May 18 – June 30, 2012

The LAB, brought to you by Dublin City Council is pleased to invite you to attend the preview of:

Site Line
MAGGIE MADDEN

Maggie Madden Frames 2a
Ground Floor Gallery
At The LAB / Foley Street / Dublin 1
From 6-8pm on Thursday 17th May
Exhibition: 18th May – 30th June
Open Monday – Saturday 10am – 5pm

Press Release

In Maggie Madden’s recent work, a diverse array of collected materials are crafted into fragile sculptural formations with geometric affinities. The work is suggestive of architectural structures, but also reflects on our spatial encounters in both the urban landscape and the natural world. Her detailed constructions have the potential for endless expansion; to grow outward from densely ordered space and continue boundlessly. Madden’s practice explores a combination of found, industrial and natural objects.

She deliberately juxtaposes found objects with materials that have been slowly and precisely, laboured over. Many of the materials are related to construction – mass produced industrial matter, which become handcrafted into new formations, exposing the beauty in both crafted and found objects and materials.

In some of the works there are open ended references to our networked world, communication and transport systems, the infrastructures of contemporary life in modern cities; eloquently illustrated in several of her miniature representations. Madden’s linear structures made using fibre optic strands form three dimensional drawings in space, delicately balanced and at times barely visible.

During the process of construction the physical limits of the materials are taken in to account, as there is an attempt made at rendering some materials to appear almost weightless. Tension is created as the sculptural formations often have a fragility that teeters on the brink of collapse. Ideas of gravity and balance feature prominently in Madden’s practice. The manipulation and potential for transformation of materials is at the core of her work.

The myriad of carefully selected objects and materials that Madden’s practice engages with are re-contextualised from their primary use, positioned in unexpected configurations. The initial components undergo a metamorphosis, evolving to become complex, technically accomplished artworks, the constituent parts completely transformed from their original purpose. This testing of new possibilities through careful manipulation addresses Madden’s curiosity, which arises throughout the process of making.

Biography

B.1976. Originally from Connemara, Co Galway, Madden is currently living and working in Dublin. She completed a Masters in Fine Art at NCAD in 2006 and received a BA in Fine Art Painting from Limerick School of Art and Design in 1998.

In 2011 she received a Visual Art bursary from the Arts Council and the Elizabeth Fitzpatrick award from the RHA, and also participated on the Artist in Residence program at Atlantic Centre for the Arts, USA. 2010 saw her first solo exhibition Fading Not Ending at Roscommon Arts Centre. Recent group exhibitions include Pallas Periodical Review, Pallas Projects, Dublin, Constellations, Éigse, Visual Carlow, 181st Annual Exhibition, RHA.

In 2008 Madden was invited to participate in Triangle Arts International Workshop, a two week studio session which culminated in an Open Studio exhibition in DUMBO, New York.

Who wants a free studio in Brooklyn?!?

An outgrowth of Artists’ Workshop, Triangle Residency was created in 2002. The residency offers spacious studios for artists to realize large-scale, long-term projects and provides a collegial working environment. Studio residents are chosen yearly based upon a competitive portfolio submission application that is reviewed by a jury of New York based arts professionals and Triangle board members and staff.

Studio space is provided twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, free of charge. Resident artists are responsible for all other expenses including housing, travel, materials and meals.

For more information and a link to the application click here

May 15-June 16, 2012

aeróplois

Edu Valderrey
Fundació Fita
May 15-June 16
www.fundaciofita.com

May 19-June 23, 2012

PROVINCETOWN VIEWS

A Group Exhibition Of More Than 40 Artists
at ACME Fine Art, Boston
http://www.acmefineart.com/

PRESS RELEASE

Provincetown Views, a group exhibition featuring twentieth and twenty-first century artwork by more than forty artists will open at ACME Fine Art’s 38 Newbury Street Galleries on 19 May 2012.

The exhibition will be titled Provincetown Views and will focus thematically on the artists’ view of what has come to be considered America’s most important art colony, Provincetown Massachusetts. Gallery Director David Cowan has assembled the artwork for the exhibition from a variety of sources, including private collections, estates of artists, artists that ACME Fine Art represents, and from numerous contemporary artists currently creating artwork in Provincetown. This special exhibition is being mounted as a tribute to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. The Fine Arts Work Center is a not-for-profit organization based in Provincetown, Massachusetts that is the single largest provider of fellowships to emerging visual artists and creative writers in the World. A portion of all sales proceeds throughout the duration of the exhibition will be donated to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Provincetown Views will be on view at ACME Fine Art through Saturday 23 June 2012.

The exhibition will be presented in a salon style format that will allow the juxtaposition of what might now be considered the traditional viewpoint of artists such as Charles Hawthorne, E. Ambrose Webster and Edwin Dickinson with the point of view demonstrated by modern masters such as Hans Hofmann, Jack Tworkov, Karl Knaths and Giorgio Cavallon.

