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Who are you close to
Lawrence Weiner, Zolaykha Sherzad, Pat Place, Jack Pierson, Bill Owens,
Vik Muniz, Laura Horelli, Erik Guzowski, Michela Griffo, Alighiero e Boetti,
Sanford Biggers, Bianca Argimon, Yasser Aggour
March 6 - April 18, 2010
Who are you close to
Jane Kim/Thrust Projects is delighted to announce Who are you close to, a group exhibition inspired by Louise Lawler’s work of the same title, opening on Saturday, March 6 through April 18, 2010. Commissioned for the Tel Aviv museum in 1988, Lawler created a set of four postcards with "Who are you close to" printed in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. Each card represents a different color of the Israeli and Palestinian flags: red, green, blue, and black. The piece discusses the problems of relationships, and their often complex nature. The works in the exhibition will allow the audience to engage in a dialog about such complexities and encourages spiritual, political, and cultural responses. Participating artists include Lawrence Weiner, Zolaykha Sherzad, Pat Place, Jack Pierson, Bill Owens, Vik Muniz, Laura Horelli, Erik Guzowski, Michela Griffo, Alighiero e Boetti, Sanford Biggers, Bianca Argimon, and Yasser Aggour.
The works in Who are you close to convey traditions that connect individuals to individuals, places, objects, and moments (both pleasurable and tormenting). Laura Horelli's “Karl-marx-allee and kreschatik,” 2005, subjectively looks at and compares two Stalinist boulevards in Berlin (where the artist lives) and Kyiv, Ukraine raising questions of belonging and not belonging. Jack Pierson's “Untitled,” 2009, photograph of Yves Saint Laurent’s bibelots in Paris after the designer's death, and Vik Muniz “Equivalents,” 1993, a series of platinum prints of what at first appears to be clouds, but are in fact cotton balls sculpted to form a cat, praying hands, and a rower in a boat, touches upon the spiritual and intimate aspects of our psyches. Sanford Biggers' video “Bittersweet the Fruit,” 2002, answers deeper psychological issues of being close to one's captor's, whereas Pat Place's “100 kisses,“ 2010, an ensemble of one hundred 35 mm photographs shot from television screens reminds us of the intensity of human pathos. Bill Owens’ “After work we change clothes, redo our makeup, do some coke and go dancing,” 1980, Bianca Argimon's mixed media on paper “Paroxysm,” 2009, Michela Griffo's ink drawing “We are constantly being told,” 2010, and Eric Guzowskis’ photographs “Virtual Violence (Tempe, Arizona),” 2001, and “Untitled (Cairo),” 1999, images of adolescents in a video arcade in Arizona and an amusement park in Cairo, confronts and questions notions of normalcy.
The east-west theme is expanded by re-evaluating stereotypes and identity in Zolaykha Sherzad's “Hawa - e- Azad,” 2009, a red silk fabric with gold calligraphy, representing an abstraction of a burka. Yasser Aggour's “Cairo,” 2005, a photograph of the artist’s cousin with Tom Selleck's portrait, humorously reveals how Selleck enjoys considerable affection in the Middle East. Lawrence Weiner's “Moi +Toi & Nous,” 1993, and Alighiero e Boetti's silk embroidered “Order Disorder” respond to the question by using language in art.
The exhibition asks the viewer to consider their relationships as both individuals and as a collective. Rather than asking which side are you on, the show gives a broader platform for the in between areas of human existence in a world that has increasingly been de-sensitized by technology and media. Every piece is not about taking sides, but about taking stock, about stepping back and considering “who you are close to?” in a meaningful way.