Considering the future while digging into the past, Matt Keegan’s exhibition, NOW'S THE TIME, at Anna Helwing Gallery in Culver City, seems to be moving "back to the future."  The exhibition arose from an interest in the Hands Across America event in 1986, in which early seven million people held hands across the US, from New York to California, to raise money to fight homelessness.  Thinking about what it means to be an American in 2008, (a big election year), Keegan set off on the path that the Hands followed across the States.  Along the way Keegan met with mayors of various cities, taking with him from the meetings, a cast of one of their hands.  Keegan brought hands from across America to California for the exhibition, completing his own hands event.

Using the year 1986 as a starting point, NOW'S THE TIME has been produced in tandem with an artist book published by Printed Matter titled AMERICAMERICA. Almost literally taking the pages from a book, Keegan covers every surface of gallery walls with monolithic leaning drywall sheets. Some sheets are left bare while others are altered by the artist’s hand etching into the surface, or adorned with various artifacts, ranging from inkjet print to silkscreen, all relating to the year 1986.  Names of various characters from the stories of 1986, collected by the artist through interviews and research, have been etched into the drywall throughout the gallery, each etched panel becoming a typographical portrait of that character. 

The exhibition becomes an amalgamation of memories – a re-envisioning of a year's socio-cultural history as it applies to the individuals that the artist encountered along his journey to accumulate information about that year.  In keeping with this theme of gathering, Keegan has also organized a series of events ranging from lectures to musical performances to accompany the work on view at Anna Helwing Gallery, (see event schedule below).

Hands down, this is a show worth seeing.

9/12, 8pm I.U.D. w/ All Neon Like @ The Mountain Bar
9/13, 3pm Jacqueline Dunnington Lecture on the Virgin of Guadalupe
9/19, 7pm Fia Backström performs Herd Instinct  0°
9/20, 3pm Panel Discussion Moderated by David Novak, with Tammy Rae Carland, Cheryl Keyes, Alan Licht, and Dave Muller
9/26, time TBA B’L’ing DVD Exchange and Screening, Screening of Matt Wolf’s Documentary “Wild Combination”
9/27, 6pm Ed Halter and Jeff Krulik in Conversation
9/30-10/4 Solo Show by Veronica Blaha

*All events at Anna Helwing Gallery unless otherwise noted