“For centuries, countless tales have been told…”

PAINTINGSCULPTURELAND takes the subject of the Knight on a quest through time, genre, medium – confronting contemporary cinematic and televisual counterparts, meeting art world lookalikes and conducting battle with performance-based video installations.

Edward Fornieles and Samuel Williams will be using the gallery space as a studio for the duration of the project, making new works and organising events weekly, documenting the Knight’s journey. The gallery will not be open regular business hours, please consult schedule programming on the artists’ links below – or contact the gallery directly.

“…this summer – seize your destiny!”

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Edward Fornieles‘ recent exhibitions include Milkplus Bar curated by Robin Kirsten, Josh Lilley, London; Bold Tendencies, Hannah Barry, London; X Artworks in a Straight Line (Seeking the Perfect Sphere), Hilary Crisp, London.

Samuel Williams‘ recent exhibitions include New Music Action selected by Phyllida Barlow, Serpentine, London; Formal Inquiry, Cole
Contemporary, London; X Artworks in a Straight Line (Seeking the Perfect Sphere), Hilary Crisp, London.

The sculpture does not have to exist.
It may not even have a shape or anything.
It may be badly done, badly designed and badly conceptualized.
Yet, if it is made, it must be a bitch of a shape, in any of its features.
It must have more than one manifesto. This is the first one and it will be short.
It may be based on the reading mistake I made yesterday when I read “shaves” instead of “slaves” in a text about a sculpture by Michelangelo.
It may have its own mistakes as referents.
It must be made to fuck people or to get yourself fucked.
It can be shitty as hell.
It can be small or immense, but never monumental.
If it is for a white room in a gallery, museum or institution, it may have 5 paid morons so that, at a specific time, they beat the shit out of the organizer, boss or gallery owner. Only inside the white room, though.
It must be built with fury.
It may be inspired by the Sex Pistols’s “What a fucking rotter”.
It doesn’t matter if all of the above is out of fashion.
The invisible sculpture has no one to stare at, so no one cares about it.
If the sculpture does exist in any form, it must be looked at so you can get your ass kicked.
The invisible sculpture can cause blood but must not have its own blood.
It can be so invisible that it may only exist during 30 seconds while having a conversation.
It cannot be a fart you happen to drop at some inauguration.
The statement in number 19 is not an invisible sculpture.
The invisible sculpture may never come to exist correctly.
Regarding number 11: once the beating is over, help the victim and take him/her to a hospital if necessary.
The invisible sculpture can become public.
If it becomes public, it is obliged to do so in restricted areas, such as dumps or after-hours, even though the latter is not all that public.
This manifesto can be confusing and misleading.
The invisible sculpture must be a chaos.
No one needs to love it.
It doesn’t have to represent anything in particular and does not need to have a concept or idea.
The invisible sculpture must be based on a contradictory philosophy, but this is not to be explained here now. This will be addressed in the second manifesto.
The invisible sculpture can be destroyed 5 minutes after presenting it.
The invisible sculpture can be inspired by Ciudad Juárez.
The invisible sculpture can be the dead and/or disappeared people from Ciudad Juárez.
It does not have to build anything new.
The invisible sculpture can be a simple idea.
This idea may go astray.
The invisible sculpture will never lick anyone’s ass.
If anything, it must be the one getting its ass licked.
The invisible sculpture does not have an ass.
The invisible sculpture can be used for fighting and hurting people in political demonstrations.
The invisible sculpture’s manifesto will be continued elsewhere.

