Monthly Archives: August 2014

Please note that the gallery will be closed Saturday, August 30, 2014 in recognition of Labor Day. We will reopen again on Tuesday, September 2 with the current Clayton Brothers exhibition on view. Thank you, and have a restful long weekend.

On the occasion of Aperture’s sixtieth anniversary in 2012, a select group of contemporary photographers responded to Aperture publications that had been influential in forming their work, paying them artistic homage. Artists were commissioned to create a new work inspired by the ideas that they had found most influential or of greatest concern in the earlier work. One such artist was MMG’s Penelope Umbrico – whose work is included in “Aperture Remix,” a traveling exhibition currently on view at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego (CA).

Featured artists and who/what they are remixing include:

Rinko Kawauchi – Sally Mann
Vik Muniz – Edward Weston
Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs – Aperture essay books
Martin Parr – Aperture magazine issue 103
Doug Rickard – Stephen Shore
Viviane Sassen – Edward Weston
Alec Soth – Robert Adams
Penelope Umbrico – Masters of Photography series
James Welling – Paul Strand

The exhibition was organized by the Aperture Foundation, New York, and curated by Lesley A. Martin. The show remains on view through October 5, 2014. For information about available works from this series, please email info@markmooregallery.com

Mark Moore Gallery is pleased to announce the acquisition of “The Smith & Jones Checkerboard” – a work by interdisciplinary artist, Jason Salavon – by the Crocker Art Museum (CA) for its permanent collection.

Salavon uses software processes of his own design to generate and reconfigure masses of communal material to present new perspectives on the familiar. Though formally varied, his projects frequently manipulate the roles of individual elements derived from diverse visual populations. This often unearths unexpected patterns in the relationship between the part and the whole, the individual and the group. Reflecting a natural attraction to popular culture and the day-to-day, his work regularly incorporates the use of common references and source material. Often, the final compositions are exhibited as art objects – such as photographic prints and video installations – while others exist in a real-time software context.

We congratulate Jason on this accolade! For inquiries regarding available work or information about the artist, please send an email to info@markmooregallery.com.

In celebration of his upcoming exhibition in Cologne (Germany), Andrew Schoultz will release a new print edition produced with DRAW A LINE. Set to be released tomorrow (August 27th, 2014) at 12pm, the print will feature some of Schoultz’s most iconic imagery. Says the artist:

“I am really happy with how it turned out. It is 100% hand silkscreen print, signed and numbered on archival acid-free thick rag paper. All of the transparencies were hand painted, which really gives it a very unique quality. The people at DRAW A LINE are sincere, great people who are doing great projects with artists from all over the world, and putting a lot of effort into each individual project. Their editions are not just being pumped out of a digital printer. They are unique and original and their approach is in line with historical print processes, which seems to becoming more and more rare these days. You are sure to hear about these guys a lot in the near future. If you are interested in purchasing one of these limited editions, go to there website and check it out.”

Congratulations to Andrew and DRAW A LINE on this new project! Andrew’s solo exhibition at Gallery-Ruttkowski 68 (Cologne), “Der Untergang des Abendlandes” (Decline of the West); New Work by Andrew Schoultz,” will be on view October 11- November 22, 2014.

Congratulations to gallery artist, Ben Weiner, on his recent feature in W Magazine! Says writer Kat Herriman:

“Ben Weiner’s Queens studio is filled with both paint cans and prescription pill bottles—a testament to the artist’s unique practice of transforming household substances (both legal and illegal) into fragile crystal sculptures and psychedelic prints. Using commonplace stimulants like Five Hour Energy (Berry flavor) and MDMA, Weiner probes our curious trust in drugs by turning them into something unrecognizable, messy, and yet distinctively chemical. His process is loosely derived from chemigrams and is as much creative experimentation as it is chemistry, but it’s the unpredictability of his results that make them all the more intriguing.”

To read the full article, and see a photo slide show that showcases Ben’s studio process, click here! Inquiries about available works from this new series may be directed to info@markmooregallery.com.

On August 13, the entertainment news site The Wrap, announced the 12 finalists for its third annual ShortList Film Festival. One of the selected films is Allison Schulnik’s Eager (2014), which screened at this year’s Stuttgart and Annecy animation film festivals, and also earned a Special Jury Recognition Award for Animation at SXSW.

The film had its premiere at the ZieherSmith Gallery in New York in January. It’s a traditional, stop-motion and claymation work in which “a rhythmic ritual is performed by a bizarre ensemble of macabre figures.”

