upcoming eventRELEASE PARTYWilliam Gass, Sun Duel (Jason Triefenbach & Friends) and Barry Johnston// closing receptionTanya BrodskyFirt there was. And then there was.7.12.2014

RELEASE PARTY
Saturday July 12, 2014
8pm

Featuring
William Gass
Sun Duel (Jason Triefenbach and friends)
Barry Johnston
and closing reception for Tanya Brodsky: First there was. And then there was.


Elephant and Universal Love Upload are pleased to present RELEASE PARTY featuring William Gass, Sun Duel (Jason Triefenbach and friends), and Barry Johnston.

From psycho-theatrical vignettes fueled by primitive techno and urban decay to eloquent and minimal soundscapes, the artists of the Open Container Tour meld punk ethos with sound experimentation and collage sensibility to present open-ended and esoteric structures which rise and collapse in emotive oscillation: Abjection, Pleasure, and the Uncanny. We want to touch you… with colorful textures, fervent poetics, trance and transgression. Diatribes and exercise routines for disco mutants and discerning deviants.

We shall be released!

On the same night, Elephant presents the closing reception for First there was. And then there was, an exhibition of new works by Tanya Brodsky. This installation presents a space full of imminent problems. Things are (maybe) about to slide off, overflow, disintegrate, cause bodily harm if not approached with caution. Objects seem to be missing, with only the impressions made by their mass remaining as a record. The intentionality of the objects that are present is questionable. Things are simultaneously much more and much less stable than they appear to be. Contamination is a real concern. There is a dichotomy between permanence and impermanence, the utilitarian and the obtrusive, the mundane and the sanctified. It might all be a joke with no punchline.

Brodsky uses the acts of listing and categorizing to create the semblance of a disjointed narrative. The title of the show derives from narrative connectors: “first there was, and then there was.” Something happened, then something else, then something else. A appears to have led to B, to C, to D. Here, the indexical system is present as a framing device, something to push against. Logic sets up the possibility of red herrings, for the frustrations of not understanding or not solving. It acts as a foil for sex, madness, shit, humor, the mythical Furies, some kind of force of creation and destruction that is outside of and greater than the system.

Anticipation, excitement, dread, all require vulnerability: emotional, physical, or both. Trust is extended towards another being or eventuality, allowing him/her/it into one’s personal space. There is always a brief moment when it is unclear whether the stranger is leaning in in order to be violent, intimate, or both. Such an invasion elicits a physical response. The body tenses reflexively, bracing for fight or flight. Foreplay comes to mind. The erotic power of uncertainty, of waiting, not touching, not moving. In sexual and religious fetishes, art galleries, high end boutiques, the unavailability of the object gives it its power.

Tanya Brodsky (b. 1982, Kiev, Ukraine) lives and works in Los Angeles and San Diego. She received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2005. She is currently working towards an MFA at UC San Diego. Her work has been included in exhibitions in Los Angeles and New York. This summer she will participate in two traveling exhibitions in Monterrey, Mexico, and Bilbao, Spain.

upcoming exhibitionTanya BrodskyFirst there was. And then there was.6.8.2014

Tanya Brodsky
First there was. And then there was.
Opening reception Sunday, June 8, 5-9 pm


Elephant is pleased to announce First there was. And then there was, an exhibition of new works by Tanya Brodsky. This installation presents a space full of imminent problems. Things are (maybe) about to slide off, overflow, disintegrate, cause bodily harm if not approached with caution. Objects seem to be missing, with only the impressions made by their mass remaining as a record. The intentionality of the objects that are present is questionable. Things are simultaneously much more and much less stable than they appear to be. Contamination is a real concern. There is a dichotomy between permanence and impermanence, the utilitarian and the obtrusive, the mundane and the sanctified. It might all be a joke with no punchline.

Brodsky uses the acts of listing and categorizing to create the semblance of a disjointed narrative. The title of the show derives from narrative connectors: “first there was, and then there was.” Something happened, then something else, then something else. A appears to have led to B, to C, to D. Here, the indexical system is present as a framing device, something to push against. Logic sets up the possibility of red herrings, for the frustrations of not understanding or not solving. It acts as a foil for sex, madness, shit, humor, the mythical Furies, some kind of force of creation and destruction that is outside of and greater than the system.

Anticipation, excitement, dread, all require vulnerability: emotional, physical, or both. Trust is extended towards another being or eventuality, allowing him/her/it into one’s personal space. There is always a brief moment when it is unclear whether the stranger is leaning in in order to be violent, intimate, or both. Such an invasion elicits a physical response. The body tenses reflexively, bracing for fight or flight. Foreplay comes to mind. The erotic power of uncertainty, of waiting, not touching, not moving. In sexual and religious fetishes, art galleries, high end boutiques, the unavailability of the object gives it its power.

