Louis Cameron, I-20 Gallery, New York - Pop Secret

Louis Cameron: Pop Secret

I-20 Gallery, New York

January 22 – March 12, 2005

I-20 presents Pop Secret, the first New York solo exhibition of Louis Cameron. The works in Pop Secret test color-coded consumer product identities by abstracting images that are familiar to us. The exhibition consists of two suites of paintings, collages, and a video.

In the first suite, the Puzzle Paintings, the colors are extracted from products and painted on jigsaw puzzle pieces. The colors are selected by chance and the quantity by the proportion of color used in the original product. When assembled the die cut pattern of the jigsaw puzzle is in the foreground and the color composition is the result of the selection process. Even after this abstraction process the product identity, so engrained on our minds, is still recognizable. Titles in this suite include “Mountain Dew,” “Newport,” and “Reynolds Wrap.”

Unlike the Puzzle Paintings, the second suite of works called Color Bar Paintings are copies of ready-made color extractions. These are the squares and circles of color one finds on the inside flaps of cereal boxes and other products. In addition to testing product color identity the paintings pose rhetorical questions to minimal paintings of the past such as “Is the destiny of minimal painting and its aesthetic to calibrate color for consumer products?” and “After radical reduction in form and content is minimal art just another consumer product?” Titles include “Doublemint” and “Crest.”

The collages shown at I-20 are made from product boxes and packaging cut into grids and reassembled by chance to the original size of the box. The resulting images look like sliding block puzzles that have been scrambled.

Finally, Louis Cameron debuts his first video entitled “Universal.” “Universal” is an animated barcode composed of hundreds of barcodes, mostly collected from the artist’s loft, morphing into one another. The lines in “Universal” move in a hypnotic rhythm like window blinds blowing in the wind while alluding to our massive consumption.

In 2005, Louis Cameron’s work will be featured in the 1st Moscow Biennale and in Extreme Abstraction at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo. His work has been featured in Freestyle at The Studio Museum in Harlem; Open House at the Brooklyn Museum,; and Buy American at Chez Valentin in Paris. Cameron has completed a residency at The Studio Museum of Harlem in 2003, and lives and works.

I-20 GALLERY

529 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011

www.i-20.com

Timothy Hutchings, I-20 Gallery, New York - The Arsenal at Danzig and Other Views

Timothy Hutchings

The Arsenal at Danzig and Other Views

I-20 Gallery, New York

November 3 – December 23, 2001

I-20 presents “The Arsenal at Danzig and Other Views” by New York artist Timothy Hutchings. This video on DVD - which the artist began in early 2001 - depicts what at first glance appears to be a tourist film of 1930s Eastern Europe, with an unremarkable figure who walks among buildings and occasionally waves to the camera. In fact, the buildings are all landmarks that were destroyed in the world wars, and the animated sequences are based on period photographs. The man in period dress is the artist, who has inserted himself into these scenes like a time traveler. Combining video and digital animation, Timothy Hutchings has reanimated these buildings while allowing small errors of motion to remain - a clue for viewers that the apparent charm of these lost buildings is not exactly what it seems.

The second gallery holds 'Smialy' Forward Artillary Car, the artist's wood and cardboard sculpture of an armored train that traveled under several flags in both world wars. The train has been stripped of all its utilitarian signifiers - doors, rivets, ladders and guns - and has been reduced to an abstract model indicating nothing more than form and volume. Opposite to the video, which shows how landmarks are destroyed by war, the sculpture illustrates how warfare is transformed into a purist esthetic landmark.

Timothy Hutchings group exhibitions include “Greater New York” and “Some Young New Yorkers, Part 2,” at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center; “Parking” produced by MayDayProductions; “Keep Fit, Be Happy” at DeChiara Stewart; and “Dissin' the Real” at Galerie Krinzinger in Vienna. Hutchings was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and educated at the Kansas City Art Institute, where he received a Skowhegan Fellowship. He received his MFA at the Yale University School of the Arts. “The Arsenal at Danzig and Other Views” is his first solo show in New York.

I-20 GALLERY

529 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011

www.i-20.com

Spencer Tunick, I-20 Gallery, New York - Reaction Zone

Spencer Tunick: Reaction Zone

I-20 Gallery, New York

November 9 – December 16, 2000

Spencer Tunick's exhibition Reaction Zone is the artist first show at I-20 since 1998. This show  comprises an installation of recent images taken in New York, Los Angeles, and the cities of Basel and Vienna.

Spencer Tunick's performances encompass dozens, hundreds or thousands of volunteers; and his photographs are records of these events. Without their clothing the individuals are like vessels. Most often grouped together and lying prone, the bodies are organisms that extend into and upon the landscape like a new substance. These grouped masses – which do not underscore sexuality – become abstract narratives that challenge or reconfigure one's views of nudity and privacy. The work also refers to the complex issue of presenting art in permanent or temporary public spaces.

Spencer Tunick's body of work may come to help define or at least clarify the social, political and legal issues surrounding art in the public sphere. Since 1994 Tunick has tried to work in New York without interference or imprisonment. After his fifth arrest in April 1999, the artist filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against New York City. In May 2000 Tunick won this First Amendment case in the Second U.S. District Court. On June 3, in response to the city's appeal made to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the court at large, the United States Supreme Court refused to rule in favor of the city, allowing the artist to organize his work on New York City streets.

Social Static, a black and white video made in collaboration with New York-based artist Chris Habib and with an original score composed and performed by Sonic Youth, will be shown in the East Room during the exhibition.

An exhibition catalogue (No.14), with an essay by Lisa Liebmann, was published for the exhibition.

In 2001 Spencer Tunick will organize an indoor performance for Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico. He will also participate in the first Valencia Biennial in Spain; and will organize a large performance in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the White Nights in June. His performances include the Vienna Kunsthalle 1999, and Statements at Art 30 Basel 1999. Tunick has had exhibitions at Art and Public, Geneva; the Magazine 4, Bregenz, Austria; and Perspectives at FIAC 2000, Paris. He will have fall shows at the Joao Graca Gallery, Lisbon, and the Hales Gallery, London. His works were recently acquired by the Dakis Joannou Foundation Collection in Athens, Greece.

Spencer Tunick has been documenting the live figure in public since 1992. Since 1994 he has made 45 group performances in the United States and Europe. Spencer Tunick was born in Middletown, New York, in 1967. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

I-20 GALLERY

529 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011

www.i-20.com