PARIS-SCOPE: LAETITIA SOULIER

Laetitia Soulier
Fractal Architectures
January 15 – March 21, 2015
Opening: Thursday, January 15, 6-8pm

Perhaps the greatest error of western philosophy occurred when, in the early modern period, philosophers began conceiving of reason and human rationality as not only a replacement for God as the giver of truth, but also as something universal, pure, and given in complete form to all persons equally. Some, like Johan Gottfried Herder, tried to point out this error, arguing that “reason” is actually learned, conditioned, and culturally nuanced. Herder sought to understand the obscure wellsprings from which reason was able to develop, which meant delving into early childhood psychology, anthropology, and the most fundamental of human feelings. He named this ambitious interdisciplinary project “aesthetics.”

Laetitia Soulier, through her complex and layered process, suggests a strong affinity for this project. Soulier typically constructs extraordinarily meticulous, labor-intensive scale models with which full-sized children interact in an unsettling and paradoxical way. The walls are covered in fractal-patterned wallpaper, and the layout of the spaces is similarly suggestive of order, symmetry, and cascading rooms within rooms. Like a Matryoshka doll (the basis of one of her projects), Soulier’s work suggests an infinite vertical movement, interiors always full of ever deeper interiors. Yet such mathematical rigor is offset by the presence of docile, possibly dreaming children. Are they creating these spaces through the imaginative act of dreaming? Or are they in some sense being created by these incubator-like spaces into which they only marginally fit? The best answer is clearly “both,” as the spaces function simultaneously as playground, hiding place, mysterious fantasy, and possibly even prison.

For her Paris-Scope project, Soulier has taken full advantage of the space to turn the entire gallery into one layer of a “fractal architecture”: A hexagonal room inside a hexagonal room, and so on into infinity. Working on-site with table saws and construction tools to duplicate the interior, she has then even duplicated scaled versions of these tools, emphasizing the material process of the construction of interior spaces. Visitors in Paris will be able to play the role of the children in Soulier’s photographs, eerily occupying spaces of multiple scale simultaneously, while viewers in New York will take the place of Soulier herself, peering into the Paris-Scope as though through the lens of her camera.


Laetitia Soulier holds a BFA from the Art School of Cergy, Paris; MFA from l’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris; and a degree in philosophy from the University of Paris. Her work has been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Beaux Arts de Paris, the Musashino University in Tokyo, and at the Aperture Foundation in New York. She was also selected as New York Photo Festival’s Multimedia category winner and won the Exposure Award grand prize. She lives in New York.

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This is Mixed Greens’ fifteenth installment of Paris-Scope — a series of peculiar, collaborative exhibitions that give visitors to Mixed Greens a glimpse into French-based Projective City’s gallery space. The unique series provides a new possibility for the practice of exhibiting aesthetic experience, and allows artists unprecedented control over the gallery space. Through this alchemical experiment into the possibilities of “action at a distance,” the viewer is able to peer into (but obviously not enter) the space both thousands of miles away and inches from his or her nose — to mystically be both HERE and THERE simultaneously.

For more information, please visit: www.projectivecity.com/parisscope-general-information/

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PARIS-SCOPE: SCOTT HAZARD

Scott Hazard
Silent Geography
November 20, 2014 – January 10, 2015
Opening: Thursday, November 20, 6-8pm

Mixed Greens and Projective City are pleased to present an ambitious, site-specific installation by Scott Hazard, in which large-scale landscapes made of paper structures will cover the entire gallery.

Scott Hazard’s subtle, torn-paper landscapes are based on the oldest idea of the “garden,” that of a cultivated, enclosed space set apart from –yet adjacent to– the wilderness. Yet here the wilderness is not exactly that of nature but rather the din of flowing information, language, and symbol that surrounds most urban-dwellers on a daily basis. Into this flow Hazard creates a momentary pause, an immersive space of rest in which language is once again ordered and reduced to its simplest designative function. At the same time, the very landscape itself is composed of the materials of the written word: block-printed texts form and identify the geography of the sculpted paper spaces. Does this suggest that ultimately there is no refuge from signification? That the possibility of generating spaces of retreat itself is an illusion, as it too is fabricated from the same stuff as that which it seeks distance from?

