May 3, 2008

Mongrel operations

Sriwhana Spong, an Auckland, New Zealand artist who has shown extensively in Wellington, Christchurch, Sydney and her home-town, is conversely almost entirely unknown in this country. She is exhibited in this country for the first time at Rotunda, thanks to a four-month residency in New York City awarded by the International Studio and Curatorial Program. Her standing work in this show, Passage (2008), is an installation of carved seedlac forms arranged on a large plywood plank supported by oranges. The connection between the title and the “raft” of plywood is implicit of the artist’s journey to the United States, with her sociocultural luggage aboard; Spong’s ethnic heritage is half-Balinese, half-European. But the work is certainly tricky to read without a bit of backstory; it was thankfully supplemented with Muttnik (2005) (shown in the April 16 video screening; previously at Anna Miles Gallery, Auckland), a fuzzy Super-8 recording (named for the first dog launched into space) of Balinese ceremonial offerings of fruit, incense, Coke bottles and cigarettes, arranged in a lush suburban backyard and set to “Dear Prudence”. A Wonder Years sort of nostalgia is the ruling aesthetic here, but its appeal is skewed; from Spong’s previous statement:

My Muttnik is a mongrel operation, a mish mash, misshapen venture, the creation of a home for strays. It is an education, an exploration into the shadowed parts of my lineage. In Muttnik I skim the surface of Balinese culture, taking what I want and adding to it what I know. This homeland of my father is a glimmer of something fed to me through shadows and whispers, and therefore I must make it my own. By borrowing, stealing and adapting, I can make as many bastards as I want, create as many Muttniks as necessary.

The video gave voice to Passage, tying it in with Spong’s previous body of work, a series of curiously vague vignettes — reaching either into concealed biography or disjointed items of pop culture — working out frustrations of cultural otherness through subtle, visceral gestures.

Elia Alba’s (Dominican-American, based in Queens) artwork contrasts severely; rather than a complex biography, hers is a study of anonymity, of racial avoidance, or rather, a blending of social identities into ugly, confused sign-systems. In Alba’s videos, installations and photographs, real persons or mannequins wear flimsy masks of printed with the faces of others: of a different gender, ethnicity or age. The result is disquieting; sometimes compelling, occasionally terrifying. That’s the gambit. Depersonalized and amplified, Alba’s ethnic nonpersons function as props: either as projections of real persons, or things manipulated to provide displaced human substance to concepts. Her videos apply the latter device, like Unruhe (2001) (shown in the video screening), where Alba’s deflated bag-heads pile on top of each other against a rocky shoreline while an anonymous hand moves them about. An installation in the gallery, Girls (2008), has a starkly different effect; the masks, crudely fit over mannequin heads adorned with cheap, garish wigs, rely on frightening presence rather than concept. In both cases, the work can go between moving and completely unviewable within an instant, which I imagine is Alba’s point. Whatever message that was desired in the first place will still be received, looking at the work, or looking away.

April 25, 2008

Notes on the video screening

Sara Reisman’s introduction to the video screening last Wednesday allowed a glimpse into her curatorial organization of Ethnographies of the Future, specifically her development of a show in a postcolonial framework while working against typical (or stereotypical) characteristics of the genre. She spoke of “questioning the relevancy of historical monuments,” and trying to do something do “less annoying” than other investigations in this arena; the specific sort of personalization, or internalization, of cultural matters (aggressive or not) that I’ve mentioned before seems to be the angle Reisman was shooting for.

April 15, 2008

Video Works: Spare Change, Picnics, Science Fiction

Pak Sheung Chuen, Disgusting on One’s Own History, Coins with Video documentation, 2007-08

Pak’s coins

If there is any work in this show that announces a theme with complete resolve it is Pak Sheung Chen’s Disgusting On One’s Own History (2008), which involves eight coins on a display marked “Hong Kong’s One Dollar coins at British colony period” with a three minute video running on a screen nearby. Keep reading →

April 9, 2008

Don’t miss the Ethnographies of the Future Video Screening




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Originally uploaded by bricrotundagallery

Wednesday, April 16, 7pm
Free with donation bar

Curator Sara Reisman curates a selection of video works in conjunction with Ethnographies of the Future. Artists include: Elia Alba, Pedro Barateiro, Lene Berg, Nao Bustamante, Katia Kameli, Grace Ndiritu, and Sriwhana Spong.

April 3, 2008

Ethnographies of the Future — Some Introductory Observations

Rotunda has allowed me six weeks to comment on, report and inform about Sara Reisman’s Ethhnographies of the Future: appropriately enough, as this exhibition feels more ongoing than static. This is a show demanding dialogue and opinions of its viewers. From Reisman’s essay in the gallery literature:

Ethnography is a branch of anthropology that studies qualitative and quantitative material descriptive of human social phenomena. In this exhibition, twelve artists from varied cultural backgrounds and geographic locations have produced artworks that reflect on recent ethnographic developments and propose new ethnographic paradigms. Although many of the artworks can be read as objects from specific colonial histories, each has an element of fantasy that alludes to what it might mean to be released of the burdens of colonial history across the globe.

Most of the artists represented here live and work in Brooklyn, but find their cultural identities elsewhere, specifically in famously colonized parts of the world. The key in reading Reisman’s curatorial message (that “fantasy”) is less, certainly, in actual cultural histories than in personal ones; cultural fact is repeatedly skewed here, dashed with process and emotional affectation. I’ll have many chances in upcoming posts to explore specific artists and their work, which I hope will both offer a deeper perspective of their processes, and my own evolving viewpoint on the curatorial theme-at-large.

The second segment of Ethnographies of the Future, a screening of related video works on April 16, will clearly alter the nature of this program, assumably adding the sort of viscera that only video can provide. The work of Elia Alba and Sriwhana Spong (both who have sculptural work featured in the gallery), along with several other artists not on view in the permanent installation, will be shown. I hope my comments here will provide a helpful perspective on these events and others.

Christopher Balla

March 19, 2008

ETHOGRAPHIES OF THE FUTURE AND PROPERLY PAST OPENING

We had yet another successful opening at BRIC Rotunda Gallery. For those of you not able to attend, here are some snap shots of the evening.

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February 21, 2008

Claudia Vieira

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Brooklynline (ARCHITECTURAL TOPOGRAPHIES, 2002–present) is the eighth segment in a larger series involving the inscription of topographic lines upon architectural space. Keep reading →

February 13, 2008

Il Lee

Il Lee

In the last two entries for this blog I’ve kept from disclosing my taste, perhaps in the interest of Rotunda, but more for my own sake (since these words are easily Googled). My desire is to keep these comments from swinging in a particular direction, primarily because I’ve been employed here to garner some interest in Rotunda’s programs, and spark some dialogue that would otherwise be unfired through traditional gallery materials (this gallery, as it happens, isn’t the only one doing this). Keep reading →

February 13, 2008

Sign the 475 Kent Petition

475-kent.jpgThe artists at 475 Kent have been forced out of their home and workspace. They are now working to return to the building. Help them save the building by signing the online petition to Mayor Bloomberg

Read more about 475 Kent

February 8, 2008

Live Drawing Performance

In case you missed the live drawing performance with Anita Pantin and Ernesto Pantin at Rotunda on Wednesday evening, check out out some pictures from the event.

the dj setting up

the dj and the audiencethe audience
anita pantin

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