Likewise, the exhibition will showcase classic examples of white-line woodblock “Provincetown” prints by artists like Ferol Warthen, Grace Martin Taylor, and Bill Evaul, alongside monotypes and contemporary “constructions” by artists such as Susan Baker and Paul Bowen. The expressionist’s vision of Provincetown will be seen in mid-twentieth century paintings by Maurice Freedman, Myrna Harrison, Lester Johnson and Lillian Orlowsky. This can be seen in contrast to the realist precision presented in the contemporary work created by artists such as John Dowd, Paul Kelly, Marion Roth, and Michael David. Landscapes by twentieth century moderns Daniel Brustlein, Virginia Berresford, Wolf Kahn, and Tony Vevers will be presented alongside interior views by their contemporaries Mary Hackett, and Biala (Janice Tworkov.)

In recognition of the essential role that the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown plays in assuring the long-term vitality of the contemporary arts scene on the outer Cape, the Provincetown Views exhibition will also feature “views” by a number of former Fine Arts Work Center fellows in the visual arts. In addition to those already mentioned above, this illustrious group will include: Bailey Bob Bailey, Ron Shuebrook, Sharli Powers Land, Stewart MacFarlane, Polly Burnell, and Richard Baker, among others.

A special Exhibition Preview Event to benefit the Fine Arts Work Center will be hosted by the Galleries at 38 Newbury Street on Thursday 17 May. Drinks and hors d’oerves will be served between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. The event is sponsored by the Boston Phoenix and MAX Ultimate Food. Tickets for the preview can be purchased through the Fine Arts Work Center, gleghorn@fawc.org or www.fawc.org/tickets , or ACME Fine Art (www.acmefineart.com). Please contact the gallery for further information.

May 19-June 23, 2012

Arnold Helbling, “Drop City”

Gallery hours: Thu-Sat 11-18 and by appointment
T +31 20 753 09 64
E info@ch-artspace.com
Tweede Kostverlorenkade 50, 1053 SB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
www.ch-artspace.com
Exhibition: May 19 until June 23, 2012
Opening: May 19, 2012, 3pm – 7pm
Amsterdam

For more information – www.arnoldhelbling.com

PRESS RELEASE

Arnold Helbling, “Drop City”

In a departure from his signature style paintings of deconstructed apocalyptic spaces, in which abstract forms and recognizable images collide in a vast, ecstatically colorful, almost hallucinatory environment, Arnold Helbling’s most recent paintings move into more calm, contemplative territory. In these new works, the apocalyptic storm has passed, and temporary shelters have been put up – an architecture of cohabitation in a post-consumer society has been negotiated. Isolated cell-like structures – a tree-house, a shed haphazardly put together out of recycled windows, makeshift igloos, a leftover utility structure on top of an otherwise demolished office tower – take center stage. However, these temporary structures and alternative forms of living themselves face decay, challenged by interference from nature, from reality, as if these dreams of personal escape or collective utopia are bound to collapse. The individual struggle is everywhere present in these paintings, but the human being is absent: instead, the viewer is invited to take on the role of the main protagonist, the dweller, contemplating the various scenarios.

The title of the show, DROP CITY, is borrowed from a countercultural community that existed for a few years in Colorado in the 1960s. The several dome houses its residents built out of cut-out roofs of cars were inspired by R. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome structure, designed for the American Pavilion at the World Expo in Montreal in 1967.

Helbling’s new paintings were executed through an elaborate monotype transfer process in which entire skins of acrylic paint have been transferred to canvas, creating a luminous, fragile-looking paint film with a unique silken surface. Upon close inspection, this surface reveals a network of subtle and independent veins and marks, which were created by the creases and folds of the plastic sheet used to facilitate this transfer process. Helbling’s color palette ranges from bloody reds to decadent browns, haunting blues, and sappy greens.

Arnold Helbling was born in Switzerland and currently lives and works in New York City. He has exhibited widely in the United States, Europe, and Asia throughout the last two decades.

May 15-19, 2012

Fresh Paint 5 Art Fair

Joint project with Meital Katz Minerv

Fresh Paint contemporary art fair is Israel’s largest, most influential annual art event. The fair is held each year in a surprising, new location in Tel Aviv – the beating heart of the Israeli cultural world, and attracts over 30,000 visitors. The fair brings together all the leading galleries and significant forces of the Israeli art scene, collaborates with all the Israeli museums, and enjoys the support of leading international art institutions.

The fair’s visitors enjoy presentations of the nation’s top galleries, promising emerging galleries and the unique Greenhouse – showcasing the works of select, independent Israeli artists. While following the formula of professional art fairs around the world, Fresh Paint is unique in its role as a launch pad for the careers of up-and-coming, unrepresented artists.