Thus Hazard’s work is both an aesthetic pause in the hectic tornado of information and an exploration of the limits and nature of such pauses themselves. This exhibition allows Hazard the opportunity to drastically expand his work to fill the entire gallery space. Enormous paper structures form an immersive constructed landscape into which the spectator can gaze, as if wandering in an English country garden.

Scott Hazard is an artist based in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has exhibited his work at venues including CAM Raleigh, NC; Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA; Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, NC; Davidson College, Davidson, NC; Roanoke College, Salem, VA; Goucher College, Towson, MD; Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL; Greenhill Center for NC Art, Greensboro, NC; and Artspace, Raleigh, NC. In addition, his work has been featured in a number of magazines and online publications, including The Wild Magazine, Glamcult, Monster Children, BOOOOOOOM, Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, and Colossal. He is the recipient of an Artist Fellowship in Visual Arts from the North Carolina Arts Council.

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This is Mixed Greens’ fourteenth installment of Paris-Scope — a series of peculiar, collaborative exhibitions that give visitors to Mixed Greens a glimpse into French-based Projective City’s gallery space. The unique series provides a new possibility for the practice of exhibiting aesthetic experience, and allows artists unprecedented control over the gallery space. Through this alchemical experiment into the possibilities of “action at a distance,” the viewer is able to peer into (but obviously not enter) the space both thousands of miles away and inches from his or her nose — to mystically be both HERE and THERE simultaneously. For more information, please visit: www.projectivecity.com/parisscope-general-information/


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Special Performance: Zebadiah Keneally

Zebadiah Keneally
Lunch is Very Important: All the Secrets to Life You Never Knew You Knew

September 13, 2-5pm
October 9, 6-8pm

Mixed Greens is pleased to present Zebadiah Keneally’s performance Lunch is Very Important: All the Secrets to Life You Never Knew You Knewwith the gallery. Please join us on Saturday, September 13, 2-5pm and Thursday, October 9, 6-8pm as Keneally will "read your fortune."

"Zebadiah Keneally is a performance and conceptual artist who operates under the guise of Hamburger Vampire. In Keneally's most recent performances, he uses the prop of a handmade deck of cards as the conduit to administer interactive psychic readings. Spreading several of these cards across a table, some bearing captions such as Friends and others with simple line drawings of geo-political borders, Keneally will generate a mystic prophecy in his performances. These prophecies are fueled by the underlying associations made by his participants, guided by this part-guru, part all-American salesman, played by the artist.

Keneally's fortune telling practice offers advice regarding love, life, money, and the general surrealistic quandaries of enlightened or intoxicated individuals. Given all the comparisons that one could make, for example a magic 8-ball, the I-Ching, the Tarot tradition; Keneally's readings offer a unique perspective, without the expected symbolism of wizards, elements or ask again laters. Keneally illustrates a much more current set of archetypes, which feel closer to home; ultimately these fortune tellings feel comically dualistic and the original drawing contained in the cards, optimistically critical.

Acts of fortune telling, and the faux-spiritualist performances of Hamburger Vampire are described by Keneally as being akin to the con-artist lifestyle of a "snake-oil salesman...the evil entrepreneur." These performative fortune tellings, especially when offered by Hamburger Vampire himself, pose the hyperbolic caricature of a scammy street-mystic, and similar to other works by Keneally, the emphasis is on great value. The general tone of these readings is best categorized as an expression of wit. The joke is on the sordid nature of business transactions and the uncanny resemblance of spiritual guidance and advertising."

Written by Anthony Tino, Publisher at Endless Editions.

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Paris-SCOPE: Mike Estabrook

Mike Estabrook
The Lair of the Phantom Dandy
September 11, 2014 - November 15, 2014
Opening: Thursday, September 11, 6-8pm

Mixed Greens and Projective City are pleased to present the work of Mike Estabrook through the Paris-Scope.