1.The shape needs to become an event.
2.If the shape doesn’t become an event, it must turn into different types of action.
3.These actions can be generated in a large variety of ideas.
4.Actions do not necessarily have to be an act.
5.The monument must be an act of protest against oblivion. How can this be achieved?
-in the creation of ideas that keep transforming
-every idea the invisible monument has can be independent of the others, or be generated in a flux where one idea becomes another idea and so on.
-Ideas can be regenerated every once in a while.
6.Ideas may be put together and the monument can be a form-in-action or a potential-form.
7.The form can change constantly.
8.The form can be represented in whichever way, it does not necessarily have to be objectual.
9.The monument should be a sort of happening.
10.A happening as a process of activation of ideas and objects.
11.Objects don’t have to be something that takes up space, and if they do, they can take up a space in a given moment in time.
12.The invisible monument has to be in permanent transformation.
13.The invisible monument can annoy, rebuke, bother and spit at anyone who looks at it.
14.There will be no problems regarding presentation or representation.
15.The shape of the monument can start off as an abstract geometric form.
16.The monument’s changing concepts, signs and shapes may be pretentious.
17.The monument’s changing concepts, signs and shapes may be ridiculous and stupid.
18.It must have an idea that becomes inscrutable at some point, that’s why it’s a monument, and an invisible one, for that matter.
19.The elements used may be silent.
20.Elements can provoke resignation, a very common feeling when analyzing many art pieces.
21.The monument can contradict itself.
22.The invisible monument can separate and divorce its “monumenta” (in the feminine sense of the word) and have little monumentalities (in the sense of children).
23.The invisible monument can have an internal logic of narrative, written and speaking system.
24.The narration of a little story can benefit the monument.
25.It must be a potential structure of ideas that keep regenerating.
26.It must not have an end.
27.It must —and this is an obligation— evolve and change.
28.It must not have strict rules. If it does have them, they can go killing themselves.
29.A formal body must exist in time and die or leave that space. This can be the skeleton of the monument.
30.Forms can be born little by little. But the process that generates them must always be explained in some way or other.
31.The way processes are shown doesn’t really matter.
32.The invisible monument will always be unfinished, so it’s always under way.
33.It must be ridiculed.
34.With time, forms become ridiculous and obsolete.
35.Structures must be easy to take apart or to break.
36.It does not necessarily have to have a specific structure or shape.
37.Concepts do not need to be original. If they are, they must be incomprehensible for the generations that want to understand all the invisible monument’s biography.
38.The invisible monument must resemble a human being as far as its functioning system goes.
39.Its functioning doesn’t necessarily imply swallowing, defecating, fucking, breeding, etc.
40.It would be more correct to say that the monument must be formalized as if it had feelings.
41.Monuments are made to be contemplated and to take pictures or have portraits of yourself next to them.
42.But the invisible monument does not have to have any attribute or quality.
43.Any process must have —is obliged to have—  a time of analysis and formation.
44.Every process must have had a dialog.
45.Dialogs improve the moods of forms.
46.Forms must have answers to basic questions.
47.The monument can keep asking itself questions.
48.Forms can be an environment.
49.Everything must be disintegrated, deconstructed and destructed.
50.Everything must be integrated, constructed and created.
51.The monument doesn’t need to be a monument.
52.The invisible monument doesn’t have to be an invisible or visible monument.
53.It may have a relational situation.
54.It may be post, anti, alter or whatever it feels like being.
55.It may be things we still don’t know about.
56.The monument can be a poem by Richard Brautigan.
57.The monument doesn’t need to be a sculpture.
58.The sculpture can be many things.
59.An article can be a sculpture.
60.A discourse can be a figure.
61.A drawing can be structured as a political action.
62.An element can become a performance.
63.The monument must learn with time.
64.The monument must not resemble a school building.
65.The sculpture doesn’t have to be a monument.
66.A monument can be a sculpture or a form or a structure or a figure, and, at the same time, it cannot be any of the aforementioned things.
67.The sculpture can be nothing and therefore the monument can also be nothing.
68.Everything can be transformed into nothing.
69.The formalization of ideas and concepts can be structured into different forms.
70.The invisible monument must not have an intelligible genesis or a rational creation process.
71.It doesn’t need to have any difference, nor an irrational creation process.
72.The invisible monument’s creative process can be diversified into different structural and objectualplanes.
73.Ideas can become independent.
74.Concepts can be in correlation with the monument and become disperse in new forms that do not represent the invisible monument.
75.The invisible monument may or may not have collaborations.
76.The invisible monument doesn’t have to have a title, but at some point, it needs to have the talent Maradona demonstrated in the 86 world championship, especially in the England-Argentina match.
77.The creation itself can be strange and different, but it must fight for some ideals.
78.Ideals must always be modified, altered and counterproductive.
79.Ideals that are counterproductive for oneself must be respected.
80.The invisible monument cannot respect any idealism.
81.Processes cannot have any goals.
82.The creation process is endless.
83.The creation process has an end (a prurpose).
84.The results of what happens to the invisible monument don’t have to be an alteration for the continuation of the monument.
85.The invisible monument can have Leo Messi’s serenity and humility, provided he doesn’t change.
86.It must have a savoir faire that resembles that of Barça in 2009.
87.But it doesn’t necessarily have to speak the language of Maradona or Messi, but it can say boludeces (Argentinian word for “silly things”).
88.The invisible monument, which doesn’t need to be invisible, doesn’t have to comply with these codes.
89.The creation of the monument doesn’t have to comply with any rules or norms.
90.The monument can be anti-Kantian and may not respect anyone at a psychological level.
91.At some point, the invisible monument must wonder if it needs to make anyone happy.
92.Happiness in this case would not be related to sexuality (please read point 69 in a different way).
93.The invisible monument doesn’t have to be anything mentioned in this text.

Aggtelek begins developing actions that interact with space and materials – building, destroying and re-building again, sculptures, characters, objects. Cardboard boxes, adhesive tape, painting, constructed architecture, monuments and the ephemeral inhabitants in perpetual synapses. Together with performance, subtlety and evasion – the work investigates methods in process, implying performance and theatre, object-making and schenography.

Interested in the relation between performance and sculpture and the function of the creative process, Aggtelek creates ephemeral assemblages. ‘Aggtelek’ is taken from the Hungarian city – defying the authorial concept, death of the author, as Boetti declines “it is not the material, it is the attitude that signifies” as in the linguistically critical Barthes narrative.  As a collaborative, Aggtelek acts without personalization, referencing a place, not a person.

In video works, Aggtelek re-invents the concept of the narrative. Lewis Carroll and his work, Alice in Wonderland is used as a model for the development of the idea about ‘voyage’ as a kind of narrative in contemporary literature, constituting the search as the paradigm of the evolution. The labyrinth first with scenographic sculptures defending it. The nonsense character touring the non-site, where time unfolds, disappears, and, in time-capsules, future becomes past.

The Sci-Fi influence in their temporal narration constitutes one of their artistic typologies. Kurt Vonnegut appears as a reference, using both appropriation and re-invention of literary structures.  Based on deconstruction, broken-body-parts-sculptures defy a post-condition in the narrative tradition of contemporary language. In this way, Aggtelek are concluding a silly illusion of art and compiling a collection of absurd and illogical characters that belong to our quotidian world.

The paroxysmal situation-ism and its derive is a kind of strategic artistic language; through sculpture and video Aggtelek encounter an international artistic style reworking contemporary materials as plastics, foams, lights, cardboards with the intention to recover the poetics of materialism in a disenchanted world, without function. Referencing production modes from constructivism and critical theory, they re-signify the material as a concept. It is a new minimalism determined by the production models of Sci-Fi.

