Untitled
6 inkjet prints from the blog www.cookingissues.com
Each 8 x 10 in.
Courtesy the artist

Director of Culinary Technology at the French Culinary Institute in New York, Dave Arnold utilizes new technologies and ingredients to transform the ways in which food is prepared, cooked, and experienced. His informative blog, www.cookingissues.com, takes traditional cooking lessons and recipes and turns them on their heads by offering innovative suggestions for experimentation in the kitchen. Arnold's sophisticated understanding of scientific methods, organic ingredients, and advanced technological processes allows for an enhanced and productive experience of food. For example, his "ketchup couverture" recipe presents a form of alternative chocolate-making: in other words, ketchup prepared in the style of hard chocolate and used to augment foods like potato chips and chicken.

Our Land, 2006
Single-channel video, color, sound, with Bear Sculpture, 2006
Video: 11 min.; sculpture: 56 x 15 x 15 in.
Courtesy the artist

Ronnie Bass infuses the subject of his work with dreams of utopia, romanticism, and self-realization as a way to counteract difficult and seemingly oppressive environments. The installation Our Land centers on a nine-minute video that follows the fictional narrative of Chad, a suburban computer store manager played by Bass, and his two faithful employees. The three are united by a shared woodcarving hobby, as they carry out their vision to build a microchip factory and new community in the desert. Constructing a mise-en-scène of fundamentalist revivalism, the American West, and a low-tech version of Silicon Valley, the video's deadpan musical account points to the inherent irony in the group's attempts to forge solidarity, friendship, and a sense of common understanding in the contemporary capitalist world. Bass completes the installation with a sculpture of a bear (the finished product from Part I of the video) and a houseplant, creating the effect of a bureaucratic waiting room or a Protestant church.

The Sky Needs You Too, 2008
Single-channel video, color, sound
8 min.
Courtesy the artist

The videos of Ronnie Bass reveal a fascination with affirming sincerity and self-realization while facing the banality of daily existence. With New Age mysticism, ambient minimal music scores, and Bass's own intriguing performance as the main character, The Sky Needs You Too depicts an allegorical call and response to nature, layering footage of an ascending horizon over a synth band's performance. Evoking the mystic possibilities of the landscape through tropes of romanticism and utopian possibility, Bass simultaneously cautions against technology as a remedy for the reconstitution of power of humankind over nature.

Stealing Beauty, 2008
Single-channel video, color, sound
17 min. 40 sec.
Courtesy the artist and Postmasters Gallery

Filmed without permission in several IKEA stores throughout New York, Berlin, and Tel Aviv, Guy Ben-Ner's video Stealing Beauty presents a family (portrayed by the artist, his wife and two children) in a parody of the sitcom, with showroom interiors and the occasional interruption of oblivious shoppers and multilingual loudspeaker announcements. Although possessing several elements of visual slapstick and comedic timing, the scenes and conversations among the family become increasingly tense as social control is made visible, as well as the mass-marketing of lifestyle and utopia.

Beijing Opera House, 2008
C-print diptych; 30 x 99 1/2 in.
Included in the installation Tomorrow, Today, Yesterday, 2011
Courtesy the artist

Ghost Hardware, 2010
Stereo components; approx. 14 x 20 x 40 in.
Included in the installation Tomorrow, Today, Yesterday, 2011
Courtesy the artist

This three-part installation by Sean Dack includes examples of two ongoing series in his practice, Ghost Hardware and the Glitch Series. The C-print diptych BOH—visually consistent with the work in the Glitch Series—consists of imagery culled from Dack's personal photos of the Beijing Opera House, in the style of travelogue photos that one might find on Flickr. Dack appropriates images and subjects them to a variety of digital manipulations. Each photograph demonstrates pixelated holes, striations, and neon fragments, forcing the viewer to decipher the content and source through its distortion. The sculpture Ghost Hardware literalizes "black box" technology, which makes the functionality of electronic products seem mysterious, by encasing digital stereo equipment in black rubber. Dack renders the equipment inoperable, thereby pointing to the alienation of the consumer from objects of technological consumption. The final component is an audio track that layers fourteen versions of Erik Satie's Gymnopédies (1888) and stretches them over seventy-four minutes—the length of a standard CD—consequently normalizing the interpretation of sheet music to a consumer standard.

