“I’m sorry, Frank, but I don’t think I can answer that question without
knowing everything that all of you know.” (HAL 9000)

September 15 – November 10, 2017

Opening Friday, September 15, 6-9pm

Featuring video, sculpture, performance, and photography by Juliana Cerqueira Leite, Shanjana Mahmud, Nadja Verena Marcin, and Ann Oren.

Curated by Nadja Verena Marcin.

The exhibition explores themes including artificial intelligence, gravity, the explosion of movement, feminine architecture, among others.

Referencing Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the exhibition, curated by Marcin is based on the idea that the four artists form a Monolithic mastermind via their collective brain trust. Suggesting that the age of globalization has brought new invisible walls—harmful to society—the show stages manifestations that perforate existing walls and search for those that are invisible. As ‘fantasy’ is defined as “the power or process of creating, especially unrealistic or improbable mental images in response to a psychological need,” Space Odyssey will turn Radiator Gallery inside out, from the center, towards the walls—symbolically beyond these material confinements, and into the world.

In author Gregory Caicco’s Architecture, Ethics, and the Personhood of Place, he writes that Kubrick’s Space Odyssey illustrates how our quest for space is motivated by two contradictory desires: a “desire for the sublime,” characterized by a need to encounter something totally other than ourselves—”something numinous,” and the conflicting desire for a beauty that makes us feel no longer “lost in space,” but at home. Whereas the Monolith in the movie represents and triggers epic transitions in the history of human evolution—from ape-like beings to civilized people—in Space Odyssey: Beyond Material Confinements, the artists take responsibility for ‘advancing intelligent life’ and creating ‘something that has no shape’ but meaning. They play the alien, the ‘other’ coming to earth, experiencing the dawn of mankind as a thought experiment in the 21st century.

Premiering in New York, Ann Oren’s newest video NATURE SPEAKS TO SELF. ONLY, deflates the heroic figure of Dave, the astronaut of 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968 by introducing him to his alter-ego Marquis de Sade of De Sade, 1969. Both roles are played by actor Keir Dullea. At first sight, a hero lost in space, doomed by technology, confronted with his own mortality, he is later doubled as a perpetrator possessed with the banalities of his sexual desire. By interconnecting both roles performed by the same actor into one video, Oren becomes the puppeteer, speaking to the darker side of co-existing realities. She states: “Both genres, Sci-Fi and Pornography, are referred to as fantasy. Narrated by de Sade and a cameo by Hal 9000, the two Dulleas become entangled in a logic alluding to the pleasure and guilt found in online consciousness: from social media to cybersex, to virtual gaming, all enabling an individual to privately fulfill their desire while participating in a community.” Oren’s cinematic video manifests the collective desires found in online communities and subcultures, freeing observations on human isolation, loneliness and desires of tomorrow–offering us distance and clues to the world of simulacra to which we succumb.

Juliana Cerqueria Leite’s sculpture Curls 1, 2014 was born out of a work-related injury—her injured body vulnerable to the weight of heavy sculptural materials. Curled up, she casted the right side of her body, part-by-part, experimenting with the limits and boundaries of her strength during a period of recovery. As Martha Graham developed the idea that healthy movement is concentric, and keeping the body in a curled pose while under exertion employs its natural strengths and protections, Leite “explored the idea of the protective capacity of the body, its ability to be a safe space.” Metaphorically, the sculpture depicts a bodily architecture that speaks to the simple need to build a protection for the self—a space for recovery and resilience in a technologically absurd destructive society. In Concentrics, 2016 (see exhibition image) she goes a step further, dissolving her body-parts inside a photographic cut-out representation based on a similar curl. She notes her “interest in the mutability of the body in relation to her permanent sense of self,” in other words, the chance to encounter self in still moments of absence.