The tomb of Charles Baudelaire in the Cimetière du Montparnasse remains, after almost 150 years, a place of pilgrimage for misspent youths, idiot poets, foolish and savage dreamers, delinquents, literary wonks, and drunks with delusions of genius. His hauntings are now perhaps just as legendary as his life, and his indestructible phantom remains a source of inspiration for misanthropes, skeptics, and subversives of all stripes. Yet how can this ghost, this apparition who gave modernity its very name, continue to haunt a decidedly post-modern milieu? The purgatory into which Baudelaire must surely have been cast has itself become obsolete in contemporary life, which so easily provides redemption at low cost in thousands of assorted flavors. No longer burdened with the effort of escaping purgatory, Baudelaire's ghost has chosen to manifest itself at Projective City, conjured through the dark and plastic arts of Mike Estabrook.

Continuing Estabrook's epic "The Book of the Dead" project, The Lair of the Phantom Dandy places the viewer in the role of the journeying soul, presenting a Dorothy/Orpheus encounter with the Wizard of Oz/ Hades. Transforming the gallery space into a macabre grotto, the viewer can attempt to glean messages (over a mystic telephone located in the Mixed Greens gallery) from this ancient oracle of the modern age. Estabrook's channeling has resulted in a space which is at once an homage to a great spirit and a two-way conduit to the netherworld where Baudelaire now comfortably resides.

Mike Estabrook is a Brooklyn-based artist with recent solo projects at Bliss on Bliss Art Projects, Queens, NY; Art in Odd Places, NYC; and the Krannert Art Museum, IL. He has held residencies at the LMCC Swing Space and Workspace, NY Arts Beijing, and the MacDowell Colony. Currently, he is the recipient of a 2014 BRIC Media Arts fellowship, helping him to continue his explorations of the afterlife.

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This is Mixed Greens’ thirteenth installment of Paris-Scope — a series of peculiar, collaborative exhibitions that give visitors to Mixed Greens a glimpse into French-based Projective City’s gallery space. The unique series realizes Projective City’s mandate of finding new possibilities for the practice of exhibiting aesthetic experience, and allows artists unprecedented control over the gallery space. Through this alchemical experiment into the possibilities of “action at a distance,” the viewer is able to peer into (but obviously not enter) the space both thousands of miles away and inches from his or her nose — to mystically be both HERE and THERE simultaneously. For more information, visit:
www.projectivecity.com/parisscope-general-information/

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Outside the Gallery

Where to catch some of our gallery artists this Fall~

STAS ORLOVSKI: Chimera @ The Pasadena Museum of California Art

Opening September 14, the solo exhibition will include Orlovski's Phantasmagoria inspired moving drawings.

Stas Orlovski, Chimera [detail], 2014. Wall drawing, collage, stop-motion animation, and sound. Courtesy of the Artist. Sound by Steve Roden. Post-production by Beau Leduc.

KIM BECK in the 2014 Pittsburgh Biennial @ The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (Going on now through November 2nd). 

Beck is part of the twenty-three Pittsburgh based artists showing paintings, multimedia, video installation, and sculpture at the Pittsburgh Center for the arts, in conjunction with seven other exhibitions as part of the Biennial. 

Still up is Beck's NOTICE: A Flock of Signs  at OMI International Art Center in Ghent, NY. 

SONYA BLESOFSKY: Estuary @ The New York Foundation for the Arts

Open Monday - Friday, 9:30AM-5:30PM through September 28

The group exhibtion includes work by 2013 arists' fellowships program (AFP) finalists. Blesofsky's work is under the Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design portion of the show along with Lee Boroson and Sun Kwak. 

Sun Kwak, 41 Rolls of Winding

 

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VERY SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Some of you may have already known from previous photos from the blog, but here is our official announcement: HEATHER IS PREGNANT!! She actually has been pregnant for the past 40+ weeks, and the baby is due any second. She might even be having the baby right now as I am writing this blog post.

In celebration of whom Mark Mulroney referred to as Rishi and Heather's new collaborative collage also known as "Untitled," we will be having a baby countdown for the next few days. We are SUPER SUPER SUPER EXCITED to see this baby!!



Here is an extra photo of Heather and Rishi being super cute holding hands. This photo makes my heart melt a little bit *tears*

TAGS: baby / babybhandari / excited / heather / pregnant / rishi / stoked

Shark Week Reflections

Left: Damien Hirst, "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living," 1991. Right: Jill Greenberg, from her series "End Times," 2006.

