The Real Show (title pending)
Steven Bankhead Xu DaRocha
Sean Dungan Jill Newman Carly Steward
Sergio Torres-Torres
Open Arms with Karen Lofgren & Miwa Matreyek**
June 13-27th, 2010 by appointment
Opening Reception Sunday June 13th 5-8 pm.
Aireoke hosted by Björn Türoque 7:30- 9:30pm
Organized by Fatima Hoang, Elonda Billera & Janice Gomez.
**Organized by David P. Earle
Summercamp's Project Project presents, The Real Show (title pending) an outdoor group exhibition of artists who push the parameters of realism and expand its definition. Xu DaRocha’s folded fabric oil paintings embody the juxtaposition of superficial casualness and emotional complexity. DaRocha confronts and celebrates the chaos and the order within the name of beauty, often spending hours, even days, folding fabrics and working on the detailed creases and wrinkles before starting the paintings, so that the images will carry the negotiations and the tensions between the sense of reality and emotional fragments. While working at the Gardner Museum in Boston, Sean Dungan photographed the inside of the museum at night. Dungan’s grid of four photographs are dark, quiet and may be boundary-destabilizing. Carly Steward also uses photography to investigate topics such as exhibition design, display, installation, sculpture, and abstraction. With each photograph, or sculpture constructed, Steward aims to reflect a specific architectural detail within the space that is being displayed. The photographic sculptures use texture and space to enable the viewer to acknowledge his/her body. By creating a structure for the photograph to be displayed on rather than hanging it on the wall the viewer becomes more aware of the photograph as an object. For The Real Show (title pending), Steward will display three 13 by 19” framed photographs on pedestal bases with the intention that during the duration of the show, the images will fade and change with elements revealing the ethereal nature of photography in contrast to the sculptural material.
Engaged in the social and political impact of architecture and appropriated sites, Jill Newman explores improvised structures that exist somewhere between architecture and prop. By removing their original context and rendering these constructions fantastical and romanticized, Newman both celebrates and historicizes these subjects, shifting the image from a document to a signifier of self-sufficiency and resourceful ingenuity. Pushing the symbolic potential of these pictures further, Newman recently began focusing on the relationship between abstraction and meaning by using flags and embellishments from these structures as points of formal departure for non-representational painting and sculpture. Sergio Torres-Torres’s practice is based on an interdisciplinary approach determined by the conceptual, historical and material necessities of the project. For The Real Show (title pending), Torres-Torres has crafted a landmark sign overlooking the hills of El Sereno to find a balance between content and form. Also interested in the openness of the urban vista, Steven Bankhead’s bench will allow for a contemplation of
“No things, no bombs, no stock market, no riots, no remakes, no isms, no cars, no oil, no development, no school loans, no commute, no jobs, no romantics, no recessions, no wars, no culture, no subculture, no pollution, no plastic, no bullshit, no assholes, no dicks, no time, no age, no guchi, no money, no modern, no blockbusters, no bosses, no disease, no corporations, no politics, no problems, no bills, no hunger, no nothing, no torious B.I.G…”
Karen Lofgren and Miwa Matreyek will be featured in Open Arms. An art space delineated in tattoo ink on the forearms of two Johns, John Barlog and John Burtle—Open Arms consists of two 2" x 4" plots of skin that have hosted drawings, petite paintings, mini-sculptures, micro-performances. For The Real Show (title pending), David P. Earle was invited to organize a project in Open Arms.
Dan Crane is a journalist, author, musician, and competitive air-guitarist. He is the author of “To Air is Human: One Man’s Quest to Become the World’s Greatest Air Guitarist” (Riverhead Books, 2006), and the co-star of the award-winning documentary, Air Guitar Nation. In 2004, Crane gave up his career as an educational software producer to pursue his dream of becoming the world’s best air guitarist. Under the nom d’air Björn Türoque (pronounced to-RAWK), he competed in numerous competitions, repeatedly coming in second place. He retired in 2005 and now emcees air guitar competitions around the world and will be hosting Aireoke (the air guitar equivalent to karaoke). It is an exciting venture to have air guitar leave the bright lights of the stage and find a home in the intimacy of The Livingroom.
Summercamp's Project Project 3119 Chadwick Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032