Fresh Paint prides on its professional program of special projects and commissioned works, its Video Greenhouse, curated by Edna Moshenson, and an educational program of lectures and encounters with Israeli art and artists, supported by Outset contemporary art fund. The fair’s community projects and fund-raising activities benefit the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and several other nonprofit organizations. An award is presented by Fresh Paint’s supporter, collector Igal Ahouvi, to an independent artist at the fair and one noteworthy work by an independent artist is selected for sale at the Sotheby’s Israeli art auction in New York.

Fresh Paint contemporary art fair is an extraordinary opportunity to get to know the energetic Israeli art scene.

For more information please contact: info@freshpaint.co.il

The New High School
3 Shoshana Persits Street
Tel Aviv
1st Floor, Room 110

May 2012, Art in America

Craig Drennen: Awful Inside Saltworks, 2012

Performance, 2 hours; at Saltworks, Atlanta, GA.

Timon of Athens is an unfinished Shakespeare play that was never produced during his lifetime. In it, the wealthy Timon gives away all of his money to his friends, who then turn against him when he needs their help. Artist Craig Drennen was attracted to the play’s obscurity and to the title character, who becomes misanthropic, writing in his own ambiguous epìtaph, “Here lie I, Timon, who, alive, all living men did hate.” Four years ago, Drennen began to use the play as the conceptual framework to make artworks that represent a defining characteristic of each character’s personality. ln 2007, he made paintings depicting the plays Mistresses as lush pink anuses, and in 2008 he painted the Flattering Lords as daisies, a pretty if common flower.

Drennen’s recent exhibition, “[Dramatis Personae]” introduced two additional cast members. The Painter is represented by a series of eight abstract works on paper (all 2011, ranging from ‘I8 by 14 to 50 by 50 inches), each with a large X centered on the sheet. One line is made with graphite, the other with spray paint. Drennen adds different graphic elements to the works in acrylic and oil; each new medium adds a new color.  At the center of each X is a trompe l’oiel painting of the back of a Polaroid, including blue tape that appears to fix it to the paper. A few works contain a stubbed-out cigarette subtly depicted at the bottom, a humorous nod to the stereotype often heavy-smoking artist.

In this exhibition, we also met Apemantus, the philosopher, who, throughout the play, publicly disparages other characters. Apemantus was portrayed in an opening night performance in which an actor wearing a large papier-mâche head, rudely painted to resemble Drennen, repeatedly played a rendition of the song “Awful,” by Courtney Loves band, Hole, on an electric guitar. Thereafter, the head remained on display, with the performance date scribbled in red across the forehead.

Drennen periodically paints large-scale canvases that treat the entire play.  The show included two particularly successful such works, Timon of Athens 8 (’92 by 72′ inches) and The Actors Names (126 by 78 inches), both 2011. The latter, comprising four stacked canvases of different sizes, features the names of many of the characters from Timon in the cursive font used for the 1623 folio edition of Shakespeare’s Works. Drennen manipulates paint the way a director molds actors, creating convincing illusions of alternate realities. He estimates the project will take another 10 years to complete.

-Rebecca Dimling Cochran

May 24-June 3, 2012

Field Projects Gallery

Minutia Militia
526 W 26th Street, #807
NY, NY 10001

Opening: Thursday May 24th, 6:00-8:00pm

FEATURING the work of:
Alexis Arnold
Caleb Brown
Cat Del Buono
Kristina Estell
Jason Lujan
Melissa Potter
Anna Souvorov
Christina Tenaglia
Cyane Tornatzky
Elissa Turnbull
Curated by David C. Terry

Triangle Arts Association is pleased to present a month-long exhibition highlighting performance works by alumni artists Richie Budd, Dan Levenson and Kenya Robinson.

Each one night performance will result in objects and gestural vestiges that will remain on view for one week. Abstracted from the durational immediacy of the performance itself these “residues” will encourage viewers to consider the act of performance from the outside in.

Dan Levenson, “THE BÄTTERKINDEN ART AWARDS,” performance Saturday, May 12, 6-9pm, on view through May 22

The Bätterkinden Art Awards will be a group exhibition, performance event, and installation “sponsored” by a fictional Swiss philanthropy: Bätterkinden Tabak AG. This company plays an important role in Levenson’s larger project. Bätterkinden produces Letzte (“Last”) brand cigarettes, the brand favored by the students at the fictional State Art Academy Zurich. The cigarette package design is based on a drip painting by a fictional Swiss artist. Bätterkinden also funds the fictional Little Switzerland gallery in exchange for right of first refusal on all artworks sold.

