"The Ambassadors" is an ongoing and expanding project by artist RachelMason. It is based on a growing collection of hand sculpted andpainted porcelain figurines, each a bust of a political or military figure involved in various international wars and conflicts that have taken place during the artist's lifetime, (1978 to the present). For each year of her life, a relevant geo-political conflict has been selected and its key players molded into small portraits that fit the size of your palm, simultaneously drawing on both traditions of historical portrait busts and serial collector's items or decorative domestic nicknacks. The figurines operate as ambassadors and diplomats from their respective historical contexts brought into often anachronistic and ahistorical contact through Mason's own ambassadorial role as the artist and creator of these works, not to mention her ambassadorial role as the instigator of a collaborative endeavor, asking others to become ambassadors into the minds of these sculpted figures.

The current exhibition represents one installment of the larger series: Mason invited fourteen collaborators to contribute texts written from the imagined consciousness of a figure of their own choosing. She translated the texts into songs which she recorded and compiled into an album, Songs of the Ambassadors, Mason's firstofficially distributed album. "The Ambassadors" exhibition at Trudi features the fourteen porcelain figurines, accompanying contributed texts of the poems, and a performance of songs from the album at the opening on September 8th with a live performance of a selection of songs at 9:30.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Mason has produced a limited edition of 200 packages consisting of a book (designed by Inger-Lise McMillan) of the exhibited figurines along with the coinciding poems by the different
contributors, as well as a CD of the songs.

Contributors to the show and the album include:
Julian Hoeber, Los Angeles based artist who produced the feature-length film;
Michael Queenland, New York based artist recently exhibited in the Whitney at
Altria;
Tim Davis, photographer and subject of the monograph, "My Life in Politics";
David Dempewolf, New York based artist and co-founder of Base-Camp in Pennsylvania;
Christy Gast, New York based artist recently included in High Desert Test Site Project;
John Knuth, artist and director of Circus of Books Gallery;
Amy Gerstler, an American poet and winner of the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award;
Emory Holmes II, published novelist, journalist, playwright, poet and children's story writer;
Rosanna Albertini, writer and curator who has published in international literary and art magazines;
Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, an emerging writer and curator of this exhibition in Los Angeles;
Lia Trinker-Browner, a writer and curator;
Josephine Foster, who recently debuted her album, "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing";
and Jennifer Herrema of the legendary Royal Trux and RTX.

Rachel Mason has for years made her own eclectic music: autobiographical, fictional and loosely based on historical figures and events. She is originally from Los Angeles, studied at UCLA and then at Yale where she received an MFA in sculpture. She currently lives in New York, where she regularly performs her music and exhibits, she also coordinates exhibitions and teaches art at Sing Sing Prison. Her sculpture and music have been featured twice on Artforum's Top 10 list. Her previous album, Songs of States, is the predecessor to "The Ambassadors." This newest album, with its wordswritten by others, has songs that vary greatly with some feeling likelullabies, others like heavy rock and at times folk ballads.

For more information on the artist and her work, please go to
www.rachelannmason.com
For more information call exhibition curator, Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer at (617) 794-4530.