As Barthes and the linguistic construct the idea of the lack of sign – and the significance of the object lost – Aggtelek’s work becomes supported through the ideology of the joke and satire.  Maintaining the practice of performance – it is something that implies effort and a compromise in the development. It is also said that the non-signal works, those who only develop market structures, as banalities and commodities, encourage the institutional tradition, the mainstream, but not the institutional critique.

We recognize a style created by many divisions, one that defines the search as a paradigm of the creative process in art, expressed through voyage, nomadic, derive, interrogation, those elements in a non-finite condition. In that way, the sci-fi definition of time as a process in which, say, Lewis Carroll defines, the capacity of invention is a futuristic potential, a symbolic re-signification of the imaginary. But in as sci-fi models for knowledge and art production, they never exclude the determinism of the present, summoning the poetry of the space. In this sense, the poetics of the space is equal to the codifications as a human answer. In these poetics, they use literature as a model to turn the experience of art into a communication of ideas, developing models for thought and science. The poetics of material, as well, result from the influences of minimalism and the reification of the sign, defended by post-structuralism and deconstruction, giving them not only to the creation of objects, but spaces.

The nomadic concept implies the performative elements of the works – and the consequences are many. Action and theatre become the center. Constantly influenced by Fellini, Pasolini and the Masonic Italian style, the objectuality becomes abject. The Aristotelian discourse is used as a contraposition of the objectual discourse, where the sculptural language, based on materials, is used by the melancholic mode of reception and the institution as a place of pedagogy.  Apart from the Italians (whom are thanked in the videos), other key influences include Boris Groys, Stalin, Malevich, Valerie Solanas, Rauschenberg, Piero Manzoni, Gelitin, The Divine Comedy, Cervantes, Quevedo, Heraclitus, Dali, Spielberg and Kurt Vonnegut, known for his humanist beliefs as well as being honorary president of the American Humanist Association.

Vonnegut is widely considered one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century.

Satire, black comedy and science fiction are used to serialize the concept of production under the influence of communicating art as a model for social criticism, like Baldessari’s or Gilbert&George’s photographic panels’, deploying the logic of conceptual materialism and its social and anthropological dimension.

The criticism strives in the Masonic and pornographic style, that invites, seduces and eroticizes the subject. The video titled, Slash Theatre Of My Mundo, the abject is presented from the tradition of satire – and the joke as mode of critique. The grotesque, kitsch and awful are the consequences of being a body.  This body language as abject-subject is illustrated with the artist-cum-actor due to the trauma that implies the mechanization of work and the loss of humanism. The joke is used as relief; a way of surviving in a hypothetical art world.

The melancholic process which produces the recognition of being vile turns to the historic and pedagogic. In an abstract way, the idea of the death of the author manifests through appropriation of contemporary art, classical literature and humanist culture. The conflicts between the mode of production history is a way of making art, the problem exists within totalitarianism.

Finally, the uniqueness of the object – models are not for serialized abstract production, but for the unique objectivity of the figure as a meaning of understanding the rules of the universal world. As in Sky Vision and Primary Form, these two films evoke the meaning of quality, the minimal discourse that gives the object its aesthetic category, thus prioritizing the emotion of the work as a strategy to change history, the emotion of the history consequently defining the aesthetic.

The fantastic and mundane serve to create characters – research for the shape and material becomes emotive, poetic.  Through performance, objects/sculptures registered in video projection, Aggtelek’s work recalls that of Hirschorn, West, Dada, Constructivism, Tatlin and Schwitters.

-Laura Plana Gracia, May 2010

For the exhibition at CRISP, Space Riders investigates “form”.  Beginning with one video which narrates a science-fiction adventure, or an ‘epopeya’ about the sculptural future in which two astronauts wonder about the origin of matter and get involved in a roadtrip through the universe, seeking to find the form that will come.

The nostalgia of searching a new path for “shapes” (either creating new creative processes or conceptual innovations) leads them to new propositions in their work when they treat objectuality in space – in this case, the exhibition space.

If You Were A Rat Who Crawls, Maybe You Could Appreciate My Fucking Drawings With More Detail But As You Probably Are A Lord Who Walks Upright You Can Only See Them From This Perspective (2010) is a drawing on the gallery’s floor created from the sculpture, What A Gas! (2010) hence deeming it a ’sub-conceptual’ work – the concept starts where the last one ended.  Sub-conceptual is a term related to sub-conscious to sub-normal, etc.

As Pascal said once, “All badness in this word comes from our incapacity of being seated in a room doing nothing.“  We should have payed attention to Pascal’s words but probably you would not like being under our skin in that moment of our impossibility of drawing.

“We have always wanted to present a drawing or a sculpture or whatever, which had been made in a really bad way.  We did it, but those drawings were too terrible, even for us, and let us completely do subnormal.  Even though the idea was great for what we were looking for, which was to make a sub-conceptual piece, our intention was to materialize something “sub-”, related to the subconscient and to the “sub-cultural”, but not to something sub-normal or idiot, it means something under what we understand as intellectuals.” – Aggtelek, June 2010

Notre Suckin’ Monde (2010) is a sculpture – but it is only exhibited through an info-mercial video with an expiration date of 31 December 2010.  It is inspired by on-site / non-site concepts of Robert Smithson.  As the sculpture only exists in the gallery as a presented video would classify the work as non-site. This can change into an ephemeral piece if it is not sold – which means it will be destroyed.  It will become site-specific if it is sold. The sculpture exists in the exhibition space but not in a physical way.  The sculpture, made of cheap materials taken from the artists’ studio is a readymade analyzing each used object in the sculpture and giving it a conceptual future that is waiting for us.  The concept of the sculpture is explained in the video.

Invisible Sculpture (2010) sits near the invisible monument, independent and difficult to see.  It is the contraposition of the monument – but also a manifesto.