A number of (real) artists will be invited to install their work at Triangle Arts Association’s gallery space with an opening event to be held on May 12th at 6pm. At the end of the evening an awards ceremony will be staged in which participating artists will be temporarily drawn into the fictional narrative as they are invited up to the podium to receive a limited edition “Certificate of Appreciation” from the Bätterkinden tobacco company. The exhibition will be open for ten days along with the video loop showing ads for Letzte cigarettes and the detritus of the opening night event.

Neïl Beloufa | Functions of Light

See more images from the exhibition.

“When a society is growing, car design is mostly square with clear angles and big shapes.”
But: “90° square angles don’t exist in nature, they are man’s idea and desire. Even a squared building isn’t really 90°.”
At the same time: “Man crosses earth’s horizon at a 90° angle.”
But: “Man is 90% water.”
And: “Bilingual children are good at multitasking.”
Recent studies show that “serotonin hormone manufactured by your brain is the cause of belief.”
“In the 14th century after an investigation, the church official declared the shroud a fake. While it was on display, it had to be said in a loud voice that this wasn’t an actual relic of Christ. After centuries of conservation, the Catholic Church decided to withhold its judgment on the actual authenticity of the object, stating that, authentic or fake, it had no relevance to the Christian faith.”
But: “When Superman puts on his glasses, no one recognizes him as Clark Kent, though it is obvious that he is the same man.”
And: “From the sky we can see the Belgian freeways.” *
*I might have misquoted.

Balice Hertling & Lewis
Film Center Building
630 9th Avenue (btwn 44 and 45 St), Suite 403
New York, NY 10036
Tel +1 212 837 1066
info@balicehertlingandlewis.com
www.balicehertlingandlewis.com

Hours: 11:00-6:00 Tuesday – Saturday

Constantin Hartenstein | Upcoming Shows

APOCALYPSE NOW NOW / KINNING PARK COMMUNITY COMPLEX / GLASGOW UK / MAY 5 TH

BENEFIT EXHIBITION AND AUCTION / ARTISTS AGAINST AIDS / KUNST – UND AUSSTELLUNGSHALLE DER BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND, BONN / MAY 22 ND – 31 ST

LANGUAGES OF REVOLUTION / KLEINE HUMBOLDT GALERIE BERLIN / CURATED BY JANA HÄCKEL / APR 17 TH – MAY 22 ND

TRAFIC / HOME CINEMA / RUE DE BOURG 19 / LAUSANNE SWITZERLAND / JUNE 5 TH / 6 PM AND 8 PM

OLIMPI / .CHB BERLIN / DOROTHEENSTR. 12 / JUN 15 TH – AUG 26 TH

AIR CONDITION(S) / LAND ART EXHIBITION / WALDECK – FRANKENBERG AND KASSEL / AUG 19 TH – SEP 2 ND

For more information click here.

Astrid Busch | re*turn

May 17 – July 01, 2012

An exhibition in the occasion of the 350-year anniversary of the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Nuremberg

A group show featuring the work of:

TIMO BEHN · OLIVIA BERCKEMEYER · HANNA-MARI BLENCKE · BURKARD BLÜMLEIN · ANTJE BLUMENSTEIN · FRANK BRÜMMEL · ASTRID BUSCH · MARIA BUSSMANN · MARIETA CHIRULESCU · MARTINA ESSIG · CLAUS FELDMANN · MICHAEL FRANZ / TOBIAS TRAGL · MARCEL GROSSE · ELKE HAARER · LENI HOFFMANN · KERSTIN KARTSCHER · ALEXANDRA LEYKAUF · MICHAEL MARKERT · BENJAMIN MORAVEC · MICHAEL MUNDING · CARSTEN RECKSIK · SUSANNE ROTH · EKATERINA SHAPIRO – OBERMAIR · HEIDI SILL · ANNE STERZBACH · MICHL SCHMIDT / PETER WENDL · THOMAS STRAUB · NADIM VARDAG · ROLF WICKER · BENJAMIN ZUBER

Opening Reception: May 16th, 4pm
May 17th – July 1st

Address: Halle 20 | Auf AEG | Muggenhofer Straße 132/135 | 90429 Nürnberg | Germany
Opening hours: Wed, Thurs , Fr 4-9pm | Sa, Su 2-6pm

curated by SEBASTIAN HEIN · ANDREAS OEHLERT · LADISLAV ZAJAC

www.adbk350.de

Astrid Busch | Casting Clouds

May 22 – June 22, 2012

Opening reception May 22nd, 6:30pm
Deutsches Haus
42 Washington Mews
New York, NY 10003

Exhibition Hours:
Mon – Fri: 10 am – 6 pm

The exhibition opening will be accompanied by a 7pm screening of short films by the following artists:
Annette Gödde
Chelsea Knight
ASTALI/PEIRCE, Heike Gallmeier
Max Sudhues

Made possible through the generous support of Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich Germany.