From: zryd (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Jan 17 2008 - 10:46:31 PST
This exhibition may of interest to Frameworks members, especially
those in the Toronto area.
Begin forwarded message:
>
> VALUES: Mixed-Media Works by Raymond Waters
> at Craig Scott Gallery , Toronto
> January 19 – February 29, 2008 Opening
> reception: Saturday, January 19, 2008, 6-9 PM
>
> Exhibition URL: http://www.craigscottgallery.com/?sec=3&exhibit_id=24
>
> The artist and timing of the exhibition
>
> Raymond Waters' first solo show – "Values", Craig Scott Gallery,
> Toronto (January 19 – February 29, 2008) – engages with the values
> and symbols of American life and of the United States' presence in
> the world. Each work simultaneously affirms and queries those
> values and symbols by making art from raw materials of American
> cultural identity. In "Values," Waters transforms vintage film
> reels, flag fabric, US currency, and tabloid newsprint into
> remarkably balanced works – powerful both conceptually and
> aesthetically. "Values" focuses on notions of allegiance and
> belonging, on the secular sacred and desecration, on the
> communication and defence of cultural (including political) values,
> on the struggle between the reflective and the hollow in public
> discourse, and on the interaction of American worldviews with
> universal experience.
>
> Works in the exhibition
>
> Three works in the show take the American flag as a reference
> point, which has led to the choice to launch Waters' exhibition (on
> January 19, 2008) on the 50th anniversary of the showing by Jasper
> Johns of flag works in his first solo show (January 20, 1958, solo
> show, Leo Castelli Gallery, NY). The flag works – "New Orleans ,
> 2005", "You Are Either With Us or Against Us", and "White Flag" –
> involve reconstituted American flags undulating against a backdrop
> of pure white gold. Reconstituted" refers to the fact that the flag
> that appears in each work has first been shredded into strips
> before being put back together. "You Are Either With Us or Against
> Us" and "White Flag" began as unique, customized flags – specially
> made for Waters by a flag manufacturer.
>
> Juxtaposed to and complementing the flag works are ten pieces that
> use vintage film reel as the basis for stunning mixed-media pieces
> (film, under Plexiglas, with LED lights or backlit). These works
> include "The General (1927) - Buster Keaton", "The Gold Rush (1925)
> – Charlie Chaplin", "King Kong (1933)", "Little Black Sambo
> (1935)", "The Lorax – Dr Seuss (1972)", "Martin Luther King Jr –
> From Montgomery to Memphis (1972)", "Mickey Mouse – Disney
> (1932/1933)", "Snow White (1937)", and "The Skeleton Dance
> (1929). Many of these film works employ and deploy vintage film
> reels in a manner that echoes and pays homage to Jackson Pollock,
> on the 60th anniversary of the most significant year (1948) in
> Pollock's development of his unique 'drip' painting.
>
> There will also be two shredded-paper pieces as thematic bookends
> for the show, "Five Hundred Dollars" (shredded currency) and
> "Various Tabloids" (shredded newsprint).
>
> Catalogue and Essays
>
> A catalogue has been prepared for the exhibition, a PDF of which
> can be emailed immediately upon request. An essay by film-studies
> and general arts-and-culture scholar, Michael Zryd of York
> University's Faculty of Fine Arts, will address the combined
> conceptual and aesthetic dimensions of the film works. A leading US
> legal academic and 'civil liberties' activist, Professor Norman
> Dorsen (of NYU; former President of the ACLU) is contributing an
> edited version of an essay published in 2000 called "Flag
> Desecration in Courts, Congress and Country."
>
> Contact: Craig Scott, Craig Scott Gallery, 95 Berkeley Street,
> Toronto ON M5A 2W8
> email suppressed; tel: 416-365-3326.
-- Michael Zryd Associate Professor York University Department of Film, CFT 223 4700 Keele St. Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 CANADA email suppressed __________________________________________________________________ For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.