Invisible Monument (2010) is a manifesto and is planned as an annex of Space Riders (2010) – written and explained ideas to make possible an invisible monument.

Space Riders (2010) is a galactic trip in which two astronauts live a conceptual sci-fi adventure.  After their spaceship swallows two objects related to the art word, they fly to the first intergalactic highway, the Meccatune Road, a path which is modified by those who pass through.  It ends in the year 2666.  In this voyage, they are called into question hypothetical issues about artistic creation in an unknown future supposedly active life in outer space.  Which creative process will be developed in 2058? Which kind of art will be shown in Mars? Or which is the form that will come?

The film (and consequently the exhibition) is a starting point; a philosophical galactic fable about questions of creative processes.  A process that will be developed through the simple question about the origin of matter, through form – and how a concept is solidified in an object.  The two astronauts try to find an answer for their questions of the entire universe.  New planets with new goods and a new galactic highway (the Meccatune Road inspired by Jason Rhoades).

AGGTELEK Xandro Valles (Barcelona, 1978) & Gema Perales (Barcelona, 1982) live and work in Brussels and Valencia.  Recent solo exhibitions include Luis Adelantado, Valencia (2010), Galeria Magda Bellotti, Espacio Algeciras, Madrid (2010) LABOR, Budapest (2010), Instituto Cervantes. Brussels (2010), Jozsa Gallery, Brussels (2009) Centre Cultural la Mercè, Burriana, Castellón (2008), Galerie Adler, Frankfurt (2008).  Recent group exhibitions include Remote Viewing – Best of Loop, Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona (2010), Biennial de Rennes, curated by Raphael Jeune, Couvent des Jacobins. Rennes (2010), Remote viewing: New Video Art, curated by Paul Young, Pacific Design Center. Los Angeles (2009), 46 Certamen Internacional Artes Plásticas de Pollença, Museu de Pollença, Mallorca (2009), CIGE 09. Beijing (2009), Crosstalk Festival, Budapest (2009) and  included in the collections of: DEPART Foundation, Rome (IT), Stedelijk Museum Het Domein, Sittard (NL), Colección ABC, Madrid (SP), Circa XX. Córdoba (SP), Fundación José García Jiménez, Murcia (SP), Fundación Norte, Santander (SP), Ayuntamiento de Puerto Lumbreras, Murcia (SP), Ayuntamiento de Burriana, Castellón (SP), Museu de Pollença, Mallorca (SP) and MEFIC, Murcia (SP).

Samuel Adams, Justin Beal, Charlotte Becket, Tora Dalseng, Nathan Danilowicz, Robert Davies, Ed Fornieles, Jan Freuchen, Eloise Hawser, Graham Hudson, Eunhye Hwang, James Ireland, Nick Jeffrey, Samuel Knowles, Marijn Van Kreij, Zoe Paul, Linn Pedersen, Skinjobs, Joe Sola, Jackson Sprague, Noah Sherwood, Marianne Spurr, Julia Tcharfas & Tim Ivison, Nico Vascellari, Caroline Walker, Richard Wearn, Samuel Williams, George Young

X ARTWORKS IN A STRAIGHT LINE (SEEKING THE PERFECT SPHERE)

GROUND LEVEL

Graham Hudson, 2010, X Artworks in a Straight Line (X = 50m x 39 artworks installed at CRISP), Tape measures and exhibited artworks, Dimensions variable

Justin Beal, 2010, Untitled (Terrific Micidial), Stickers x 40, Dimensions variable

Marianne Spurr, 2010, Study for a Folded Circle (I), Paper and acrylic, Dimensions variable

George Young, 2010, Major Foundations, Timber, polyurethane foam, rubber, books and prisms, Dimensions variable

Julia  Tcharfas & Tim Ivison, 2010, Abbau (Unbuilding), Mixed media, Dimensions variable

James Ireland, 2007, Strategic Intelligence, Nickel-plated steel, branches, nut, bolt and washers, 180 x 70 x 30 cm

Charlotte Becket, 2010, Untitled (kinetic drawings), Plastic and bolts, Dimensions variable

Robert Davies, 2008, Jessica, Oil on board, 32 x 42 cm

Robert Davies, 2008, Curly, Oil on board, 32 x 42 cm

Nico Vascellari, 2007, Untitled (Song), DVD with sound, 3:00

Ed Fornieles, 2010, Untitled (Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick Star), Fiberglass, Dimensions variable

Eunhye Hwang, 2009, What a Feeling (for acoustic drawings), Sound installation

Marijn van Kreij, 2008, Another Hole Inside the Hole You’re In, Hole in gallery wall and acrylic, Dimensions variable

Marijn van Kreij, 2010, Attempt to Connect Space and Time, Acrylic on wall, shower rail, markers, wood and tape, Dimensions variable

The Skinjobs, 2010, City of Dreadful Thirst, Props (from a live performance)

FIRST LEVEL

Graham Hudson, 2010, X Artworks in a Straight Line (X = 50m x 39 artworks installed at CRISP), Tape measures and exhibited artworks, Dimensions variable

Justin Beal, 2010, Untitled (Terrific Micidial), Stickers x 40, Dimensions variable

Marianne Spurr, 2010, Study for a Folded Circle (II, III), Paper and acrylic, Dimensions variable

Nick Jeffrey,  2010, Sun White Burned Out, Mixed media, Dimensions variable

Nick Jeffrey,  2010, VI, V, III, IV, II, IX, VIII, I X, Magazine pages, mixed media, Dimensions variable

Richard Wearn, 2010, Malevich, Paper, 41 x 41 cm

Jackson Sprague, 2010, When Students Ask Me Which Flower I Like Best to Make, I Generally Say, ”The Lily” (Cannonball III), Collage and bronze, Dimensions variable