The ShortList Festival films are available for viewing and voting at shortlistfilmfestival.com through Aug. 27. The finalists will also be broadcast on the the EPIX network Aug. 24 at 6 pm ET/3 pm PT and again in EPIX’s Drive-In (SD) channel on Aug. 25 at midnight ET/Aug. 24 9 pm PT.

Two $5,000 awards—The Audience Prize and the Industry Prize—will be handed out during a ceremony on Aug. 28 at the YouTube space in Los Angeles. The Industry winner, chosen by a jury of independent film experts,  also earns a meeting with executives at Paramount Pictures, MGM or Lionsgate to pitch their next project. The Audience Prize winner, determined by the popular vote, will be able to use the YouTube Space and production facilities for their next project.

We congratulate Allison on this remarkable nomination!

Works by gallery artist Kim Rugg will be featured in “TXTED,” an upcoming group exhibition taking place at the Salisbury University Art Gallery. The exhibition, curated by Marisa Sage, explores the ever the evolving conversation between art and language. This group text based exhibition will contain paintings, photographs, drawings, sculpture, and installation: all which utilize text as the agent to intricate conceptual metaphors, visual insights, and complex narratives. The role humorous and “simple” texts take on in this exhibition echoes their role in “art” currently as a tool which disarms the viewer, allowing them to trust the artist before they are hit with concepts and processes which often reveal the harsh realities of our current political climates and complex societies.

Artists in this exhibition include: Sol LeWitt, Alex Gingrow, Carrie Mae Weems, Iviva Olenick, Jayson Musson, Michael Scoggins, Meg Hitchcock, John Salvest, David Rathman, William Powhida, Kim Rugg, Daniel Oglander, and Nate Larson & Marni Shindelman. “TXTED” will be on view September 2 – October 25, 2014.

In a sensational review by the Huffington Post’s Annabel Osberg, the Clayton Brothers’ current exhibition, “Open to the Public,” was declared “ingenious” and “strangely charismatic,” among other remarkable descriptions.

Says Osberg:

The entire show was inspired by Sun Thrift, a thrift store in Sunland near their studio. The Claytons first went to the store about three or four years ago. Amazed by the people and objects they would find there, they eventually came to visit the store about three times a week, documenting their forays by recording videos, taking photographs, and accumulating miscellaneous items.

Rob said that this was the most difficult show that they had ever installed, because there were so many pieces to display, and they wanted the overall exhibition to “support the energy of the thrift store.” They succeeded remarkably. Entering a large thrift store is exciting yet overwhelming; one never knows what one might find, but there are so many items to look over. In “Open to the Public,” the Claytons captured this overwhelming sense of stimulation, channeling it into the gallery space through ingenious installation design and sheer quantity of work.

Throughout the main gallery, eccentric tableaux and assemblages of found objects are interspersed with two-dimensional works, most of which are displayed in unorthodox ways that heighten their thrift-store-find sensibility. Drawings and cutouts are encased in vitrine-like frames, often accompanied by ironic artifacts such as price tags. Some of these frames are hung next to each other with no space between, in groups forming irregular shapes. Others are attached to poles on the floor as if they were children’s writing desks or informative placards. The motley arrangements of artworks affect an impression of serendipity within contained randomness, similar to second-hand store merchandising.

The exhibition’s color scheme is gaudy and disjunctive like the colors of a thrift store’s multiplicity of objects. The Claytons’ palette is skillfully mismatched in a tongue-in-cheek nod to the untrained chromatic discord of paintings found in secondhand stores. Even the gallery walls, frames, and pedestals are painted in off-key chintzy colors whose disharmony is strangely charismatic.

To read the full-length review, please click here; it is not to be missed! “Open to the Public” remains on view through September 27, 2014.

In their inaugural solo exhibition with Mark Moore Gallery, “Open to the Public,” the Clayton Brothers have indeed opened with all of the enthusiasm and support one would hope for. Before their jam-packed reception on Saturday, August 16th, the brothers treated an exclusive crowd of patrons and press to an artist talk – moderated by critic Shana Nys Dambrot and artist Aaron Smith. Following the talk, the artist duo signed limited edition newspapers for those in attendance, and opened formally their show to hundreds of guests. Recently, the brothers were the subject of an Artsy Editorial interview and preview, which has garnered much attention in the few days it has been live. They have also received glowing preview press from Juxtapoz, Hi Fructose, and the LA Weekly (in two articles).

We congratulate both artists on a tremendous start to their exhibition, which remains on view through September 27th. The gallery will also host a closing reception party on Saturday, September 13th. For information about works available, please contact info@markmooregallery.com.