free size

March 13 - April 17, 2010
apexart

Sinudom Silk Screen Factory
35/21 Moo 1, Sakaegnam Road
Samaedam, Bang Khun Thian
Thailand

Franchise Two: "free size" **
Curated by Logan Bay

Participating artists: Alvaro Ilizarbe, Jen Stark, Juan Angel Chavez, and P7

"In a mass produced world of global goods, the act of creation is often lost or forgotten. Hidden machinery cranks and sweats out elements of our everyday life, yet we rarely glimpse the environment where ideas are physically forged. To produce the exhibition free size artists Alvaro Ilizarbe, Jen Stark, Juan Angel Chavez, and P7 will work directly in the Sinudom Silk Screen factory along side employees creating works of art. By bringing these contemporary artists into a global manufacturing hub the realms of production and creation will exist in a simultaneous space, transforming this modest factory into an active generator of creative capital. The Sinudom Silk Screen factory is located on the edge of Samut Sakhon a province that houses many factories. Over the past few decades Thailand has worked to become a producer of exportable goods and inexpensive items for domestic use. While the manufacturing machinery is abundant, many of the products are designed elsewhere. free size will encourage viewers to see that industrial spaces can also be incubators for creative thought and social evolution.

** For Franchise Two we excluded submissions for exhibitions to take place in large cities like New York, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, to focus on locations with less than 500,000 people — places such as Moshupa or Priboj, Baton Rouge or Lübeck, Cadiz or Az-Zawiyah, Heidelberg or Zinder. In response we received 243 exhibition proposals from 63 countries, and jurors submitted over 5,000 votes to identify a winner."

Opening reception: March 13, 2-6 pm

[Text and graphic from apexart. Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]

To New Horizons

apexart
291 Church Street
New York, New York

Wednesday, October 28, 6:30 pm
Public Talk:
To New Horizons

Emre Huner, current apexart resident, and Lauren Cornell, Executive Director Rhizome, will discuss utopian constructs, speculative fiction, and the juggernaut of modernism. In their conversation they will touch upon the inspirations for Huner's latest work from the New York World's Fair, to the NASA Space Program, and Walt Disney.

Born in Istanbul in 1977, Emre Huner is an artist producing drawing, video and spatial works following different techniques. He now lives and works in Istanbul after being in Milan for eight years. Central to his oeuvre are over technological, industrial progressions and the concept of society of risk in this respect and the themes such as the affinities of the modern man with architecture and nature. Huner creates a common language in his works through using an archive he formed out of various sources such as internet, found out pictures and books.

Lauren Cornell, Executive Director, Rhizome, oversees and develops Rhizome's programs, all of which serve to promote and contextualize art engaged with technology. Previously, Cornell worked as a curator and writer in London and New York.

Part of apexart's international resident lecture series.

[text and graphic from apex art website. Caption:
"Trylon, Perisphere and Helicline. Photo by Sam Gottscho." Cross-posted to Signal Fire.]

Cosmetic surgery, commercialization and culture:

apexart
291 Church Street
New York, New York

Wednesday, April 15, 6:30 pm
Cosmetic surgery, commercialization and culture: The case of the 'designer vagina'

A talk by Dr. Virginia Braun

In conjunction with the exhibition I Am Art, curated by Anthony Berlet, M.D.

"The so-called "designer vagina" -- a term used to refer to various forms of female genital cosmetic surgery, usually performed by plastic surgeons or gynecologists -- appeared in public discourse about a decade ago. Since that time, this area of cosmetic surgery has been identified as "the fastest emerging growth trend" in cosmetic surgery, itself a field which has expanded exponentially over that time. It seems more and more women are, apparently, having their genitalia altered for aesthetic purposes. What do these procedures have in common with other types of cosmetic surgery? What makes them unique? How can we make sense of the appearance and apparent popularity of these procedures? What makes them problematic? And what might be the (unintended?) implications of the marketing and availability of these surgeries, for girls and women? In this talk, Dr. Braun will outline what the surgery is, and identify a cluster of contemporary and historical sociocultural factors which make the appearance of female genital cosmetic surgery entirely understandable. She will also discuss critical questions this surgery raises, related to choice, agency and ethics, and to notions of genital perfection and pathology.