Samuel Williams, 2010, Rubber Band, DVD with sound, 2:00

Eloise Hawser, 2009, Pernille, Timber and paint, 203 x 37 x 40 cm

Linn Pedersen, 2009, When Something Ain’t Right, It’s Wrong, Photograph, 52 x 62 cm (framed)

Jan Freuchen, 2009, Dog Proposal I & II, Ink on paper, 40 x 30 cm (framed)

Nico Vascellari, 2010, Untitled, Paper and glass collage, 42 x 30 cm

ROOFTOP

Zoe Paul,  2010,  Just Short of the Chin, Polystyrene, papier måché, modroc, concrete, wood, PVA, tile grout and acrylic, 350 x 200 x 275 cm

SECOND LEVEL

Graham Hudson, 2010, X Artworks in a Straight Line (X = 50m x 39 artworks installed at CRISP), Tape measures and exhibited artworks, Dimensions variable

Justin Beal, 2010, Untitled (Terrific Micidial), Stickers x 40, Dimensions variable

Marianne Spurr, 2010, Study for a Folded Circle (IV), Paper and acrylic, Dimensions variable

Samuel Adams, 2010, Untitled, Jelutong, sapele, plaster, paint and thermometers, Dimensions variable

Samuel Knowles, 2010, Mondrian vs. a Black Hole, Found book pages collage, 30 x 21 cm

Samuel Knowles, 2010, Philosopher’s Notepads I, Notebook collage, Dimensions variable

Noah Sherwood, 2009-2010, Light Republic (Chorus), Painted wood, found polystyrene peg board screens, paper, card, staples and lighting, Dimensions variable

Marijn van Kreij, 2009, Untitled (Rebecca MM), Pencil on paper, 34 x 26 cm (framed)

Samuel Williams, 2009, Frame Piece (Mexico Border), Framed, tilted photograph, 33 x 43 cm

Tora Dalseng, 2010, Untitled, Ink on paper, 45 x 32 cm (framed)

Nathan Danilowicz, 2010, Untitled, Ink on paper, 55 x 67 cm

Caroline Walker, 2010, Retreat Through the Hallway (Blue), Oil on board x 2, Dimensions variable

Joe Sola, Studio Visit, 2005, DVD with sound, 8:00 minutes

NEWCASTLE (Laura Lancaster), NEW YORK (Spencer Sweeney), BRISTOL (Rhys Coren), MILWAUKEE (Peter Barrickman), LONDON (Alexis Marguerite Teplin), LOS ANGELES (Rob Thom).

Laura Lancaster:

Images courtesy the artist and Workplace Gallery, Gateshead.

LAURA LANCASTER (B. 1979) lives and works in NEWCASTLE, UK.
Solo exhibitions include Workplace Gallery, Gateshead (2009), Bailiffgate Museum, Northumberland (2009), Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (2008).  Group exhibitions include Green On Red Gallery, Dublin (2009), Islands Never Found  Touring to Museums in Athens, Napoli, and Valencia (2009), Coopers Building, Newcastle (2009),  Star & Shadow Gallery, Newcastle (2009), Ma2 Gallery, Tokyo (2008),  Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2008).

Spencer Sweeney:

Images courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York.

SPENCER SWEENEY (B. 1973) lives and works in NEW YORK CITY, USA.
Solo exhibitions include VW (VeneKlasen/Werner), Berlin (2010), Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York (2009), Jack Hanley, San Francisco (2008), The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2008). Group exhibitions include Gavin Brown’s enterprise (2009), Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia (2009), PS1, New York (2008), Whitney Biennial, New York (2006).

Rhys Coren:

Images courtesy the artist.

RHYS COREN (B. 1983) lives and works in BRISTOL, UK.
Solo exhibitions include Old Shoreditch Station, London (2009), Star and Dove Contemporary Artspace, Bristol (2008). Groups exhibitions include Syndicat Potentiel, Strasbourg, France (2009), ISCP, New York (2009), FACT, Liverpool (2009), Spike Island, Bristol (2008), Jamaican Street, Bristol (2008), Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2007).

Peter Barrickman:

Images courtesy the artist and Green Gallery, Milwaukee.

PETER BARRICKMAN (B. 1971) lives and works in MILWAUKEE, USA.
Solo exhibitions include The Green Gallery East, Milwaukee (2009). Group exhibitions include And/Or Gallery, Dallas (2009), Rowley Kennerk Gallery, Chicago (2009), Dean Jensen Gallery, Milwaukee (2008), The Swiss Institute, New York (2008), Angstrom Gallery, Los Angeles (2008), The Green Gallery, Milwaukee (2007).

Alexis Marguerite Teplin:

Images courtesy the artist and HOTEL, London.

ALEXIS MARGEURITE TEPLIN (B. 1976) lives and works in LONDON, UK.
Solo exhibitions include Mary Mary, Glasgow (2010), Blanket Contemporary, Vancouver (2009), Car Projects, Bologna (2008), HOTEL, London (2008). Group exhibitions include Mary Mary, Glasgow (2009), CCA Andratx, Spain, curated by Barry Schwabsky (2009), GSK Contemporary (2008), Royal Academy, London (2008), Liverpool Biennale (2008), Concrete, Hayward Gallery, London (2008).

Rob Thom:

Images courtesy the artist and China Art Objects, Los Angeles.

ROB THOM (B. 1975) lives and works in LOS ANGELES, USA.
Solo exhibitions include China Art Objects (2008), Black Dragon Society, (2006). Group Exhibitions include Happy Lion, Los Angeles (2009), Cottage Home, Los Angeles (2009), Black Dragon Society, Los Angeles (2008), Cottage Home, Los Angeles (2008).

