Maritta Tapanainen: Turangalila
at Pavel Zoubok Gallery (New York)
February 13 – March 15, 2014
Opening reception, Thursday, February 13, 6-8pm
Category: News
ICI Press at La Art Book Fair
Thank you to everyone who came out and visited ICI Press at LA Art Book Fair 2014. As a result of your support, the event was an overwhelming success.
ICI Friend in Exhibition
ICI Friend, Caleb Considine is being featured in a new exhibition at Metro Pictures in New York, January 16 – February 22, 2014.
“Metro Pictures presents “Bad Conscience,” an exhibition organized by artist and writer John Miller that features a multigenerational group of artists with whom Miller has collaborated in the past or maintains regular dialogue. The paintings, photographs and moving images included in the exhibition elicit a disquieting effect that Miller attributes to a troubled process of representation.”
ICI Friend in Interview
ICI friend, Caleb Considine , was recently interviewed about ‘observational’ painting’s “historical limits and immanent potential” by Alex Kitnick for the Italian journal, Mousse (Issue 41 / December 2013 – January, 2014).
The bilingual (Italian/English) article entitled “Mute Paintings” can be downloaded in pdf format here.
ICI Friend, Paul W. Evans, in Exhibition
Sky Candy
New Paintings by Paul W. Evans
Fifth Floor Gallery
January 11 – February 15, 2014
Opening reception Saturday, January 11, 6-9pm
Fifth Floor Gallery will present Sky Candy, the newest body of paintings by Los Angeles based artist, Paul W. Evans, beginning January 11th. “Continuing with his exploration of mixed media and painting, Evans has created a body of work that combines the whimsical with the surreal.”
Fifth Floor is open Thursday – Sunday, 12-6pm or by appointment.
ICI Press at L.A. Art Book Fair in February 2014
Join ICI Press at the
2nd Annual LA Art Book Fair
at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
January 30 – February 2, 2014
Friday, 11— pm
Saturday, 12—6 pm
Sunday, 11—6 pm
Preview, Thursday, January 30, 6—9 pm ($10 entrance fee)
Visit us at Booth # F29
This event is free and open to the public.
The LA Art Book Fair is a unique event for artists’ books, catalogs, monographs, periodicals and zines presented by more than 250 presses, artists, and independent publishers from 19 countries.
For more information about our participation in the event contact us at info@culturalinquiry.org. For information abut the fair and tickets to the Thursday night preview, please visit the fair website: www.laartbookfair.net
ICI Friend, Christine Nguyen in Long Beach
Saturday, January 11th, 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Stearns Champions Park Social Hall
4520 23rd St.
Long Beach, CA 90815
Metro and the City of Long Beach will hold a free poster signing event for artist Christine Nguyen on Saturday, Jan. 11 at Stearns Champions Park Social Hall. Nguyen was commissioned by Metro to create the artwork for the Through the Eyes of Artists poster series. The program commissions local artists to create original artworks that express the uniqueness of Los Angeles County neighborhoods as a way of encouraging people to take Metro and explore destinations served by the agency.
“The poster [which is currently on display inside buses and trains throughout the Metro system] shows the diversity of local ecologies while evoking the beauty of Long Beach in a playful, fantastical, underwater cosmic dreamscape,” says Nguyen. Nguyen, who is also a musician, also will be performing with fellow musicians Michael Wysong and Whalesound during this event.
Press release
The Ephemera(l) Institution
An Evening with Visualist-in-Residence, Martin Gantman
January 11, 2014, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. –Yogi Berra
The Institute of Cultural Inquiry (ICI) presents the Ephemera(l) Institution, a public presentation of Martin Gantman’s practice-based research at the ICI through its Visualist-in-Residence Project. The findings of his “archeological” undertaking will be presented at a public event at the Institute on January 11, 2014 from 7 – 9 pm. The evening will include an artist action in the ICI garden at 8 pm: the permanent interment of Matchboxes-in-another box: testimony, a work completed during his residency. Transformations to physical elements of the Institute that have materialized as a result of Gantman’s tenure will also be on display.
According to Gantman, a long-time Associate of the organization, the ICI is unique in how it co-opts cultural artifacts for use as foils to pierce the veil that constrains contemporary thought. He asks how the method of the Institute contributes to such results? And in the long term, how does the Institute frame itself so that its contributions, and in particular its singular methods, contribute to the production of knowledge after its demise?