Untitled (10 IV), 2010
Black-and-white photograph
12 x 12 in.
Courtesy the artist

In her photographs, N. Dash intentionally chooses a nearly unidentifiable subject. After pocketing a small piece of cotton, Dash goes through the motions of her day, occasionally rubbing the material, leaving it for perhaps days, before removing it and photographing its subsequent deterioration. This particular material—natural in its origin, historic in the context of American Capitalism, and now ubiquitous in households—is implicated in complex ways. While cotton can exemplify the transformation of nature into a commodity, Dash situates herself in relation to the material, not simply as a consumer, but as an actor upon it. Her movements are responsible for a new transformation—one in which a personalized object is produced and made into the subject of her art.

Tomorrow's Forecast: Strikingly Clear, 2008
Oil on canvas
74 x 58.25 in.
Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

In his work Marc Handelman revisits the nineteenth century romanticism of Hudson River School painters such as Thomas Cole and Frederic E. Church. Rather than taking the pure, untouched wilderness as his subject, Handelman appropriates imagery of blazing sunsets from magazine advertisements for military and defense organizations. Handelman layers images of sunsets on top of a fragmented corporate logo, using a transfer process that is both additive and subtractive. The painting's title, Tomorrow's Forecast: Strikingly Clear, is taken from an advertisement for the defense technology corporation Northrop Grumman. Handelman's work taps into the original advertisers' desire to illustrate a level of control over nature, while his work nevertheless reveals nature as co-opted towards martial ends.

Force Multiplier, 2008
Oil on canvas
67 x 54 in.
Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

Similarly to his work Tomorrow's Forecast: Strikingly Clear on view in this exhibition, Marc Handelman's abstracted and layered paintings of sunsets reveal the manipulation and corruption of natural resources for political aims. The artist's transfer technique not only speaks to the latter, but also recalls the idealistic view of untamed nature adopted by the Hudson River School. In an artist statement, he explains that the landscape imagery and corporate logos are "essentially...the same thing, part of a similar kind of speech. Beyond their both being part of corporate representation, I have thought about both of these kinds of images as modes of masking or veneers, but the correspondence is more poetic, more visual, and in these paintings more material."

The Keeper, 2006
Single-channel video, color, sound 6 min.
Courtesy the artist and Meulensteen Gallery

In The Keeper, artist Tim Hyde explores the boundaries of architecture and filmic control through an unscripted social encounter. Hyde originally set out to film a former KGB office in Kiev, Ukraine, which has been replaced by a nondescript diner. The video is entirely unscripted, and it is not clear whether the elderly woman he has happened upon wants to be filmed, or wants to prevent the film from being made. For six minutes, the silent negotiation between the woman and the camera displaces the viewer's attention from the surrounding architecture to her bodily movements.

Video Panorama of New York City During Which the Camera Fails to Distinguish the City From a Snowstorm, 2006-07
Seven single-channel videos, color, silent 60 min.
Courtesy the artist and Meulensteen Gallery

Tim Hyde's seven-channel video panorama shows snowstorm footage that was recorded over a period of seven hours. Hyde filmed a one-hundred-and-eighty degree survey of the surrounding cityscape from a building in Brooklyn. Divided between seven screens, the installation does not offer a temporal "story" or narrative arc of the snowstorm, but instead focuses on the phenomenon of the camera failing to identify its subject through the autofocus lens. The camera lens continually pulsates as it grapples with the severe weather conditions and struggles to distinguish the cityscape from its surroundings. In this particular instance, the video camera, which often serves as the mechanism of manipulation and control, finds itself powerless against nature.