In Cover Girls, Nadja Verena Marcin plays upon the anonymity and animosity of said photographic avatars and the viewer’s human experience. Marcin states “Regardless that a ‘cover girl’ is a constructed lie, an anonymous avatar, an alien behind a doll face, her haven environs—albeit deadly—makes her increasingly attractive.” Transforming herself into different cover girls from women’s magazines such as Vanity Fair, Elle, Cosmopolitan, GQ, Playboy and Vogue, which the artist describes are “designed to keep women in their place, quieted, mirrored, narcissistic, and in infinite conflict with their bodies,” Marcin’s girls are superimposed with unlikely headlines. Referencing military slang and warfare, the magazine covers are spiked with the words “Bitchin’ Betty” (a descriptor of the U.S. military aircraft warning systems that frequently utilize female voices); “Chest Candy” (slang for ribbons and medals worn on a uniform); “Fashion Show” (a Naval punishment where a sailor is required to dress in each of his uniforms over several hours); “Hit the Silk” (ejecting from an aircraft and utilizing a parachute); “Latrine Queen” (an Air Force-specific term for a trainee in Basic who is in charge of cleaning bathrooms); “Oxygen Thief” (slang for someone who is useless); and “Pill Pusher” (a U.S. Navy term for a hospital corpsman). In a metaphorical sense, Marcin subverts the ‘power’ of the “seemingly perfect” female body towards itself –making visibile, the human warfare on women’s bodies.

In 11.03.82, Shanjana Mahmud takes a closer look at the physical perimeter of the human body: the skin. In her video she examines a male body whilst pinching its skin with two fingers in the eye of the magnifying glass of the camera. This miniature act of violence becomes endlessly repeated across the body, the head, the limbs, the male genitalia. The macro-perspective, anonymity and private event evoke a scientific test lab—the body becoming an abstracted, sterile, uncanny landscape. Mahmud states, “This topography of the body contours the internal structure of our being. With the simple act of pinching, I observe and feel, almost with alien eyes, it’s markings, consistency, and sensitivity—an act that verges on cruelty that is all too easy to achieve.” By strictly excluding the person, and muting their personality, Mahmud draws attention to the inner landscapes of being—to be thick-skinned in order to withstand life’s daily punches.

ABOUT CURATOR NADJA VERENA MARCIN

 German-born artist and curator Nadja Verena Marcin lives and works in New York and NRW Germany. In her performance-based work, Marcin examines the constructed persona, looking at the way the artist is an implicit figure. By creating a “theater of cinema” in which the audience can be immersed, Marcin brings awareness through a hyperbolic interpretation of relatable scenarios, enacting symbolic actions, catalyzing the visibility of hidden codes, and mirrors the ambiguities of human behavior and psychological mechanism. Marcin graduated from the Visual Art Department of New Genre, School of the Arts at Columbia University, New York in 2010. She has taught and lectured at P.I. Arts Center, New York, City College of New York and Brooklyn College. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Abrons Art Center, New York; Garage Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow; Human Resources, Los Angeles; ZKM- Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe; Middle Gate Geel’13, Belgium; Dortmunder Kunstverein; VOLTA 9, Basel; amongst many others. She has received grants, residencies, and prizes such as the Fulbright Award; DAAD Grant; Int. Artist Career Development Grant, Artworks Int; Film Production Grant, NRW Film-und Medienstiftung; Prize for ‘Art and Language,’ Kunststiftung Sparkasse UnnaKamen; ISCP Residency; Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant; Arbeitsstipendium, Kunststiftung Bonn; and Franklin Furnace Grant. 

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June 2nd – July 14th, 2017

Opening Reception June 2nd, 6 pm 

Radiator Gallery is pleased to present artists: Mike Andrews, Robin Kang, LoVid, Jodie Mack,

Leeza Meksin and Mitch Patrick

Curated by Tali Hinkis.

Throughout the course of history, humans have gradually perfected their actions. Like Pleistocene glaciers gliding down the face of North America, our hands, fingers, and brains have been epochally evolving, our nimble fortitude advancing towards an intricate comprehension of complex systems. The human mind and its dexterity provided the skill set for creation to become a meditative act – one with spiritual and philosophical inclinations. Our simple utilitarian survival tactics made way towards a higher purpose – comfort, texture, design and craftsmanship ultimately became their own objectives.

Textiles and their ilk have long represented a bridge between the two principles of functionality and higher design. They provide coverage from the elements and allow us to flex our aesthetics; we may appreciate the plain rug beneath our feet, but our souls (soles?) revere a Persian motif. The historical context of fiber is a synopsis of human history, interwoven and mired in the politics, mores, and spirituality inherent in every civilization. Initially manifested by one of the oldest advanced cultures, Ancient Egypt, its production has seen us through the highs of human spirituality (the Kaaba’s Sitara in Mecca) and its abominable lows (the rampant colonialism and slavery tied to its manufacture). Nonetheless, its prolific necessity has spun into godly legend, its natural emblems tied to divine desideratum. The spider, an internationally and historically venerated symbol of weavers and cunning, can claim immortal lineage from Greek αράχνη and higher intellect from the African Anansi. According to the Hopi, the world would not even exist if it weren’t for Grandmother Spider weaving the thoughts from her head. Fabric and its design have become part of the human tapestry, its threads and folds changing course with time.

Here in the Anthropocene, we have developed new dimensions beyond the tangible realm. Cyberspace is its own universe of creation, a networked state of intuitive architecture where coded logic reigns supreme. One would fear a coldness in these ciphered margins, but artists have co-opted its language and rules for an anarchic mission: to define and reorder the human condition. By molding the fleshy, organic tactility of IRL to the digital cloud, creative inspiration has pulled textured corpulence into the mainframe. At first, we looked through the blue-lit prism to see our reflection on the screen. New media art was once synonymous with hacking into a new form of digital DNA and creating our own transcendence, but now, the pendulum swings back towards our original concept of craft. The patterns and glitches so diligently formulated through computations, mouse clicks, and Photoshop layers can be recycled through the speculum into 3D objects with stitches and shuttles – the new hyper-contemporary relics of an electronic age.

DEEP TIME provides a canny and sensitive lexicon of artists to this new symbiotic structure, as the heart and spirit of this exhibition can be found in the intersection of the media and material. The cerebral approach of Mitch Patrick, Jodie Mack, and LoVid in their analog work juxtaposes beautifully with the palpable emotional adroitness behind the craft of Robin Kang, Mike Andrews, and Leeza Meksin. DEEP TIME is an ambitious and canonical translation of our current relationship with art and technology, and serves to remind us of our own nebulous existence – for here we are, all of us: abundant matter and pixelated light.

Text by J. Simmz

J. Simmz is an independent curator, writer, and co-founder of Doppelgänger Projects, based in Ridgewood, Queens.

The exhibition opens at Radiator Gallery in Long Island City, New York June 2nd, 2017, and runs through July 14th, 2017.

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March 31st – May 26th, 2016

Opening Reception:  March 31st 6 pm

Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit)


Cannupa Hanska Luger (Lakota/Mandan/Arikara/Hidatsa)


Steven J. Yazzie (Navajo)


Tom Jones (Ho Chunk)


Winter Count Collective (Merritt Johnson, Cannupa Hanska Luger,
Nicholas Galanin, Dylan McLaughlin ,Ginger Dunnill) 
 


Curated by Erin Joyce Projects

Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere have a spiritual and mystical connection with the land. The land is part of the Indigenous tradition and religion, from creation stories to the way in which Indigenous peoples live their lives, the land is indivisible from Native America. Throughout the history of the United States and their relationality to Native tribes, the issue of land rights and ownership has been at the forefront of confrontation. From historic events like forced relocation from traditional lands, to contemporary issues of unauthorized sale of tribal land, energy extraction, and contested landscapes,My Country Tis of Thy People You’re Dying, is in reference to the song of the same title by Buffy Saint Marie, and will feature artworks by contemporary Indigenous North American artists examining the environmental impact of energy extraction, the impact it has on the collective Indigenous psyche, and the political framework that has and continues to enable unsanctioned land deals and the abuse of powers over the people. With issues in recent years such as the sale of Oak Flat on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Southeastern Arizona, First Nations tribes fighting pipelines through their territory, and most prominently the conflict at Standing Rock in North Dakota, the timing of this exhibition could not be more relevant.

The mediums represented in this exhibition will be mixed. A film installation by Steven J. Yazzie (Navajo) looks at the impact of uranium mining on the Navajo reservation, on the Navajo people, their health, and the health of the land through stunning and poignant narrative and visual imagery. Nicholas Galanin’s (Tlingit) God Complex, inspects the dynamics of power structures, the glorification of violence, and police brutality; redressing pop culture iconography with a religiosity, echoing Western society’s worship of material over life. Tom Jones (Ho Chunk) work, The North American Landscape, is a series of photographs of plastic toy trees. The work utilizes the trees as stand-ins for the landscape of North America and represents the areas American Indians continue to inhabit on this continent. It also comments on the destruction of the natural world replacing nature with manmade replicas. Other artists in the exhibition include ceramic sculpture by Cannupa Hanska Luger (Lakota/Mandan/Arikara/Hidatsa), and a video installation by Winter Count, a collective of Indigenous artists including Merritt Johnson , Cannupa Hanska Luger, Nicholas Galanin, Ginger Dunnill and Dylan McLaughlin .