Installation view (LOS ANGELES), ground level

Installation view (BRISTOL), ground level

Installation view (LONDON, NEW YORK), first level

Installation view (LONDON), first level

Installation view (NEW YORK), first level

Installation view (MILWAUKEE, NEWCASTLE), second level

Installation view (MILWAUKEE), second level

Installation view (NEWCASTLE), second level

Current | SCULPTURE ROOF: Justin Beal until 17 April 2010.

Click here for images

SCULPTURE ROOF commissions outdoor public sculpture on the gallery’s roof for extended periods.

Untitled (MONOLITH), 2010
Timber, shrink wrap, grapefruit
160 x 160 x 187 cm
Installation view, SCULPTURE ROOF, London, UK

Untitled (MONOLITH), 2010
Timber, shrink wrap, grapefruit
160 x 160 x 187 cm
Installation view, SCULPTURE ROOF, London, UK

Untitled (MONOLITH), 2010
Timber, shrink wrap, grapefruit
160 x 160 x 187 cm
Installation view, SCULPTURE ROOF, London, UK

Study for SCULPTURE ROOF (Monolith), 2010

JUSTIN BEAL
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

EDUCATION
MFA, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 2007
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME, 2005
Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, NY, 2003
BA (Architecture and Design), Yale University, New Haven, CT, 2001

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010
ACME, Los Angeles, CA
Sculpture Roof, CRISP, London, UK
2008
Melamine Everything , ACME., Los Angeles, CA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2008
Orange County Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA
Records Played Backward, Glasgow, Scotland
Past-Forward, 176, London, England
Nina In Position , Artists Space, New York, NY
Boofthle Booth-Booth , Pauline, Los Angeles, CA
2007
Took My Hands Off Your Eyes Too Soon , Tanya Bonakdar, New York, NY
Wu-Tang/Googolplex, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise at Passerby, New York, NY
Tugboat, ACME., Los Angeles, CA
Tasteful Guidance (with Mateo Tannatt), Pauline, Los Angeles, CA
Carte Blanche, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, NY
Substance and Surface , Bortolami Gallery, New York , NY
project room, Bortolami Gallery, New York, NY
Reality Disorder (with Mateo Tannatt), Susanne Vielmetter Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Warhol and…, Kantor-Feuer Gallery, Los Angeles , CA
Petroliana , Moscow Biennial, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia
Oliver Twist, Rental Gallery, New York , NY
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Eleven, Twelve , Pilar Parra & Romero Gallery, Madrid , Spain
The Trans-Aestheticization of Daily Life, UCR Sweeney Gallery, Riverside , CA
2006
Pose & Sculpture, Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York , NY
In Practice, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY
Bring the War Home, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York and Q.E.D. Gallery, Los
Angeles , CA
Let’s Stay Alive Till Monday, Art Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory. Tbilisi, Georgia
Wight Biennial: The Anxiety of Influence , University of California, Los Angeles , CA
2005
Radiodays, De Appel Centre for Contemporary Art, Amsterdam , Holland
T raffic: Exit Art Biennial II, Exit Art, New York , NY
2004
C rude Oil Paintings, White Columns, New York, NY
Tuesday is Gone , Art Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory. Tbilisi, Georgia
Emerging Artist Fellowship , Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY
Strange Animal, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles , CA
High Desert Test Sites 4 , Joshua Tree , CA
Sprawl, Hudson Clearing Gallery, New York, NY
2003
S undown Salon , MAK Center at the Schindler House, West Hollywood, CA
High Desert Test Sites 2 , Joshua Tree , CA

PROJECTS
2007
Calendar LA><ART, Los Angeles
LA: A Geography of Modern Art (with Aleksandra Mir), Printed Matter, New York, NY

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gopnick, Blake, “Justin Beal,” Artforum.com, March 28, 2008
Holland Cotter, Nina In Position, The New York Times, Art Listings, February 15, 2008
Nelson, Arty, “The Never-ending Exploration,” LA Weekly, January 11-17, p. 42
Michael Ned Holte, On the Ground: Los Angeles , Artforum, December 2007
Holland Cotter, I Took My Hands Off Your Eyes Too Soon, The New York Times, Art Listings,
November 23, 2007
Roberta Smith, “Chelsea is a Battlefield: Galleries Muster Groups,” The New York Times, Critic’s
Notebook, July 28, 2006
Adam E. Mendelsohn, “Look Again: ‘Pose & Sculpture,” Spike Art Quarterly, September, 2006
Adam E. Mendelsohn, Review: “Pose & Sculpture,” Time Out New York, July 27-August 2, 2006
Amra Brooks, Must See Art, LA Weekly, August 16, 2007
Freeman, Tommy, “The Trans-Aestheticization of Daily Life,” Art Week, May 2007
James Trainor, “Anybody Home?,” Frieze, May 2006
Ken Johnson, “Sprawl,” The New York Times, Art in Review, January 23, 2004
Bill Wheelock, “Sprawl,” ArtUS, June-August, 2004
Wade Guyton, “Desert Storm,” V Magazine, September-October 2003

CRISP presents the UK solo debut of Los Angeles-based artist, RICHARD WEARN.

Interested in future concepts of form and how these ideas of form reflect post-utopian understandings of the world, Wearn uses sculpture, image making and video to develop form that responds to the recent history of social and cultural resistance.

