PARIS-SCOPE: presented by Projective City & Mixed Greens

PARIS—SCOPE JAMES REEDER: THE MOUNTAIN
March 29 – June 2, 2012 Opening: Thursday, March 29, 6-8pm

Mixed Greens is thrilled to announce the start of Paris-Scope, a series of peculiar, collaborative exhibitions that give visitors to Mixed Greens a glimpse into Paris-based Projective City’s newest gallery space. Operating as a kind of alchemical experiment into the possibilities of “action at a distance,” viewers are able to peer into (but obviously not enter) the space both thousands of miles away and inches from their grasp—to mystically be both HERE and THERE simultaneously. The Paris-Scope series allows artists unprecedented control over the gallery space, and focuses on ambitious solo installations. The inaugural exhibition is The Mountain, a solo installation by James Reeder.

“I heard myself close my eyes, then open them.”
(Loys Masson, Icare ou le Voyage)

James Reeder’s subtle investigation of looming, portentous things lurking in our peripheral vision is a complex portrayal of both literal and psychological space. Behind us, as dark forms gather on various horizons, we feel a sense of ominous power and smell the scent of an approaching storm. Yet when we turn to confront these clouds, they have disappeared or shifted to somewhere we cannot quite see. Against these nameless, void anxieties, our defenses appear unsuitable, yet built with conviction and urgency.

Reeder’s ambitious work results from a complex process that includes drawing, sculpture, photography, and installation. Drawings lead to small constructions. Those constructions are often photographed and the photos recombined and incorporated into more complex constructions that once again include drawing. Spatial assumptions are routinely ignored, as miniature elements (a shard of glass, a scrap of wool, a crack in the pavement) take on momentous proportions, while glowering sources of massive potential energy simmer quietly in the corners.

We struggle to occupy Reeder’s spaces, yet they remain intimately familiar. In his words, “My photographs and installations attempt to merge perception and reality and fix the bits of evidence in mind as proof and confirmation.” This urgent desire for “proof” in the face of generally overwhelming natural phenomena, and the hubris of expecting an explanation of the world, is the mystery at the core of Reeder’s practice.

James Reeder currently lives in Bushwick, NY. He was born in Grand Ledge, MI, and graduated from Pacific Union College in CA. He has been included in dozens of exhibitions in New York and beyond. In the last two years, exhibition venues include Brooklyn Fire Proof Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Storefront Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; NURTUREArt, Brooklyn, NY; and Laundromat Gallery in Toyko and Brooklyn. Solo exhibition venues include Lesley Heller Workspace, New York, NY; A.M. Richard Fine Art in Brooklyn, NY; and ATA Window Gallery in San Francisco, CA. His work has been reviewed on artcat.com and his pieces have been reproduced in Photography Quarterly.

Projective City, under the direction of Benjamin Evans, aims to advance, promote, and make visible the work of emerging artists through an ongoing, flexible, and interconnected series of projects. Working on the assumption that bigger is generally worse, projects are for the most part designed to be smaller-scale and more intimate, aiming for personal encounters between artists, artworks, and audiences. Projective City’s gallery space is located at 34 Rue Hélene Brion, Paris 13eme, and, for the time being, through a peephole at Mixed Greens.

DOWNLOAD the press release here.

TAGS: exhibitions / parisscope