An exhibition of new work by Oliver Irwin, Justin Lieberman and Kirsten Stoltmann.These three artists use humor to explore issues of cultural identity, coolness and hope through works that are at times prurient, pathetic or low-brow, and teeter between encouraging and discouraging, optimistic and pessimistic. Irwin, Lieberman and Stoltmann use various American cultural references as points of departure, ranging from urban landscape to Klu Klux Klan to MTV.
LFL Gallery is pleased to announce dis/en/courage, an
exhibition of new work by Oliver Irwin, Justin Lieberman and Kirsten Stoltmann.
These three artists use humor to explore issues of cultural identity, coolness
and hope through works that are at times prurient, pathetic or low-brow,
and teeter between encouraging and discouraging, optimistic and pessimistic.
Irwin, Lieberman and Stoltmann use various American cultural references
as points of departure, ranging from urban landscape to Klu Klu
x Klan to MTV.
Oliver Irwin is an ecologist at heart.
Practicing art presents him with an
opportunity to improve the environment in ingenious and practical ways.
He is devoted to recycling defunct technological appliances that have potential,
by design, to harbor and nurture new life.
In this instance he has
chosen the vacuum cleaner and air-conditioner, transforming them into
hydroponic systems that foster plant life.
Irwin will also be showing documentation
of a small plant that he grew in the dirt underneath his fingernail.
The success of this urban earthwork offers an antidote to the hostile
and cramped conditions we have built for ourselves.
Irwin's sculpture
overcomes some of the discouraging aspects of urban spaces with a small
encouraging addition to the environment.
Justin Lieberman uses humor as a starting point to attack the desirability
of the popular icon.
His copy of Van Gogh's Irises ("the 53 million dollar
painting") is rendered in colors to match the interior of a Miami Beach
home; the watercolor is displayed next to a decorative flower pattern
taken from a Laura Ashley dress fabric.
The pairing raises questions about
the monetary and cultural value of creative production.
In another piece
Justin pulls the word "yes" from 300 pop songs.
The sound bites are
linked together to create a soundtrack of "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes...".
This audio track is displayed in front of a "garbage poem" - a video composed
of over 250 days of slop buckets being poured into the trash can -
and then repeats the process with the words "baby" and "no".
The juxtaposition
calls into question the supposed low art of "pop" music by pulling
out the cliché emotional content of a song and looping it over an image
of garbage.
Lieberman did extensive "research" for both the audio
and video channels of this piece, by working for six months as a dishwasher
and six months as a record store clerk.
Lieberman will also be exhibiting
a Klu Klux Klan man wearing a tie-dyed robe.
His "Klansman" acts as
a satire of how Globalism reached his rural North Carolina town and a symbol
of two failed ideologies: KKK and utopian hippie culture.
Kirsten Stoltmann will be exhibiting two single channel videos that deal
with issues of coolness, rejection, desire and popular culture.
The first
video, "Praise You" shows the artist (well past her teenage years) in bed,
clad in floral underwear and a pink t-shirt cuddling a large cat.
The
soundtrack "Praise You" by the pop band Fat Boy Slim syncs perfectly to
her quick edits and handheld camera movements to infuse her cuddling with
sexuality.
For her video, "Christina Ricci" a 16mm film loop of the word
"Christina Ricci" was projected and then transferred onto video.
The video
flickers and bounces the way old films do when transferred to new media.
Stoltmann will also be exhibiting a photographic work, entitled "
Extreme Self-Portrait": it is an image, in the style of an athletic poster,
of the artist standing on the edge of the ocean wearing a dirt bike uniform,
self-consciously posturing.
In all of three of Stoltmann's pieces
her coolness is an exaggeration of her uncoolness; the hipness and sexuality
have been attached to the work through structural means instead of content.
Reception: Friday, November, 30th, 6-8 PM
closed December 23, 2001 - January 1, 2002
Next exhibition: Holly Coulis and Dana Schutz opens January 11, 2002
Image: Kirsten Stoltmann, "Extreme Self-Portrait" laser print, 36" x 24", 2000
LFL Gallery
531 W26th St, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10001
t. (212) 631 7700
f. (212) 631 7705