Shark Week 2014 is nearing to an end (tear, sniffle). I've been watching this program since it premiered in 1988 (you could call me the ultimate fan), and I've often noticed interesting similarities between well-known artworks and famous Shark Week visuals. I'm not surprised that the mind-boggling imagery of a Great White chomping down on a seal has launched artists into a creative frenzy.

I'm super curious, however, about the origination of Shark Week. Discovery channel claims the program to be the "longest running cable television programming event in television history"! And yet, 1988 doesn't seem to date back far enough to account for the number of artists who were CLEARLY influenced by famous episodes of the popular show. A few examples:


John Singleton Copley, "Watson and the Shark," 1778. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Hmm, 1988? Let's try 1778. Because clearly Copley caught an episode of "Ocean of Fear", the story of the men overboard the USS Indianapolis in shark-infested waters.


Attributed to Alexandros of Antioch, Venus de Milo, c. 100 BCE. Courtesy of Musee du Louvre.

It's becoming clearer to me that the Venus de Milo's missing limbs weren't damaged over time, but were likely intentionally severed by the artist himself as an ode to Alexandros of Antioch's favorite episode, "I Survived: Top 10 Shark Attacks".


Left: Scary white shark! Right: Constantin Brancusi, "Bird in Space," 1928. Courtesy of the Guggenheim Museum.

Bird In Space? OR, Air Jaws???


Andres Serrano, Blood Stream, 1987.

Serrano's photograph, "Blood Stream" almost certainly inspired the episode "Blood In The Water".


Leandro Erlich, Swimming Pool, installation 2008, MoMA PS1.

I didn't think too much about the shark week reference here until I entered the bottom portion of Erlich's installation. Suddenly you are under the pool's surface. Is this not entirely about a shark's point of view?!? And extra points to the artist for touching on my most primal fear: a shark in a POOL.


Lygia Clark, "Abyssal mask with eye-patch," 1968. Photo Sergio Gerardo Zalis, 1986. Courtesy of MoMA.

Are the connections looking clearer? Artists, don't be afraid to admit that you're Shark Week fans. We all see what's going on. Shark Week Obsession: it happens to the best of us. Most especially, me.

xoxo,
Courtney
















TAGS: sharkart / sharks / sharkweek

New York Times Review

Multiplicity is reviewed on the New York Times! This is our second review of 2014 after Hooray for HOLLYwood! was review last January. We're so glad to be part of the show with NURTUREart and Invisible-Exports. Much love!

TAGS: newyorktimes / review / yay

Last Summer Intern Post ~

An hour into my first day at Mixed Greens, I sustained a mildly traumatic flesh wound whilst preparing our storage space for Naomi Reis’s window installation. Vaguely perplexed and mildly uncomfortable to look down and see an extremely fleshy fissure running through my forearm, I limply mumbled, “I’m going to use the bathroom” as Chuka, Rob, and Nati began circling around me in hurried frenzy.

An hour later, a Swedish doctor lady was gifting me my 13th suture while Nati held my hand. A creepy urgent care TV relayed sterile jeopardy-style questions along the lines of “this nickelodeon band won a 2001 grammy” and I seriously contemplated the scope of my existence.

I left NY Doctors around 1:30 to a text that I couldn’t go home, because I was living with actresses I had met on Craigslist and they were filming a “professional music video” in our living room. So I spent the afternoon in midtown at my sister’s 24th floor office, alternating between swallowing pain tranquilizers and lackadaisically playing Tetris in her firm’s conference room.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The next day I returned to work at Mixed Greens because I was a little confused and couldn’t quite fathom what else to do with myself. Long story short, I spent the day running around the flower district with window artist Naomi Reis; despite a freshly stitched wound, watching installation and buying beautiful plants constituted one of my favorite days of the summer. When the Adia/Kimberley show opened the next night, I served drinks and sauntered around like a daintily wounded bird and I knew that Mixed Greens was the perfect office to summer in.

My season here was so much fun and I leave extremely grateful to Heather, Steven, Monica, Nati, Chuka, and Rob for all I have learned and seen. Having entered relatively unfamiliar with the domains of buying and selling art, but very interested in conceptual contemporary art, I constantly felt I was either learning new skills or applying my strengths and interests.