In Untitled, 2009, a tourist map of locations associated with the May 1968 uprising in Paris features sculptures temporarily installed in the 18 locations sited on the map – the sculptural interventions are documented on each site, including models of Gordon Matta-Clark’s House Divided, Robert Smithson’s Partially Buried Wooden Shed, the first Mall constructed in America and the Tabernacle from John Borman’s 1973 science fiction cult movie, Zardoz. Collectively, the models construct a discursive space, neither absolutely defined, nor devoid of meaning, suggesting a variety of critical positions that deflect, and at times, combine with each other to form dialogues among themselves and the sites.  The deconstructive, the entropic, the epistemological, and the hegemonic collide and redefine themselves within the history and nostalgia for resistance, dissent and opposition.  The intervention took place in the space of a day as Wearn moved through Paris transporting the models, using history as a source for the development of an auto-poetic visual language representative of a practice that complicates modes of production and cultural histories.

Trouw (Fidelity), 2009, is a 30-minute dual screen rear projection video that investigates the semiotics of the built environment.  The work documents a sign that sits atop a Brute Architecture building that formerly housed an Amsterdam based newspaper, Trouw. The Dutch Jewish resistance established Trouw during WWII to counter the Nazi occupation and extermination of Holland’s Jewish population. It is now a center left national newspaper – the building is currently occupied by squatters and regularly hosts underground concerts and raves.   Trouw (Fidelity) documents the illumination of the sign during the transition from dusk to darkness. Using two fixed cameras, the piece was shot in one take simultaneously recording a front and rear view of the sign. For the duration of the piece the only apparent variance is the gradual change in light condition as the sun sets. This transition is abruptly disturbed by the activation of the sign. The majority of the piece captures the change in light condition as the sun sets. This temporal continuity is disrupted by the activation of the sign, thus creating an elliptical intervention on durational experience, rear projected and embedded in the wall in order to reference the presentation of painting.  Subtle shifts in light occur until the documented sign is activated. The unchanging framing coupled with the nearly imperceptible change in light condition prior to the activation of the sign makes the work appear static. The work may be read as an animated painting as the durational qualities are submerged.

The traditional conditions of viewership of painting become an overlay of meaning, reflecting Wearn’s interest in the structures of meaning within the recent history of painting. It specifically pertains to a critical analysis of the work of Judd, Ruscha and McCahon, also exposes the complication of culturally specific meanings – presented to an English speaking public who will enter the piece by first inquiring into the meaning of the word, “trouw”.

By viewing contemporary modernity in ecological terms, our cities are the manifestation of this ecology. Urban rehabilitation and renewal reveals to us traces of our utopian mythologies, past and present.  Wearn explores these mythologies by seeking clues and submerged information that exist within the semiotic embellishment of the built environment to highlight the existence of a post-utopian narrative embedded in the cities we occupy.  The ideation of form, once understood as material meeting resistance, may now be viewed as a collection of ‘affects and percepts’ as suggested by Deleuze and Guattari. Even as Donald Judd presented format as form, his intention for form to act as a creative directness gave way to a physics and fantasy formulation.

RICHARD WEARN received an MFA from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles in 1996 and lives and works in Los Angeles.  Solo exhibitions include Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City; Arnoff Center for the Arts, Cincinnati, OH; Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA and Chinati/Donald Judd Foundation, Marfa, TX. In 2009, Richard Wearn was artist-in-residence at Agentur, Amsterdam, NL.

Supported by:

The Durfee Foundation is a private charitable foundation that supports individuals and organizations in Los Angeles County.

Installation view, ground level

Installation view, ground level

Installation view, first level

Installation view, first level

Installation view, second level

Installation view, second level

Installation view, second level

17-21 February 2010

JOE SOLA

28-31 January 2010

GEORGE YOUNG

NATHAN DANILOWICZ

25 November 2009 – 9 January 2010

Untitled (Blood-letting), 2009

CRISP presents the second solo exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist, NATHAN DANILOWICZ: Une Oasis d’Horreur dans un Désert d’Ennui

Danilowicz’s multi-media practice enquires at how we produce and consume the flesh of the world.  How death intertwined with life is made tactile in works that pull references from minimalism, Viennese Actionism, hacking-culture, Sci-Fi shamanism and ritual.

In his work, the cosmetic cover of reality is bled to the surface with no resolution offered: anti-transcendental and absolute finitude. It is in these types of psychic places and embodied movements that make him a postmortem flânuer—surfing the effects of horror, ennui emaciation and incarceration.

Oasis (2009), features a matrix of blood splattered works on paper, underscored by an exemplary flower arrangement.  In the video piece, Untitled (Decapitation) (2009), the artist documents his Texan friend as he harvests a head for a trophy.  Chop after chop attempts to remove the head, as both human and animal is dismembered. Finally, there are the large-scale geometric drawings, Surfacing (Le Voyage) (2009), rendered with tape—they raise the specter of a palpable death, in all its abstraction and minimalism. Such works lead us away from ‘abject minimalism’ to the aesthetics of fragmentation, dismemberment, and fractured psyches.

NATHAN DANILOWICZ received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007 and lives and works in Los Angeles. Solo exhibitions include CRISP, London (2008) and CRISP, Los Angeles (2008).  Recent group exhibitions include The Fucked Up Drawing Party IX.9, Eighth Veil, Los Angeles (2009), IN ACCORDANCE WITH NECESSITY: A NIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE, 533 Gallery, Los Angeles (2009) and Lovable Like Orphaned Kitties and Bastard Children curated by Kristin Calebrese, The Green Gallery East, Milwaukee (2009).

Installation view, ground level

Installation view, ground level

Installation view, first level

Installation view, first level

Installation view, stairwell

Installation view, second level

Installation view, second level

SCULPTURE ROOF commissions outdoor public sculpture on the gallery’s roof for extended periods.

