American Daydream | December 19-29, 2012
American Daydream
Curated by Laura Blüer, Madelyn Ringold-Brown, and Anthony Tino
On View Thru Saturday December 29th
Recession Art at Culturefix | 9 Clinton Street NY, NY
The American Daydream is one of unexpressed desire, an aspiration for more than what is offered by the American system. It necessitates the creation of a new American milieu, be it emotional, social, psychological, or physical. This exhibition at RAC features 16 artists whose work grapples with the disparity between the opportunities associated with the American Dream and the response when examining the true nature of the American system. We call this grey area the American Daydream. The exhibition features photographs, prints, sculpture, video, and performances by artists who examine and challenge this phenomenon with their work.
The Artists:
Aaron Beebe is a New York based artist and museum director whose work explores themes of memory, display, and institutionality. Moving between installation-based practice and works on canvas and paper, he creates material and aesthetic objects of scholarship – invoking history, memory, foreignness, nostalgia and sentiment. His art and writing have been featured in numerous exhibitions and publications.
Alexandra Townsend is a native New Yorker and works as an Artist and Floral Designer. In 2008 she graduated with a combined degree in Fine Art & Business from School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. Since graduating Alexandra has been involved in exhibitions throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Having focused on metal and paper making Alexandra works with several mediums to create accessible work for the viewer and herself.
Brendan Picone is a musician/cook. He grew up in Hastings-On-Hudson, NY and recently moved to the city. The piece he is exhibiting in American Daydream is called Me on a Motorcycle with Sesame Chicken, and is priced at $7.95, so he can get more sesame chicken.
Elizabeth Moran (b. 1984) lives and works in San Francisco. She received her BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in the Department of Photography + Imaging in New York and is currently pursuing her MFA at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She has exhibited nationally including exhibitions at SOMArts in San Francisco; FotoFest in Houston; and the Gulf & Western Gallery in New York. In 2012, Moran was named a Murphy and Cadogan Fellow.
Elizabeth Shrier is a New York City based photographer. She has a BFA from the Department of Photography & Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Shrier focuses on fashion and fine art and has exhibited work in the Gulf + Western Gallery and at Calumet Photographic.
Fortune Chalme is a video and performance artist and recent graduate of the School of Visual Arts. In her art she focuses on the cultural image and expectations of woman in her own community and in the world. Fortune often creates exaggerated scenarios in her art to express ideas through comedy.
JaeWook Lee has shown his works nationally and internationally such venues as Chelsea Art Museum, Invisible Dog Art Center, Momenta Art, Whitebox in New York, Gyeonggi MOMA, Coreana museum, and MOA Seoul National University in Seoul. He has participated in international major exhibitions such as Manifesta 9 parallel event and Seoul International Photo Festival. He has participated in Artist in residency programs such as Wassaic Project, Vermont Studio Center, and Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild.
Jon Irving is an emerging artist who was born and raised in the Washington, DC area. Currently, he is working on his MFA degree at SUNY New Paltz in New York’s Hudson Valley. He has exhibited work in New York City; Philadelphia; Chicago; Miami; Seattle; and Kingston, NY. His work, which follows the exploits of an alter ego – The Superior Model – is influenced by: detective fiction, children’s storybooks, dreams, pantomime, wanderlust, beer, self-reflection, love and paper dolls.
Jordan Chlapecka has an MA in Performance Studies from New York University, a BA in Advertising Creative Emphasis & Anthropology from Southern Methodist University. As an artist his work blurs across many fields which include, but are not limited to Embodiment practices, identity politics, dance, and ritual and religious practices.
Madhuri Shukla creates drawings, sculptures, and animation with a wiry and spontaneous line quality to explore the space between a childlike aesthetic and dark narratives. Her work focuses on when and why abuses are accepted and even celebrated in cartoons but become repulsed in ‘real’ life. Inspirations come from her life experiences and a background in Urban Studies, with themes of stratification, racism, violent crime, and emotional exploitation. Her images read rapidly and easily on an initial and superficial level–maybe even register as cute–but upon thoughtful inspection they convey an articulated meaning.