Tanya Brodsky (b. 1982, Kiev, Ukraine) lives and works in Los Angeles and San Diego. She received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2005. She is currently working towards an MFA at UC San Diego. Her work has been included in exhibitions in Los Angeles and New York. This summer she will participate in two traveling exhibitions in Monterrey, Mexico, and Bilbao, Spain.

upcoming exhibitionMountaineers: New Collages by Alice Clements5.10.2014

May 10 - June 5

Opening Reception: Saturday May 10th, 7pm-10pm
Additional Gallery Hours: Sunday May 25, 2-6 pm and by appointment

Elephant is pleased to announce an exhibition of new mixed media collages by Los Angeles based artist Alice Clements. With a raw and irreverent sense of materials, Clements uses paint to emphasize decisions made in mounting images on each other. Taking the most basic formula of collage as a starting place - an image glued onto a flat surface - she explores figure ground relationships, variations on landscape and subjects human, animal and neither.

Her Handsome Man Collages project began several years back. This body of work departs entirely from abstraction with painted forays into figurative representation, using images culled from popular culture, art history, and print media. The collages employ strategies of formal symmetry, sentimentality and wit to explore imaginary narratives and formal play.

Alice Clements received her MFA from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena in 2008. "Mountaineers" is her third solo exhibition in Los Angeles. Recent shows include University Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach, Jancar Gallery, Los Angeles, Long Beach City College, and Glendale College Art Gallery.

upcoming exhibitionScott Cowan & Katy CowanThe Fifth Wall4.11.2014

SCOTT COWAN & KATY COWAN
April 11, 2014; 7pm-11pm


The “fourth wall” is the proverbial division between entertainers and their audience. Recently, in a casual conversation, Katy and Scott mistakenly referred to this metaphorical division as the “fifth wall.” As their laughter settled, they began to wonder: if the fourth wall allows for one to suspend one’s disbelief, and temporarily—albeit from a distance—accept a fiction as an affective reality, what would a fifth wall represent? What would be its function?

After a few moments of conjecture and google-ing, they found that questions regarding the role of the fifth wall have varied answers. On the one hand, some argue that the fifth wall is the barrier between the critic and the practitioner (1); on the other hand, others hold that the fifth wall involves meta-marketing. (2) Further, some believe it refers to an instance when an artist fumbles, disrupting the scene: for the show to continue, both audience and artist must regain composure without halting the performative aspect of the event. (3)

Entertained by the spectrum of possible definitions, in THE FIFTH WALL Scott and Katy want to synthesize the commonalities between these definitions; they hope to use their understanding of the fifth wall to frame their work. Here, they believe the fifth wall involves revealing elements of an illusion without expecting resolution behind an illusion. Recognizing the space between artist, observer, and critic, Scott and Katy purposefully expose the structures of their work. Recollecting the fruits of their conversation, they now begin to ponder: perhaps the meaning of a work of art is not an intrinsic element, but is extrinsic and goal-oriented.

Their collaboration involves the necessary tension between interpretation and misinterpretation, that is, the fragility of the interpretability of a work of art. THE FIFTH WALL is their humorous attempt to seriously consider that a reality ‘behind’ an illusion can only ever be a reality in an illusion.

Please join!

(1) “What does ‘breaking the fifth wall” mean?,” Yahoo Answers, response from Eagle1388 posted three years ago, accessed March 10, 2014, http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110130155525AAZAk3R.

(2) Eugene Carr, Breaking the Fifth Wall: Rethinking Arts Marketing for the 21st Century (New York: Patron Publishing, 2011). Breaking the Fifth Wall is a self-published e-book available at Amazon.com.

(3) “Breaking the Fifth Wall,” Uncyclopedia: The Content-Free Encyclopedia, last modified January 21, 2013, accessed March 25, 2014, http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Breaking_the_fifth_wall.

upcoming exhibitionhome(-)freeSofía Córdova and Megan Lindeman3.14.2014

home(-)free

March 14, 2014 - April 2, 2014


 Opening Friday, March 14, 2014, 7-10pm

Performance 9pm




“You want

Better cars

And a better heart

Another start

Yo' own yard

And a place to park

You wanna
Trust 'em ??”