Endless Prosperity, Eternal Accumulation, 2009
80 framed LightJet prints
17 1/2 x 12 1/2 in. each
Installation view (above), detail (below)
Courtesy the artist

In Endless Prosperity, Eternal Accumulation, Kwan presents photographs of hongbao, envelopes used to gift money at social events in Chinese culture. While traditional hongbao are characterized by their red color, Kwan’s are also marked by corporate logos—an advertising strategy widely used by prominent banks and financial institutions. Rather than signify an established cultural tradition, money is marked as private and privatized and the act of gift-giving is compromised. In this sense, Kwan highlights these marked envelopes' social impact: a gift, intended as an intimate transference from one person to another, is now mediated by capitalist forces. This complicated interaction between tradition, wealth, and social relations is Kwan’s most prominent resource for this work.

Shanghai Concession Camo (la longue durée), 2007
Installation with four single-channel videos, color, silent
Videos: 14 min. each; installation: dimensions variable
Courtesy the artist

In Shanghai Concession Camo (la longue durée), Kwan presents four monitors that show video animation of photographs of tree bark. The trees featured, London planes, were introduced by the French to the Concession area of Shanghai in 1902. While the images appear abstract, the green wall upon which the monitors hang suggests patterns of camouflage—the material of subterfuge, of war and colonialization. While these trees have remained in Shanghai and appear germane to the city's contemporary landscape, they are remnants of a loaded political past. Nature is not innocuous here, but instead subject to the inseparable influences of nationalism and capitalism.

Displacement (with Chinese Characteristics), 2006.
Single-channel video, color, sound
25 min.
Courtesy the artist

Routines (Sønder Boulevard), 2008
Single-channel video, color, sound; 6 min.
Installation view with eponymous poster series in background (above); video still (below)
Photo: Kristine Lynnerup
Courtesy the artist and Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, Texas

Mads Lynnerup's project Routines (Sønder Boulevard) documents the recurring routines of individuals living in the neighborhood near a central street in Copenhagen, Denmark. For over four weeks the artist observed the various daily routines of the area's residents, took notes and began making drawings of his observations. The resulting series of ten posters is on view in this exhibition. For example, one of the posters depicts a pencil drawing of two women on a cigarette break outside of a shop, and the text below describes how they take at least one break together every day. During the project's original exhibition, posters were also installed in various locations around Sønder Boulevard. Lynnerup complements the poster series with an eponymous video, which is screened at Anthology Film Archives as part of the exhibition video program.

Tree, 2008
Installation with plywood benches and tree, newspapers, video displayed on monitors, peanut and water dispensers
Fisher Landau Center for Art, New York

Mads Lynnerup's Tree (2008) is conceived in a similar spirit, although the project intervenes more directly into the larger community, tapping into DIY movements and grassroots organization strategies. With Tree, the artist set out to bridge the gap between the Fischer Landau Center for Art, where the work was presented, and the surrounding Queens neighborhood. The Tree structure, positioned in the art center's courtyard, was tall enough to draw attention from passersby. Envisioned as a meeting spot, the work was outfitted with local newspapers in various languages, modular benches, as well as snacks and water for sustenance. Gathering the water supply for Tree served as an advertising device and fostered local connections: Lynnerup traveled door-to-door, requesting donations of tap water from members of the community and personally inviting them to visit the project. The piece thus enacted a reciprocal exchange: neighbors gave water as a gift to the artist, while his Tree provided a resource and meeting ground for the community.

Barricade Furniture—Gallery Bench, 2010
Painted wood (reconfigured police barricade)
Dimensions variable
Courtesy the artist

Physical borders often constitute visible architectures of power. Barricade Furniture—Gallery Bench forms part of a larger series whereby artist Gabriel Martinez reconfigures the painted wood from a police barrier in order to give it another function. In this instance, a barrier becomes gallery seating, thus changing the materials' form and meaning. From an architecture of prohibition to an invitation to sit, the work provides an opportunity to relax and carefully consider the work on display as well as reflect on materials' potential alternative social uses.

An hour of labor is purchased from the owner of a business and given to an employee in the form of a siesta, 2006
C-print
7 x 10 in.
Courtesy the artist

In An hour of labor is purchased from the owner of a business and given to an employee in the form of a siesta, Martinez personally donates money to a business in exchange for a break on behalf of an employee. Indirectly, Martinez's interests can be tied to the art created, yet directly, the business economically profits, and an employee benefits from the siesta. The relationship between the business and this employee is momentarily altered, so that the employee's lack of labor is itself profit-making. Martinez's act of love creates a new transaction, realigning economic value with human interest.