As a design student, I return to school with a million ideas and a fresh perspective on art//design//urbanism//the environment. For any students of art, design, art history, etc: the staff at Mixed Greens created a fabulous intern experience that I could not reflect upon more highly.
Ciao, blog readers. xo



TAGS: intern / wound

Answering FAQs on Window Submissions

Although window submissions aren't due until January, we have been receiving a number of questions regarding the window submission guidelines. In this post, we answer all of your most frequently asked questions on the window space.

How/When/Where are the windows viewed?




The windows are viewable ONLY from the street. Your installation will not be accessible to viewers within the actual gallery space. The gallery closes at 6pm, but the windows stay lit until 10pm, meaning your piece should be able to function both during the day and night.


What are the measurements and technical specifications of the window space?




For a diagram of the window specs, please click here.

The back wall has space for 34 fluorescent tube lights, each 45” long, which would be provided for use should they be required. Artists are not required to use these lights, and can opt to use all, some, or none of them. It should be noted, however, that if opted not to use these lights, the artist would be required to provide their own lighting to make the piece visible day and night.

There is one simple electrical outlet at the rear of the space, adjacent to the west window. It is hidden by storage items (which can be moved) in these images.



Each window has a sill, and each sill is roughly 12 inches deep. The flat base of the sill is 8.5 inches deep, with a lip at either end. There is a 35 ½ inch distance between the sill and the back wall (where the fluorescent tubing is attached). We use this space as storage on a case-by-case basis, but we can clear out the area if the window installation requires more space.


Can I hang objects from the ceiling?




Yes. You CAN drill into the ceiling, walls, and sills. However, there is HVAC piping on the ceiling, as well as fluorescent tubing/accompanying electrical fixtures that may be obstructive (see images above).


What alterations to the windows are allowed?

You can attach vinyl/make markings to the interior side of the window. You can also attach vinyl/make markings to the exterior of the window as long as it is limited to the window glass area. However, you CANNOT alter the exterior of the building due to its landmark status.

As a general requirement, all windows must be able to return to their original state during de-installation (i.e no scratching of the glass, permanent stain, etc.).


What will increase the chances of my proposal being accepted?

We are looking for proposals that are simultaneously site-specific and conceptually coherent with the artist’s regular studio practice. The window proposal should not be a one-off project. The more specifically your proposal pertains to our windows in an engaging and plausible way, the more likely it will be accepted. We also enjoy proposals that have mixed media.

Will I get paid for any expenses?
If accepted, the artist will be given a $500.00 honorarium.


Can I visit to see the window space in person?
If you want to see the window space prior to submitting your proposal, send an email to nati[at]mixedgreens[dot]com to set-up an appointment.

TAGS: faq / windows

Mary Temple in Japan

While the late summer has been moving at a comfortably sedate pace in Chelsea, Mixed Greens artist Mary Temple has kept busy installing a three-part show in Japan. Mary’s show, titled “Visual Deception II: Into the Future,” is hosted at three venues in Tokyo, Kobe, and Nagoya. As I write comfortably from the liberally air conditioned office, her assistant is installing the first part at the Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, which will be up from August 9 – October 5. Mary sent us a couple of install shots; we hope to have more soon.





TAGS: marytemple / tokyo

Multiplicity @ Mixed Greens!

Last week proved insanely busy for the Mixed Greens crew as we installed NURTUREart’s group exhibition Multiplicity. Beyond being a tech-heavy show, we were missing beloved art handler Rob Carter, who is out of the office this month on residency in Ithaca.

A week later, the show is installed, the bathroom is repainted, the office is rehung, and we are all still really fabulous people. Multiplicity opened Thursday at Mixed Greens, drawing a large (& very international) turnout. Check out some images from install, the opening, and Jan Pfeiffer’s performance below!









More exciting news on Multiplicity: New York Minute ran up a lovely article applauding NURTUREart, the Brushwick-based gallery that organized Multiplicity. Check it out here; more importantly, check out the show while it’s up this summer! As a series of consecutive exhibitions, art & video installations are installed at Mixed Greens and 3 other galleries across Manhattan and Brooklyn until the end of August.

TAGS: multiplicity / nurtureart