The exhibition opens at Radiator Gallery in Long Island City, New York March 31st, 2017, and runs through May 26, 2017.

The exhibition is generously supported by a Social Justice Grant from the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation and fiscal sponsorship from New York Foundation

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Special Event by Shani Ha and Amélie Gaulier-Brody

Sunday, December 11th, 5 pm 

Duration of Performance: approx. 20 mins.

The “Embody” series play with abstraction and metamorphose to incarnate complex shifting identities and interactions. Performed since 2011, the Embody blurs the boundaries between sculpture, bodies, and representation. For this iteration, Shani Ha invited performance artist Amélie Gaulier-Brody to invest and interpret Embody.

This series of sculpture is the catalysis for photographs, installations, and performances. Shani Ha invites the audience, performers and dancers to interact with the piece and invest them in different situations.

The soft sculptures are constantly shifting and adapting to the context and silhouettes, creating successive ephemeral sculptural forms. Embody exists in different temporality and formats, the sculptures can be contemplated steady, in action or be activated.

About the exhibition Neither Here Nor There
Nov 18th, 2016 – Jan 20th, 2017

Featuring works by:
Anne Mourier, Fanny Allié, Jeanne Verdoux, Julien Gardair
Marilia Destot, Nicolas Touron, Shani Ha, Simon Courchel

Curated by: Nicolas Touron / Fanny Allié

The exhibition Neither Here Nor There presents the works of eight artists who all share the same birthplace – France and who voluntarily migrated several years ago to New York City.

Not quite from one side or the other anymore, a nonnative constantly oscillates between two realities, fully belonging to none. Through mixed media, sculpture, photography and painting, the artists of Neither Here Nor There examine this state of being slightly “out of tune” and how their experience may have impacted their work over the years. The exhibit also aims to highlight a common thread between all the works – a feeling of detachment of the human figure from its urban environment, within a context of personal narration and a touch of absurdity. The sense of isolation and fragmentation that can emanate from the works is nonetheless often counterbalanced with whimsicality and humor.

In her series Gowanus Dance, Marilia Destot isolates and places her model in a cinematic or sequence form, her photographic work focusing on the intimate writing of time and space intermingled. Exploring the same medium, Simon Courchel creates in each of his photographs an urban choreography or performance thus referencing his background as a dancer; the figure being always insulated and centered within the frame. In Anne Mourier’s small sculptures depicting domestic scenes, the figure is removed all together but constantly in mind, like a ghostly presence, only the habitat remains. Nicolas Touron’s ceramic and video installation Artificial Landscape is a visual fable, existing as a landscape of absurdity in which a dead cicada found at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens during his numerous explorations there, plays the main character.

Jeanne Verdoux’s prints show the human figure deprived from any context but in constant motion, sometimes in the verge of falling, where ground and air merge into one dimension. Fanny Allié’s characters, often placed on a white background are also removed from their habitat or environment; their urban feel come through nonetheless. In his Artforum mashup series, Julien Gardair combines and cuts Artforum advertisement pages, revealing from these art magazines human silhouettes intermingling with animals, body and abstract elements and creating a chaotic mass. Lastly, in order to remedy the isolation she may find in fast-paced cities, Shani Ha creates versatile sculptures and devices in an effort to bring people together or to add a comforting touch to her surrounding.

Images:

Duration of the show: Nov 18, 2016 – Feb 3, 2017

Opening reception: Nov 18^th, 2016

Featuring works by: Anne Mourier, Fanny Allié, Jeanne verdoux, Julien Gardair, Marilia Destot, Nicolas Touron, Shani Ha, Simon Courchel

Curated by: Nicolas Touron / Fanny Allié

The exhibition Neither Here Nor There presents the works of eight artists who all share the same birthplace – France and who voluntarily migrated several years ago to New York City.

Not quite from one side or the other anymore, a nonnative constantly oscillates between two realities, fully belonging to none. Through mixed media, sculpture, photography and painting, the artists of Neither Here Nor There examine this state of being slightly “out of tune” and how their experience may have impacted their work over the years.

The exhibit also aims to highlight a common thread between all the works – a feeling of detachment of the human figure from its urban environment, within a context of personal narration and a touch of absurdity. The sense of isolation and fragmentation that can emanate from the works is nonetheless often counterbalanced with whimsicality and humor.