Virginia Braun, PhD, is a faculty member of the Department of Psychology at The University of Auckland (New Zealand), and is currently a visiting scholar in Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University. Her research interests are primarily focused around the (intersecting) areas of women's health, gendered bodies, and sex and sexuality, with a current focus on female genital cosmetic surgery. She is particularly interested in developing knowledge of how socio-cultural meanings given to bodies and bodily practices impinge on women's experiences, practices, and identities, in ways that can work to promote or preclude choice and wellbeing. For this reason, her research has always examined the nexus between individuals' accounts, scientific knowled ge, and popular cultural meanings. She is currently the co-editor of the international journal Feminism & Psychology.

[text and image from apex art website. Cross-posted on Signal Fire]

Loudermilk

apexart
291 Church Street
New York, New York

Thursday, February 26 | 6:30 pm

"apexart welcomes Brett Loudermilk, one of today's top sideshow performers and authority on the strange, the odd and the bizarre. Brett will discuss what it was like growing up in a Pentecostal Faith Healing tent show, traveling in the last carnival Ten-in-One sideshow in America, and how he became the youngest sword swallower in the world. Brett will perform select pieces from his one-man show and will answer any questions the audience may have. Not only is the event free, but as a bonus after all questions have been addressed, visitors will be shown the Egress. In conjunction with Kick My Heart's Ass.

[text and graphic from apex art Web site.]

Perverted by Art

Apex Art
291 Church Street
New York, New York

October 22 - December 6, 2008
Opening reception:
Wednesday, October 22, 6-8 pm

Perverted by Theater
curated by Franklin Evans and Paul David Young

With works by Laylah Ali, Mel Bochner, Luis Camnitzer, Kabir Carter, Ele D'Artagnan, William Daniels, David Dupuis, Igor Eskinja, Jackie Gendel, Kate Gilmore, Trajal Harrell, Elana Herzog, David Humphrey, Ross Knight, Virgil Marti, Ryan McGinley, Martin McMurray, Jim Nutt, Ann Pibal, Shahzia Sikander, Jack Smith, Mickalene Thomas, and Alexi Worth

Performances
Trajal Harrell: Oct. 22 during the opening
Kabir Carter: Nov. 1, 5-8 pm at apexart
John Jesurun: Nov. 2, 7 pm at Monkeytown in Brooklyn

"In his 1967 essay Art and Objecthood, art critic Michael Fried established as his central thesis “theater’s profound hostility to the arts”: “theater and theatricality are at war today, not simply with modernist painting (or modernist painting and sculpture) but with art as such.” Art was being “corrupted or perverted by theater.” Theater threatened art through its “sense of temporality” and, even worse, “theater has an audience – it exists for one – in a way the other arts do not.” Fried tied the audience to the creation of the subject/object relationship in the experience of art, which was like “being distanced, or crowded, by the silent presence of another person.” The purported horror of theater and its human presence, temporal dimension, and dialectical subject/object relationship were thus, according to Fried, the “negation of art.”

Cognizant of the critique of Fried by postmodern theory and contemporary art discourse, Perverted by Theater gleefully inverts Fried’s thesis, purposely selecting art for its theatricality and installing it in an environment molded by theater, to evoke temporality, the subject/object relation, the audience, the presence of the actor, the performance text, and the implication of dramaturgical concepts such as character, story, and plot structure."

more

[graphic from Apex press release. Caption: "Mickalene Thomas, Lovely Six Foota, 2007."]