Martin Gantman is a Los Angeles based artist and writer who has exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. In 2012, he chaired a panel session entitled: Tracking the Movement of Investigatory Art at the College Art Association Conference in Los Angeles. In trying to address these issues, Gantman brings his interest in investigatory art to service during his residency. Digging into the Institute’s distinct approach to its organizational construct, language, and activities, he has fashioned a commentary on the Institute’s practices and devices. What does it mean to have an Ephemera Kabinett, which has the potential to contain evidence of almost anything? And how is it mobilized in the effort to produce knowledge? These are questions that Gantman has attempted to answer.
Martin Gantman’s VIR workspace and the materials associated with his residency will remain on display (by appointment only) until January 31, 2014. For appointments or questions regarding the Visualist-in-Residence project or other ICI events, please contact info@culturalinquiry.org
Visualist-in-Residence Project
Due to space limitations, VIR applications for 2016 are currently not being accepted. This project may resume in 2017.
The VIR residency offers local artists, art theorists, writers, and other culture producers an environment that is oriented towards knowledge production through its well-equipped study and production facilities. Resources include a 3,000-volume library; an Ephemera Kabinett that contains cultural residue from the last 100 years; a collection of arcane visual tools or their handbooks (sometimes both); and a unique physical site with its own collection of phantom histories and secrets.
We are looking for adventurous ‘visualists’ to help us ‘theorize the materials’ or ‘materialize the theories’ of the various processes of knowledge production that are ‘visually orchestrated.’ These are activities that interrogate and extend current conceptions of ‘studio-based research’ as they are being extolled in the academy.
Some of the features of the Residency include:
• The VIR laboratory is available for residencies lasting between 1-4 weeks. We can only offer a work space at this time (no live-in) but access is 24/7 to accommodate residents who have a ‘day job’ or other demands on their time during ICI’s normal business hours.
• At the very least, each resident will arrive with a single question to jump-start her or his visual research but, more often, the resident arrives with a project already underway that will benefit from an investigatory period at the ICI.
• The Institute will provide limited manpower and, at time, financial assistance. We will also facilitate partnerships with a roster of highly skilled ICI Associates and supporters to enrich the VIR residency experience.
•The VIR quarters will be open to the public as part of regularly scheduled ICI tours at least one Saturday per month (depending on the concurrent ICI project) and/or by appointment.
• The Resident will interact with the ICI staff and/or Associates on a regular basis to discuss the Resident’s work, either through meetings or online interactions,
• At the end of the residency, the VIR will be encouraged to summarize their research processes and findings during some type of recorded discussion with ICI staff and/or associates. This exchange might include an interview, a non-verbal demonstration, an exchange on social media, or some other recorded form based on the scope and range of the residency.
• In addition to ‘documenting’ their residency on the ICI’s website, the Resident will also be asked to create a material trace of their tenure to be placed in a special box that will become a part of the ICI repository.
VIR Residents have included:
Julene Paul, Spring 2012
Jared Neilsen, Summer 2012
Greg Cohen, Winter 2012-13
Christel Dillbohner, Spring 2013
Martin Gantman, Winter 2013
Maya Gurantz, Summer 2014
Anna Ayeroff, Summer-Fall 2014
Jaime Knight, Fall 2014
Amy Kaczur, Spring 2015
Christopher Handran, Summer 2015
Find more information about the VIR Project at http://www.culturalinquiry.org/blog/activities/2014-visualist-in-residence-project
or email us at info@culturalinquiry.org
ICI recognizes the 24th Day Without Art on December 1, 2013
On Sunday, December 1, 2013, in recognition of World AIDS Day, the ICI linked to a project by fierce pussy for Visual AIDS. ”
For the Record mourns the loss of friends, family, lovers, artists and activists during the AIDS crisis and engages in a dialogue about the erasure of personal and collective memories from the historical record through this loss. Through poignant and powerful variations of the phrase “If he/she/they were alive today…,” fierce pussy explores the daily aspects of living, not only with HIV/AIDS but as a person in the world, and asks viewers to extract their own memories to consider our personal and social relationship to the AIDS crisis in the present.”
Posted here are four broadsides created by fierce pussy for distribution in all places and spaces where the AIDS pandemic runs the risk of slipping from memory.
The broadsides can be downloaded here: