatorial Market, Cuchifritos Gallery, New York (catalog)
Images Of Desire, Fields Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Cross Currents, Deutsch Bank, London, UK
Dreamcatcher, RA Gallery, Kiev, Ukraine
The Stray Show Art Fair, Chicago
Glamour Trip So Soon To Slip, Sheehan Gallery, WA (catalog)
Animal Instinct, Cerritos College Gallery, CA
GIANT, Three Mills Studio, London, UK

2001

Travails, West Gallery, Fullerton, CA (solo)
100% Rag, POST, LA
Ever Since Icarus, Lord Mori Gallery, Chinatown, LA (catalog)
New Video, Gallery Hana, Austin, TX
For Example, Acuna Hansen Gallery, Chinatown, LA
Rising Tide, O.C. Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA (catalog)
Su-Su-Superego, San Bernadino College Gallery, CA
Sound And Vision, Program 12, LA

2000

Logocentricity, Cypress College Gallery, CA (solo)
Phase 3, EGCA Gallery, Santa Ana, CA
Wall Space, Miller Durazo Gallery, LA
10 Degrees Of Abstraction, Biola University Gallery, LA
Strangeland, Andrew Shire Gallery, LA
Intraconnections, Don O’Melveny Gallery, LA

1999

Desire, Eye Five Gallery, LA (catalog)
Strange Bedfellows, Webster Gallery, Santa Ana, CA (solo)
Simon Rondelet International Video Art Show, The Bullet Museum, New York
Land Of Extreme Happiness, SMAC Truck Show, LA (catalog)

1998

10th Annual Juried Show, Irvine Fine Arts Center, CA
IV, EGCA Gallery, Santa Ana, CA

1997

BLOC, Workstation Gallery, Sheffield, UK
Contemporary Diversions, Clocktower Gallery, Sheffield, UK

1996

Spellbound, Octagon Center, Sheffield, UK (solo)
SCAT, The Mappin Gallery, Sheffield, UK
Stockport Open, Stockport City Art Gallery, UK

1995

Derby Open, Derby City Art Gallery, UK
Scattered, Doncaster City Art Gallery, UK

1994

Morbid Symptoms, Leeds Metro University Gallery, UK
Pullit 8, Pullit Gallery, London, UK
Brute Farce, Yorkshire Art Space, Sheffield, UK
Climate, Cool Tan Gallery, London, UK

Chronology of Raid Projects

In 1997,  Max Presneill moved to California from the UK and began holding one-night-only exhibitions in empty store fronts. An artist and occasional curator he continued his exhibiting career while increasingly working on curatorial projects.

•1998        Max forms Raid Projects with first show officially under that name - ‘Strange Bedfellows'

•1999        Organizes Spurgeon Experience I (with Mike McGee) and Spurgeon Experience II (with Carl Berg) in Santa Ana, CA - short run exhibitions in an empty building with solo shows of 106 and 114 artists opening simultaneously - one artist per room. Some artists fly in from Europe to participate.

•2000        Raid Projects moves to first permanent space in white-cube space in Santa Ana in ex-gallery (Ed Giardina Contemporary Art, when that space closes). Six teams of 4 artists each are formed to curate a show each every 6 months. Max Presneill heads one team and begins curating in alternate spaces under RP name to expand RP activities.

•2001        Raid Projects moves to current location at the Brewery in Los Angeles. Curatorial duties are taken over by Max Presneill again.

•2002        Introduction of Artist In Residence program to supplement regular monthly program. RP produces a catalog every month to support each show (12 per year). We begin curating shows internationally for other spaces and institutions. Primary focus of gallery is upon curatorial strategies and approaches.

•2003        Program increasingly focuses on bringing international art to LA. Marvella Muro joins staff.

•2004        Janet Owen and Sydney Croskery join the staff of Raid Projects.  The AIR program expanded to 2 artists.  External shows curated by Max Presneill expanded and eventually go to Tokyo, Amsterdam, Scottsdale, Mexico City, Sydney, London, Chicago and other cities, including participation in art fairs (including Stray Show, Chicago and The Armory Show, New York - eventually includes artLA, Los Angeles and Paris art fair). Max forms nTOPIA Installation group who complete projects in Mexico City, LA and Istanbul.

•2005        RP begins to focus part of program on young artists and new grads from LA area to balance international program. Max becomes Director at Mark Moore Gallery in addition to RP. Colton Stenke joins staff.

•2006        Focus shifts to smaller group shows.

•2007        First ever solo shows are introduced to years program. Guest Curators invited to present shows for first time regularly.

•2008        Raid Projects closes in May but continues with AIR program and studio based research.

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The following lists some of the artists that Max Presneill worked with from 1998-2008, both at Raid Projects and in other venues.

Rev Ethan Acres (US), Saadane Afif (FR) (2007 Documenta) , Edgar Arceneaux (US) (2008 Whitney Biennial), Skip Arnold (US), Fernanda Brunet (MX), Jane Callister (UK), Gordon Cheung (UK), Delphine Coindet (FR), Greg Colson (US), Meg Cranston (US) (Venice Biennale), Martin Creed (UK), Steve Criqui (US), Critical Art Ensemble (US), Nathalie Djurberg (Sweden) (Venice Biennale), Martin Durazo (US), Emilio Fantin (I) (Venice Biennale), Carlee Fernandez (US), Monique van Genderen (US), Shaun Gladwell (AUS) (Venice Biennale), Graham Hudson (UK), Per Huttner (SW), Icelandic Love Corporation, Martin Kersels (US), Krijn de Koning (NL), Peter Lamb (UK), Joep van Liefland (NL), Claudia Losi (IT) (Venice Biennale), Liza Lou (US), Marcos Lutyens (UK) (Venice Biennale), Marta Marce (SP), Sabrina Mezzaqui (I), Paul Morrison (UK), Ruben Ochoa (US) (2008 Whitney Biennial), Jonas Ohlsson (SW), Yoshua Okon (MX), Ruben Ortiz-Torres (MX), Jared Pankin (US), Cesare Pietroiusti (IT), Jan van der Ploeg (NL), Katie Pratt (UK), George Raggett (US), Boo Ritson (UK), Steve Roden (US), Danny Rolph (UK), Daniela Rossel (MX), Kim Rugg (UK), Kerry Skarbakka (US), Brad Spence (US), Thaddeus Strode (US), Joel Tauber (US), Shirley Tse (US), Gillian Wearing (UK) (Turner Prize), Pae White (US) (Venice Biennale), Simon Willems (UK), Mario Ybarra (US) (2008 Whitney Biennial).