In her series Gowanus Dance, Marilia Destot isolates and places her model in a cinematic or sequence form, her photographic work focusing on the intimate writing of time and space intercrossed. Exploring the same medium, Simon Courchel creates in each of his photographs an urban choreography or performance thus referencing his background as a dancer; the figure being always insulated and centered within the frame. In Anne Mourier’s small sculptures depicting domestic scenes, the figure is removed all together but constantly in mind, like a ghostly presence, only the habitat remains. Nicolas Touron’s ceramic and video installation Artificial Landscape is a visual fable, existing as a landscape of absurdity in which a dead cicada found at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens during his numerous explorations there, plays the main character. Jeanne Verdoux’s prints show the human figure deprived from any context but in constant motion, sometimes in the verge of falling, where ground and air merge into one dimension. Fanny Allié’s characters, often placed on a white background are also removed from their habitat or environment; their urban feel come through nonetheless.

In his Artforum mashup series, Julien Gardair combines and cuts Artforum advertisement pages, revealing from these art magazines human silhouettes intermingling with animals, body and abstract elements and creating a chaotic mass.

Lastly, in order to remedy the isolation she may find in fast-paced cities, Shani Ha creates versatile sculptures and devices in an effort to bring people together or to add a comforting touch to her surrounding.

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Special Event by Michael Clemow

Sound Installation using found noise, Yamaha keyboard, and speakers

October 28, 2016 6:30—8:30PM

The Descent of Dust takes its sonic palette from the sounds of a circuit bent and “broken” Yamaha VSS-30 digital synthesizer from 1987. The instrument and a library of sounds recorded from the device are used to create a dirty, textural soundscape in four channels. Driving the composition is a genetic algorithm that creates “cultures” of sonic entities that are born and ultimately eradicated multiple times during the course of the performance.

The VSS-30 is a sampling keyboard, allowing a re-sampling of the generated material. This creates a feedback loop that perpetuates sonic characteristics of one “generation” to the next. The performer can choose to restart the culture during the performance, however, the unstable algorithm will eventually destroy itself, ending the performance.

In line with Radiator Gallery’s group exhibition Works: Reflections on Failure, Michael Clemow’s immersive sound installation The Descent of Dust delves into the essence of failure, questioning the unpredictability of the machine facing mankind’s scrutinizing nature.

Throughout his multi-media sound installation, Clemow will challenge auto-recordings, tracing their ephemeral beings and susceptibility for destruction. Works: Reflections on Failure, curated by Osman Can Yerebakan, features works by Daniel A. Bruce, Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos, Ahmet Civelek, Jennifer Grimyser, Tim Etchells, Dana Stirling, Juliette Dumas, Shannon Finnegan, Kay Rosen, Christina Massey, and George Spencer.

Images:

September 16-November 12, 2016

Opening reception on September 16th, 2016 between 6:00-9:00PM.

Curated by Osman Can Yerebakan

Radiator Gallery is pleased to present Works: Reflections on Failure, a group exhibition

featuring works by Daniel A. Bruce, Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos, Ahmet Civelek, Jennifer

Grimyser, Tim Etchells, Dana Stirling, Juliette Dumas, Shannon Finnegan, Kay Rosen, Christina

Massey and George Spencer. Curated by Osman Can Yerebakan, the exhibition brings together

eleven contemporary artists working in a wide variety of mediums, investigating the notion of

failure in contemporary art.

Offering a platform to survey the relationship between the artist, the artwork and the audience;

failure suggests a study on the artistic drive, contextual meaning, and viewer expectation. Inspired

by the late artist and author Édouard Levé’s book Works, in which he gathered more than five-

hundred artistic ideas he aimed to bring into fruition, the exhibition scrutinizes the ambiguous

border separating success from downfall. Levé’s candid devotion for creativity—leading to such

accumulation of ideas that eventually failed to be executed—projects an inquisitive mind’s strive

for achievement, as well as his bold undertaking of potential failures. The exhibition not only

studies the assumption of defeat as creative means, but also juxtaposes its various depictions in

contemporary art. Approaching the topic from various angles, artworks on view respond to

unsuccessfulness through different channels, among which are viewer expectation, emotional

investment, and risk-taking.

The exhibition will remain on view through November 12, 2016. Radiator Gallery is located on

10-61 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11106. The gallery hours are Friday and Sunday 1-

6 PM or anytime by appointment.

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