-Trick Daddy, America



Elephant is pleased to present home(-)free, an exhibition of new works by Sofía Córdova and Megan Lindeman.
Córdova’s and Lindeman’s works both question the nature of freedom as it relates to American-ness. Questions of origin, outsider/insider status, belonging (and not belonging), political and historical patterns come together through photography, painting, video, sound and performance.
Lindeman’s project, My Freedom Is Too Big, uses the expansiveness of the Western American landscape as the backdrop for the proclamation of personal freedom. My Freedom Is Too Big began in 2011 at the start of the Arab Spring and presents a collage of abstracted images of protests in Tahrir Square alongside photographs of hand-painted banners floating over the open landscapes of California. The banners, which depict colorfully painted statements such as “My Freedom Is Too Big” and “I’d Like to Tell You Why,” are thrown in the air and photographed in California’s picturesque landscapes. Their depiction plays in contrast to most contemporary visual depictions of the fight for freedom -photographs of mass protests, police brutality, blood and violence-. Lindeman’s composite of abstracted protest imagery and the Californian landscape create a wallpaper of sorts, on top of she scrawls in crayon and gouache. The results resemble cave paintings, emphasizing the connection between the 30,000 year-old act of painting and the need for demonstration. In doing so, Lindeman points to a shared origin between this act of expression and the act of protest.
Lindeman also presents Whoa, You Guys Ok? (2011-2014), a sound installation consisting of an original song and painted text on paper encased in acrylic glass boxes. The song layers Egyptian rhythms, old American military marches, and marches from the Ottoman Empire, the oldest military marches known to man. The artist’s voice is heard in a call and response asking, “Whoa, you guys ok?” and responding with “It’s cool.” Together the works present a visual and auditory concern for the other and yet reveal in the artist’s placid response a sense of apathetic detachment associated with ‘freedom’ in the West.
Córdova presents work meant to exist in a speculative near-future, where the decline of suitable conditions for human survival has brought about the end of culture as we know it. National identities have been stripped away, placing everyone in a state of not-belonging. In the series, The Kingdom Is Me (2013-2014), Córdova uses black paint to redact photographic documents of our cultural past based on our historic present as a means of mapping out the physical and psychic landscape of this uncertain future. The three channel video, They Held Dances on the Graves of Those Who Died in The Terror (2013-present), made up of digital re-recordings of the projections of 8mm black and white films shot in Miami, Los Angeles and Puerto Rico, focuses on a fading natural world. Images of birds, tropical plants and atmospheric events become the records of the lost past in Córdova’s fantasy future. The accompanying music is a mash-up of the song Fantasia, cover of Mariah Carey, and Tom Tom Club’s Fantasy and Genius of Love. The song -- which also is a part of Act I of the performance Odas Al Fin De Los Tiempos (2012-present) -- describes a world in which dances are held on concrete slabs under a dying sun and human survivors are in constant peril not just from hostile conditions but from each other. Act II of Odas consists of original material written through the use of tarot cards (something Córdova does not know how to do) thus tying the installation and performance together as a provisional voice of divination. An excerpted performance will be done as part of the opening.
Sofía Córdova (b. 1985, Carolina, Puerto Rico) received her MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2010. She has performed at SFMOMA, SomArts and Southern Exposure among others. Her work has been exhibited at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, AMOA/Art House, Galeria de la Raza, Queen’s Nails, The International Center of Photography as well as other venues internationally. Her work is part of Pier 24’s permanent collection. She lives and works in Oakland, California.
Megan Lindeman (b. 1981, Tucson, Arizona) received her MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 2008 and her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2003. Her work has been exhibited at Chime&Co., Los Angeles, CA; Coup de Ville, Artist Village WARP- Contemporary Art Platform, Sint Niklaas, Belgium; and The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE. Her work has also been screened at the Beijing Film Academy, Modern Creative Media Academy, Quindao, China. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

upcoming exhibtionBlack MoonCaitlin Foster and Kiki Johnson2.8.2014

February 8, 2014 - February 23, 2014
Opening Saturday, February 8, 2014, 6-10pm

Elephant is pleased to present Black Moon, featuring drawings by Caitlin Foster and paintings from Kiki Johnson.  The artists' create work with seemingly opposite methods; Johnson makes quick, succinct small paintings on panels, while Foster often labors for months on one large drawing.  Johnson's subject matter is culled from historical archives and books, lifting historical objects and figures to create an invocation of her own making.  Johnson's work serves to blur the distinctions between truth and fiction, past and present. Foster's detailed drawings are portals into a consideration of endless expanse and black holes.  Unidentifiable organic shapes are familiar and yet unplaceable in Foster's dense black and white meditations.  What is shared between the artists is the ritualistic act of making the work, of conjuring onto a blank surface.  Their work shares an interest in exploring the idea that image-making can take on revelatory properties, and the act of making becomes an integral part of the work itself.

Caitlin Foster (b. 1983) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.  She graduated from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2006 and Tufts University, and also studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Foster has exhibited her work in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston, and has an upcoming solo exhibition in Madrid, Spain.

Kiki Johnson (b. 1985) lives and works in Los Angeles, California.  Johnson received her MFA in painting from Yale University in 2012, and her BFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2007.  Her work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, Houston, and Halifax, Canada.  She was an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center. 
 

open studiossaturday 1.27.20143-9pm