Lots of Things Like This

Apex Art
"291 Church Street - between Walker and White Streets, just two blocks south of Canal Street. The 1 and 9 trains stop at Franklin Station."
[New York, New York]

Lots Of Things Like This
organized by Dave Eggers

April 2 - May 10, 2008
Opening reception: Wed, April 2, 6-8PM

"This show will explore a very small and specific type of artmaking exemplified by contemporary people like David Shrigley, Raymond Pettibon, Nedko Solakov, and Tucker Nichols. This kind of art, which we refuse to name, is somewhat crude, usually irreverent, and always funny. It exists somewhere between one-panel cartoons and text-based art. What we're talking about, basically, is a show of about 100 works that subscribe (unknowingly) to the following criteria: a) they're drawings, usually very basic or crude; b) these drawings are accompanied by hand-drawn text on the artwork, and this text refers to the drawing, much like a caption; c) this caption-text is funny. So in many ways you might say these are cartoons, because we’ve just listed the qualifications of a cartoon. But the works in this show are usually found in galleries, not newspapers or magazines, and so we have something interesting to think about: Is humor allowed in art, and in what forms? Are captions allowed in art, and why? And most importantly, why doesn’t David Shrigley spell better?"

— Dave Eggers

[image by Maira Kalman, from exhibition catalogue available for download online on the apex art site.]

iconoclasm | ritual | immortality

Apex Art
"291 Church Street - between Walker and White Streets, just two blocks south of Canal Street. The 1 and 9 trains stop at Franklin Station."
[New York, New York]

Boris Groys
Thinking in Loop: Three videos on iconoclasm, ritual and immortality


Opening reception:
Wednesday, February 20, 6-8pm
on view through March 29

Exhibition talk with Boris Groys:
Friday, February 29, 7pm
Tribeca Grand Screening Room
2 Sixth Avenue
Manhattan

"In recent times video, instead of text, has become the leading vehicle for transmitting information of any kind. Not accidentally the contemporary radical religious movements use video rather than text to present their programs and ideas. The videos that are shown on CNN and other comparable channels are the main source of political information for the greater audiences. MTV videos are central for the development of contemporary pop culture. And YouTube made video the chosen medium for anyone to communicate ideas or images to the whole world.

Combining theoretical texts and film footage, the videos in this exhibition are made not with a goal to transmit knowledge, to comment on the news, to spread religious and ideological propaganda, or to be used in the framework of education. The topic of these videos is, actually, video as a medium: the use of the image in the video, the analogy between video and essay, the difference between private and public use of the video, the video running in loop as modern form of ritual. The film footage is not used here as a mere illustration to make the text more comprehensible, or to make certain theoretical positions more evident. Rather, the exhibited videos thematize a gap between what we hear and what we see, and reflect on the relationship between image and word in our media driven world."

[image from Apex Art Web site. Caption: Video still from Immortal Bodies,
Boris Groys, 2006.]

Your Ad Here

Apex Art
"291 Church Street - between Walker and White Streets, just two blocks south of Canal Street. The 1 and 9 trains stop at Franklin Station."
[New York, New York]

The (Self)Promotion Show
created and curated by you, the public

Opening reception:
Wednesday, January 9, 6-8pm
on view through February 16

* Do art and TV belong in the same sentence?
* Do people lie about watching TV?
* Are commercials better than programs?
* Can apexart get creative people to make a TV commercial about them?

Yes, yes, yes and yes!

Join us on Wednesday in the apexart living room as we gather around the television, forget the writers-strike worries, and watch nothing but ads. And if you can't join us here, make sure to watch the ads online and vote for your favorite: the winner gets $1,500 and their ad aired on network TV!


apexart recently held an open call, requesting submissions of a 30-second TV commercial about us from individuals and collaborative groups. In addition to being on view as part of the living-room-style installation, the commercials are available for viewing on our website, where viewers are encouraged to visit and cast votes for their favorite.

The exhibition was conceived to examine creative practices in contemporary culture and to reconsider the current promotional model of the art world.


Directions: A, C, E, N, R, W, Q, 6, J, M, Z to Canal or 1 to Franklin.

[graphic: first image from google search for 'televison ad.']