IT WANTS US, 2009
Plexiglass, mirrored perpsex, timber, lightbulb and electrical wiring
90 x 30 x 90 cm
Installation view, SCULPTURE ROOF, London, UK

IT WANTS US, 2009
Plexiglass, mirrored perpsex, timber, lightbulb and electrical wiring
90 x 30 x 90 cm
Installation view (detail), SCULPTURE ROOF, London, UK

IT WANTS US, 2009
Plexiglass, mirrored perpsex, timber, lightbulb and electrical wiring
90 x 30 x 90 cm
Installation view (detail), SCULPTURE ROOF, London, UK

IT WANTS US, 2009
Plexiglass, mirrored perpsex, timber, lightbulb and electrical wiring
90 x 30 x 90 cm
Installation view (detail), SCULPTURE ROOF, London, UK

IT WANTS US, 2009
lnk on paper, scanned
Sketch for SCULPTURE ROOF, London, UK

Study for SCULPTURE ROOF (Wet Slab), 2009

Study for SCULPTURE ROOF (A Thing), 2009

Click here for images 1

Click here for images 2

Click here for images 3

OSCAR TUAZON
b. 1975
Lives and works in Paris

EDUCATION
Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program/Cooper Union School of Architecture, Architecture/Urban Studies Program, New York, 2003
Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, Studio Program, New York, 2002
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, 1999
Deep Springs College, 1994

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2009
Sculpture Roof, CRISP LONDON LOS ANGELES, London
David Roberts Foundation, London
Untitled (Leave Me Be), STANDARD (OSLO)
Another Nameless Venture Gone Wrong, Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum, Tonsberg Norway
I Was a Stranger, Isabella Bartolozzi, Berlin

2008
A Vow of Poverty, maccarone, New York
Dirty Work, Jonathan Viner/Fortescue Avenue, London
Kodiak, Seattle Art Museum (with Eli Hansen), Seattle
This World’s Just Not Real to Me, Howard House, Seattle

2007
Where I Lived And What I Lived For, Module, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
I’d Rather Be Gone, STANDARD (OSLO)
Oscar Tuazon / Mike Freeman, Castillo / Corrales Gallery, Paris
VOluntary Non vUlnerable, Bodgers and Kludgers, Vancouver

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2009
Re:Construction, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NY
Evento, Bordeaux, France
Vagrant Dwellers in the Houseless Woods, Or Gallery, Vancouver
Gennariello, BaliceHertling, Paris

2008
The Station, Miami
27 november – 21 january 2009, Catherine Bastide/ dependance, Brussels
We Haven’t Met Before […], Standard, Oslo
Transformational Grammars, Francesca Kaufmann, Milan
Sack of Bones, Peres Projects, Los Angeles
Suddenly!, Cooley Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland
Rendevous Nowhere, Centro Cultural Montehermoso Vitoria, Spain
September Show, Tanya Leighton, Berlin
Degrees of Remove: Landscape and Affect, Sculpture Center, Long Island
A Town (Not a City), Kunsthalle St. Gallen, St. Gallen
Alex Hubbard and Oscar Tuazon, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis
dragged down into lowercase, Paul Klee Zentrum, Bern
You Complete Me, Western Bridge, Seattle
Contemporary Northwest Art Awards, Reed College, Portland

2007
Metronome no. 10, Documenta 12 Magazine Projects, Kassel
Exposition No 1, BaliceHertling, Paris
Hello Goodbye Thank You, castillo/corrales, Paris
Compound Values Affirming Denial, Art Rotterdam

2006
The Elementary Particles (The Paperback Edition), STANDARD (OSLO), Norway
Minotaur Blood, Fortescue Avenue/Johnathan Viner, London
Just Move On, project for CLUI Wendover, Wendover, Utah
Down By Law, The Wrong Gallery, Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
An Open Operation, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh
for Death, Halle 14, Leipzig
The Culture of Fear, ACC Galerie, Weimar
Metronome no. 10, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland (Oregon)
Living Underground, Siuslaw National Forest, Oregon

2005
Secret Room, Kanazawa, Japan
Baroque Geode, Sundown Salon, Los Angeles, California
Bridges, University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado

2004
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The Project, New York, New York
Xtreme Houses, Lothringer13, Munich, Germany and “Halle 14″, Leipzig, Germany
Human, Fucking Human, Lofoten International Art Festival, Bergen, Norway
Adaptations, Kunstehalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, (with Gernot Minke and Richard Fischbeck) (catalog)
Our Mirror, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, New York
Urban Renewal: City Without a Ghetto, Temporary Services, Chicago
Urban Renewal: City Without a Ghetto, Princeton School of Architecture, Princeton, NJ
The Subsidized Landscape, The Center for Architecture, New York, New York
Sprawl, Hudson Clearing, New York, New York
Adaptations, Apex Art, New York, New York, (with Richard Fischbeck)

2003
Wight Biennial, UCLA, Los Angeles, California (with Richard Fischbeck) (catalog)
24/7, CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania (catalog)
Float, Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, New York
Deathtime, 27 Canal, New York, New York
Whitney Independent Study Program, Galapagos, Brooklyn, New York (with Gardar Eide Einarsson)
Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, New York (with Bea Schlingelhoff)
Totally Motivated, Kunstverein Munich, Germany (with Gardar Eide Einarsson)
Between the Lines, Apex Art, New York, New York (with Gardar Eide Einarsson)
City Without a Ghetto, Artists Space, New York, New York
Inscribing the Temporal, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, Austria

2002
STRIKE, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton, England (catalog)
Coming Soon, Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, New York
Museum of the White Man, New York, New York and Suquamish, Washington

2001
Programmable City, Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, New York
Building Codes, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, New York, New York
Landlords Instant Cash!, P.S.1 Center for Contemporary Art, New York, NY