Miles Pflanz is a performance and video artists that has exhibited work at Grace Exhibition Space, Low Lives! Occupy, Itinerant Festival, Select Fair at Art Basel Miami, and numerous DIY venues. He curates at Fitness Center for Arts and Tactics in Brooklyn.
Naomi Feuerstein was born and bred in the suburbs of New York by two Jewish New Yorkers. She moved to Brooklyn in 2008 to attend Pratt Institute, from which she earned her BFA in Fine Arts. She currently makes art and furniture in Brooklyn.
Robert Brush lives and works in Beacon, NY. He creates conceptually-based work in a variety of mediums including neon, bronze, photography, and painting. He is presently showing an installation of a reworking of the American Flag called Let’s Roll at Artspace in New Haven, CT. Earlier this year his neon piece We Buy God was featured on Bloomberg News, and was purchased by Raymond Learsy and Melva Bucksbaum, Art News magazine’s top 200 collectors in the world 2012. Brush’s work has also been included in “Art to the Point” at the Katonah Museum of Art this year, juried by Donald Sultan, in which he received First Prize for his sculpture Golden Diaphragm. His work has been written about in the New York Times, the Miami Herald, DART Magazine, Chronogram, and Bloomberg News.
A live performance on the opening night of American Daydream with a projection filmed by Augustin Doublet.
Whitney Johnston is made up of: skeletal system, muscle, organs, fat, blood, fur, toxins. She received a BFA in Photography and Imaging from Tisch/NYU and is currently working towards a MFA in Film/Video at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Zoe Bellot was born in Paris in 1981. She studied American literature for a number of years, until book arts opened new paths to her literary goals. She moved to New York City in 2008. Printmaking has since become her mother tongue.
The Curators:
Laura Blüer is an artist living in Brooklyn, NY. She has a BFA from the Department of Photography & Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and a minor in Cuban Studies. Blüer interns at Recession Art and works at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics and the International Center of Photography. She is a regular contributor of writing and photography to the new publication Creative Sugar Magazine. Her photographs have been exhibited at the Ludwig Foundation in Havana, the Calumet gallery in New York City, and the Empire Hotel at Lincoln Center. Her short film “Un pedazo de mar y una ventana” will be screened at the Anthology Film Archives in February 2013. Currently, Blüer is curating shows at the DIY space Fitness, a venue she started with six other artists in Bushwick.
Madelyn Ringold-Brown is a recent graduate of New College of Florida where she studied Art History and just about everything else she could fit into her schedule. She now lives in Brooklyn and is a full time intern—with positions at Recession Art, Symphony Space, and the Textile Arts Center. With her few moments of spare time she fantasizes about making documentaries and plans elaborate letters or packages specially designed for distant loved ones.
Anthony Tino began curating in college when his school shut down its student gallery. With the help of his collaborators in sculpture and printmaking, he began organizing shows in spaces on campus where this had never been considered as a possibility. Since then he has curated in start-up galleries and DIY spaces in New Paltz and organized a noise and video artist group called “No Paltz.” This past summer, he was part of a group exhibition at Chashama Gallery in midtown called Endless, which was conceived and orchestrated by the participating artists. Tino believes that curating is the strength of his printmaking and video work, and that curating occurs on all levels of artistic activity and in life. His most recent work includes an obsession with the Japanese game Go, and documenting the worst deli’s he can find.
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RAC is a project of the arts organization Recession Art and the alternative arts space CULTUREfix. Recession Art connects emerging artists with aspiring collectors and provides an affordable and accessible alternative to the traditional art market. CULTUREfix is a bar, gallery, and event space that combines food, art, and performance to offer a different idea of a public space. RAC is located on 9 Clinton Street between Houston and Stanton streets, accessible from the Second Avenue F Station and Essex Street JMZ trains. RAC is open 2-8 pm Tuesday – Sunday. Visit www.RecessionArtShows.com for more information.
IMAGE : “Purple Balloons” from series For Christopher Fife by Elizabeth Moran
