Curated by Elizabeth Ferrer
January 21 – March 6, 2010
Opening Reception: January 20, 7-9 pm
Featuring a pre-opening dialogue at 6 pm with exhibition artist and social activist Paula Luttringer about art and the depiction of trauma by enforced political disappearance.
Jenny Polak , Design for the Alien Within - Attic Access Hiding Unit. Site specific hiding place for people without immigration papers, 2009
the no place features the work of six contemporary artists who conjure utopian and dystopian environments in distinct ways to explore such issues as geo-political conflict, human rights, urban development, the environment, and most broadly, how we comprehend and utilize physical space.
Nathan Kensinger, A Kissproof World, 2009. Digital print, 11 x 14 in.
In this era of globalization and digital communication, seemingly limitless information exists about the physical world and the events that take place in it. The advent of Google maps and other web mapping projects means that it is possible to view much of the world from a laptop or cellular phone, and to comprehend both vast sweeps of the landscape and the smallest minutiae. Nevertheless, much remains unseen. The world is full of hidden spaces – places that are simply geographically inaccessible, restricted due to political conflict, or made out of bounds because of the furtive activities taking place within them.
Blane De St. Croix, Landscape Sections: Borders: North Korea and South Korea, 2008
J.G. Zimmerman, Dystopia Series: Oil Tanks, 2008. Still from Digital Video Animation.
Working in varied media (photography, sculpture, video, and works on paper) and with diverse approaches (social activist projects, Internet research, urban exploration, and interviews and oral histories), exhibition artists Liset Castillo, Blane De St. Croix, Nathan Kensinger, Paula Luttringer, Jenny Polak and J.G. Zimmerman have produced poetic visualizations of unseen, the inaccessible, and politically charged spaces.
Paula Luttringer, # 1 from the series, Lamento de los Muros (The Wailing of the Walls), 2000-05. Black-and-white photograph, 33 x 33 in.
Jenny Polak, Escape from San Pedro Detention Center, Terminal Island, CA, 2005-2009, 1 of 14 archival inkjet prints, 12 x12 inches
Public Program
Kenneth Anger
Mouse Heaven, 2004.
Wednesday, February 3, 7 pm
Heterotopias: A Moving | Wall Pictures film and video program
Heterotopias is a Moving Wall | Pictures screening of short videos and films by Kenneth Anger, Liliana Porter, and James Schneider. Music pins this evening together with aural nostalgia confusing our senses with a gentle suggestions of both childhood and a time of new prosperity. These videos/films are at first humorous tapestries of fairgrounds, fantasy realms, and their artifacts, but quickly reveal the sardonic relationships occurring within make-believe spaces. In the context of our current exhibition, the no place, these films become metaphors for the ever-present desire to deviate from reality amidst crisis and conflict. Liliana Porter's Matinee, employs vintage toys and figurines in a series of vignettes that offer a poetic interpretation of the human condition. Kenneth Anger stages a collaged accumulation of antique Mickey Mouse memorabilia in Mouse Heaven to examine the dark undercurrent present in playful aspects of popular culture. In his Faerie-Monition segment of The Dystopian Trilogy, James Schneider creates an atmospheric portrait of Euro Disney, questioning whether the theme park is a new utopia or a dystopian corporate project.
