AQUA ART MIAMI 2008
December 5th, 2008SASHA BEZZUBOV & JESSICA SUCHER: The Searchers
October 25th, 2008
Sasha Bezzubov & Jessica Sucher: The Searchers
November 1 – December 20, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday November 1, 2008 6pm-8pm
Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present The Searchers, the West coast debut of a new series of photographs by the collaborative team of Sasha Bezzubov and Jessica Sucher. The exhibition will run from November 1 – December 20, 2008. The gallery will host an opening reception for the artists on Saturday, November 1 from 6pm-8pm.
The Searchers is a series of large-scale photographs examining Western spiritual tourism in India. Bezzubov and Sucher investigate the magnetic pull of India’s rich religious history and the utopian communities that cater to Western seekers. While exploring yoga centers, meditation retreats and ashrams, the artists straddle the line between observers and participants. The project results in distinct groupings: spatially astounding interiors, bizarre landscapes, and portraits of those who simultaneously appear both lost and found. The connecting thread is the visual strangeness and cultural collisions inherent in this phenomenon. This series includes photographs taken at the Osho Meditation Resort in Pune and the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Dhanwantari Ashram in Nayyar Dam, Kerala.
With The Searchers, the artists build on themes explored in their previous bodies of work, specifically Expats and Natives (Bezzubov and Sucher) and The Gringo Project (Bezzubov). These previous projects center around young Western travelers exploring developing countries and how the relationship to one’s host country relates to larger issues of race, class, and identity.
New York-based Sasha Bezzubov and Jessica Sucher have been collaborating since 2002. In 2006, they spent a year in India on a Fulbright Scholarship Award for their project, The Searchers. Their work has previously been exhibited in Miami, Los Angeles, New York, The Netherlands.
KYLE FIELD: More Country Questions
September 6th, 2008
Kyle Field: More Country Questions
September 6 – October 25, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday September 6, 2008 6pm-8pm
Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present More Country Questions, a new body of ink and watercolor works on paper by San Francisco-based musician and artist, Kyle Field. The exhibition will run from September 6 – October 25, 2008. The gallery will host a reception for the artist on Saturday September 6 from 6-8PM.
For his second solo exhibition at Taylor De Cordoba, Field explores the intersection of nature and commerce thru the convergence of personal experiences, inside jokes, imaginary creatures and imagined advertising. Frogs, snakes, worms, snails and turtles wander within a landscape of billboards, logos and symbols of commercialism. Taking in the visual (over)stimulation of the modern world and spinning it on it’s head, Field absorbs content from all over, blending vague narratives that can be read in all directions. The effect is an elegant non-sequitor that manages to critique the aimless pursuit of false desires and goals that bombard us daily.
In “Rats In A Huddle”, Field uses sports imagery to unravel the unquestioned importance of such activities. Imitating a television broadcast, the words “Video Superbowl Online” hang above a huddle of players with slogans on their jerseys reading “ready to take orders sir”, “okay I can” or “Dad’s Favorite Lineman.” At the center, the coach instructs his players while holding a clipboard and wearing a headset. The coach can easily be a general, and the players can be soldiers, and the game can be war.
Field leaves it to the viewer to put the pieces together and form their own meaning. In other drawings, creatures act as fragile guides for us to navigate and disassociate from the background noise of consumer culture. Bumper stickers act as monuments of self expression and identity in in defiance of corporate (r)advertisement. It is precisely the gaps in meaning and explanation and visual incompleteness that make the work compelling. The effect is to remind the viewer of their own place in society, as a consumer of culture and a target of commercialism.
COVER VERSION curated by Timothy Hull
June 28th, 2008
Cover Version: Curated by Timothy Hull
June 28 – August 9, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday June 28th, 2008 6pm-9pm
“I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down a particular path than we have yet go ourselves.” E.M. Forster
Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present Cover Version, a group exhibition curated by NY-based artist Timothy Hull. Hull has asked approximately twenty artists from around the country to create their own version of the cover of their favorite book. The only parameters are that the piece must be average book size and include the title and author in the composition. Scott Hug, Mathew Cerletty, Kadar Brock, Jennifer Sullivan, Ryan Callis and Frohawk Two Feathers are among the participating artists. The exhibition will run from June 28 – August 9. The gallery will host an opening reception on Saturday June 28 from 6-9PM.
Cover Version focuses on the idea of book cover as inadvertent cultural symbol and indicator of taste. Visually, the front of a book must illuminate the content or emotional resonance of the book within a moment’s glance, regardless of actual content. Although we have idiomatically been reminded NOT to judge a book by its cover, often this is precisely how we choose them. Thus, publishing companies have known covers to play a crucial role in creating the aura of a book, becoming the icon and the symbol, which tells us not only what but how we will read. Famous book covers become as culturally important and layered as the book itself; J.D. Salinger’s yellow and red cover for The Catcher in Rye for instance or Germano Facetti’s iconic covers for Penguin.
The act of making an idiosyncratic copy of a book cover is in essence a ‘cover of a cover,’ to use the popular music term or a “cover version” as the title of the show suggests. This meaning can be both metaphoric and literal. In a cover, the song is reinterpreted and rearranged to suit the message or need of the performer. It is also an associative indicator of taste, as the performer of the cover is thus associated with the preconceived approval of the song as being part of a canon. Likewise, the cover of a preferred book will be either copied or created anew to give a wholly different interpretation of the visual essence of the book, as well as to associate the spirit and cultural capital of the book towards the artist. The act of choosing plays an important role in this exhibition; the choice being as compelling as the cover. Artists will be re-imagining the covers of To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes and The Book of Mormon, among others.
