Feb. 21 - Mar. 28, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday, Feb. 21, 6 – 8PM
BANK is pleased to announce the group exhibition,"I'll be your mirror", showcasing a selection of artists from the gallery's program. Although divergent in their practices, there are 2 distinct themes that emerge amongst the seven artists exhibiting. C.E.B. Reas, Ann Diener, Fran Siegel, and Enrique Castrejon, take the formal aspects of drawing as a point of departure for collage, installation and new media, whereas concepts stemming from advertising, consumerism and excess are seen in the works of Kim Schoen, Osman Khan and Bari Ziperstein.
Bari Ziperstein's current work continues with the investigation of America's consumer society and its material surplus and waste. Interested in the way material things reflect socioeconomic strata, Ziperstein uses disregarded lamps, vases, picture frames, and kitschy figurines from second hand stores as a source for her minimal geometric sculptures. New to Ziperstein's work is the incorporation of ceramic sculptures (created by the artist) built into found decorative objects or adorning large scale sculptures.
This observation of the American capitalistic mentality is also reflected in the new media work of Osman Khan. In "Khan Artist," Khan appropriates the act and systems of credit consumption. Registering as a validated merchant with a fully operational credit card machine and account, the artist (or through a sales rep proxy) asks the visitor to make a purchase - though no product or service is returned in kind at the time of transaction. The visitor's purchase card will be charged an amount of money (a minimum of $1.00 is required, though the visitor can willingly offer a higher amount). Osman Khan's name will show up on the itemized list of the visitor's monthly statement.
In "Untitled Sequence," Kim Schoen presents a photographic series of a contorting air puppet in front of a car dealership. It personifies the inflations and deflations of advertising, market fluctuations and sales techniques and arrests them at their most absurd. "Professional Wailing Woman," features a performative video of the artist repetitively wringing out a set of soaked sponges placed over her eyes. The distinction between empty and full repetition is confused, and the completed work, as Mel Bochner described the serial attitude to be, is fundamentally parsimonius and systematically self-exhausting.
The core of C.E.B. Reas' work centers around creating dynamic systems in software. Beginning with a set of rules or instructions, the work manifests as machine code, installation, motion or static imagery. For this exhibition, Reas presents a work that considers the wall drawings of Sol Lewitt in relation to software. Like Lewitt, Reas writes a set of instructions to create a work, (but in computer code) resulting in an animated drawing continuously constructing itself - something Lewitt could never consider. These drawings visually emerge as blossoming microorganisms or ecosystems.
Ann Diener's large-scale works on paper are densely layered environments reflecting the transformation of the California farmland over decades of development, industry and migration. Rich in complexity, Diener seduces the viewer by capturing jostled greenhouse arch's, weaving vines and spinning whirlwinds tangled with spiders, birds and bees manifesting as dynamic otherworldly landscapes. Using ballpoint pen, gouache, pencil, prism color and collage, Diener has harnessed a signature gesture in drawing that's distinctly her own.
Likewise, relationships between both urban and natural elements of the Los Angeles landscape are seen in Fran Siegel's layered wall drawings. Working with photographs taken from ariel views inside an airplane, Siegel piecemeals together cut drawings of city grids and mountainous terrains from various perspectives revealing only a skeletal framework of ridged planes and organic lines. Cut paper, is folded and pierced to create a topographic relief of urban and natural landscapes fighting for space.
Cut paper is also a process practiced in Enrique Castrejon's wall installations and collage. Unique to Castrejon's work is his use of geometry calculations to determine the form of his installations. Castrejon strips down found imagery from newspapers or news-magazines and rebuilds them by measuring the distance and angles between points along a specific shape or form in the photo. The measurements are annotated on fragments of found paper and reassembled with hundreds of pins and tape. The physical presence of the drawing hangs as an elaborate monochromatic collage breaking down visual representation and meaning.
BANK - Los Angeles