Cracks in the pavement are watered with Miracle-Gro (Rose Park), 2005
C-print
7 x 10 in.
Courtesy the artist

In his ongoing piece Cracks in the pavement are watered with Miracle-Gro (Rose Park), Martinez encourages and assists small frail weeds and blades of grass in their effort to break through concrete and displace asphalt. While nature in public parks is often thought of as common, this particular growth is considered unsightly. Weeds are regularly removed, while man-made forces hinder nature. By feeding and strengthening only what grows in the cracks, Martinez creates a metaphor for the potential strength of the marginal and does so, paradoxically, using artificial means.

An outdoor sign is stolen, sanded, repainted, and returned to the store before it reopens the following day, 2005
C-print
7 x 10 in.
Courtesy the artist

In An outdoor sign is stolen, sanded, repainted, and returned to the store before it reopens the following day, Martinez steals a store owner's sign, refurbishes it, and returns it. His physical labor is not remunerated and, if the beautified sign leads to more business, the storeowner benefits doubly from the crime committed "against" (in favor of) him or her (i.e., a renovated sign and increased profit). Furthermore, albeit on a humble and personal level, this work proposes an example by which the law can be transgressed for good—how we might operate in a society based on common love rather than one based on the law of the state.

Disguised as Their Material Properties, 2005.
Sticks, cardboard box, tape, wood filler, hollow core door, garbage bag, plastic, medium-density fireboard, carpet; dimensions variable
Installation view

Gedi Sibony similarly turns to poor materials, such as construction debris, in the creation of his work. Disguised as Their Material Properties (2005) alludes to the formal language of Minimalism, while drawing on post-Minimalism's emphasis on the process and precarity of material. In his site-specific work created for Common Love, Sibony's materials become other through their aesthetic framing and spatial arrangement. The work relies on the contingencies of context as well as the relation to its architectural site in order to enhance its perceptual effects.

Dead by Third Act, 2008
Single-channel video, color, sound
14 min. 40 sec.
Courtesy the artist and Elizabeth Dee Gallery

Dead by Third Act is a single-channel video projection and sound piece. Its materials stem from a 2008 performance by Mika Tajima / New Humans that took place in the former Fiat Lingotto factory in Turin, Italy. A historic and problematic site of industry, workers' unrest, Italian Modernism and Futurism, the factory (now a mixed commercial space) serves as both a site of destruction—the group symbolically smash a Fiat automobile—in addition to a site for the harnessing of creative alternatives. The fourteen-minute video contextualizes the performance within the factory's abandoned architecture and the preparations for an international art fair, Artissima, which co-produced the project. In the context of this exhibition, Dead by Third Act exists through the filmic and immaterial components of its original state.

IMAGES UNAVAILABLE

Configuration #3 construction drawings, 2006
Two prints
24 x 24 in. each

Christian de Vietri's Configuration #3 is a set of directions to turn IKEA furniture into a fully functioning double pillory. While seemingly democratic in the availability of good design at affordable prices, the IKEA model also exploits the consumer in order to maximize profits by relying on the consumer to build furniture from purchased materials. In these prints, De Vietri has stylistically reproduced an Ikea instructional diagram with an eye to subverting the system IKEA has developed. He has printed 500 copies of these directions so that each gallery visitor may take one home.

Pippi Longstocking, The Strongest Girl in the World, 2006
Single-channel video, color, sound
3 min. 50 sec.
Courtesy the artist

In Pippi Longstocking, The Strongest Girl in the World (2006), Rona Yefman takes on a geopolitical border. The video shows her collaborator, the artist Tanja Schlander, dressed up as a contemporary version of the character invented in the 1940s by the Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren. With her bare hands, Schlander repeatedly attempts to dislodge the concrete wall that separates the West Bank from Israel. In doing so, she conjures the "power of life" by mining the traits of the fictional Pippi, that is, her nonconventional femininity, physical strength, and indignation at injustice.14 Yefman's video further reveals unanticipated encounters: local Palestinians encourage Schlander's efforts to channel Pippi's strength in the cause of peace.