KIMBERLY BROOKS: Technicolor Summer
May 10th, 2008
Kimberly Brooks: Technicolor Summer
May 10 – June 14, 2008
Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present Technicolor Summer, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Kimberly Brooks. The exhibition will run from May 10 – June 14. The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday May 10th from 6pm-9pm. This is the artist’s second solo show with the gallery.
In her new series of oil paintings, Brooks explores the relationship between human and nature. Using the sweeping California landscape as a backdrop, from the forests of Yosemite to the bewildering expanse of the Pacific Ocean, she introduces characters that are unified by the mutual awe for their surroundings. Based on her personal experience, Brooks focuses on a family grappling with illness, where the prospect of death renders every moment vivid, and each meal and sunset matters. The scenes are from a summer experienced in high definition; where every leaf on a tree becomes visible simultaneously, and life is lived in Technicolor.
NEXT ART FAIR, Chicago
April 25th, 2008
NEXT Art Fair, Chicago
April 25th, 2008 – April 28th, 2008
Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to participate in NEXT, Chicago’s invitational exhibition of emerging art. The gallery will exhibit new work by Charlene Liu and Frohawk Two Feathers.
CLAIRE OSWALT: Trustfall
March 15th, 2008
Claire Oswalt: Trustfall
March 15 – April 15, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 15, 6-9pm
Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present Trustfall, a new series of sculptural drawings by Los Angeles-based artist Claire Oswalt. The exhibition will run from March 15 through April 19, 2008. The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday March 15th from 6-9pm.
This is the artist’s first solo show with the gallery. With her puppets made from wood, twine, and graphite on paper, Oswalt explores an increasingly complex adult world with a childlike simplicity and curiosity. The push and pull between control and freedom is pervasive throughout her series: from a girl being blown away, to the clothes that have fallen on the floor, to a man falling out of his chair. Her puppets demonstrate a sense of restricted movement, while the title of her series suggests an unrestrained freefall, made possible only with trust. Oswalt ensures that each fall is a fall in the right direction, or to a safe place. And although they are put into a position that lacks control, the puppets put their trust in the artist and subsequently the viewer. In this sense, the puppets welcome us into their world as we explore the trials and tribulations of “falling” in love and falling through life. Though Trustfall is theatrical with its changing backdrops and Pinnochio-esque qualities, its characters instill a quiet sense of realism that prompt the viewer to ponder the simple aesthetic quality which propels these puppets into our world.
FROHAWK TWO FEATHERS: In the Court of the Crimson King
February 8th, 2008
Frohawk Two Feathers: In the Court of the Crimson King
February 2 – March 8, 2008
Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present In The Court Of The Crimson King, a new series of paintings and drawings by Los Angeles-based artist Frohawk Two Feathers. The exhibition will run from February 2 through March 8, 2008. The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday February 2 from 6-9pm. Violinist Shigeru will perform 19th century sonatas during the reception. This is the artist’s second solo show with the gallery.
Two Feathers continues to demonstrate his skills as a master storyteller with a modern take on the age-old themes of colonialism, imperialism and conquest. In these large-scale paintings and intimate works on paper, he creates a wartime narrative starring an imagined cast of characters. Two Feathers revisits the Frenglish Emperor Nancy in his quest to avenge his father’s death. As the villain, Lord William uses his influence as a nobleman and general of the Imperial Frenglish Army to stage a coup and overthrow Nancy and his mother. He proceeds to partition the empire and rename the areas loyal to him and his confederates, Anglica. This series chronicles William’s brief rule and the beginning of the re-conquest of Frengland by Nancy and his old enemies (now allies), the Inuit. Two Feather’s reappropriation of classical tenets of history and storytelling makes for a sometimes amusing and always poignant body of work. All artworks are loosely based on the lyrics of the song “In The Court Of The Crimson King” (written by Peter Sinfield) by the psych rock group King Crimson.
JEANA SOHN: My Hands are Crispy
December 15th, 2007
Jeana Sohn: My Hands Are Crispy
December 15 – January 26, 2008
Opening Reception: Saturday December 15, 2007, 6-9pm
Taylor De Cordoba is pleased to present My Hands Are Crispy, a new series of paintings on panel and paper by Los Angeles-based artist Jeana Sohn. The exhibition will run from December 15 through January 26, 2008. The gallery will host an opening reception for the artist on Saturday December 15 from 6-9PM.
Drawing upon bedtime fairy tales, poetry, nature and modern graphic design, Jeana Sohn paints a surreal world where fanciful situations can instantly turn dark. In one piece a bowing girl carries an axe and chopped wood on her back as swarming moths surround her. Another scene of a girl floating amidst giant blue leaves looks peaceful until we see that arrows pierce her back. The tension between serenity and violence/aggression runs through these new paintings.
Sohn’s work has always emphasized storytelling – a piece would typically be focused on a character, and a narrative would be implied by that character’s non-specific, and hopefully poetic, interactions with animals, little pieces of nature, and graphic elements. In this new series, the work is also about her process of art-making. Her intention was to let her hands create without her mind dominating the process. The title, My Hands Are Crispy, refers to the recent detachment she has felt from the process. This body of work is the result of her struggle to overcome her out-of-shape and “crispy” hands and enter a meditative mindset.
AQUA ART MIAMI 2007
December 4th, 2007
Taylor De Cordoba is thrilled to be participating in Aqua Art Miami 2007 at the Aqua Hotel.
Fair dates:
December 6- 9
Exhibiting works by…
Sasha Bezzubov + Jessica Sucher
Kimberly Brooks
Ryan Callis
Frohawk Two Feathers
Kyle Field
Timothy Hull
Charlene Liu
Melissa Manfull
Claire Oswalt
Jeana Sohn