Loisaida is on an extended break
Loisaida is looking for a new home…
Home Videos continues with….
Dean Sameshima’s Boys in My Bedroom
Boys in My Bedroom, 1995-2005
DVD, VHS video transferred to DVD
approximate running time 2 hours, looped
Edition of 3 + 1 AP
Open by appointment only. Contact info@loisaidanyc.com
Save the Day Fade to Black, Thursday, May 26th, 8pm sharp
SAVE THE DAY FADE TO BLACK is a short super 8 film inspired by a series of
rituals known as Babalon Working which were performed by Jack Parsons and L.
Ron Hubbard in 1946. Set in a cottage on the cliffs of Big Sur California, the rituals
are reinterpreted to manifest the archetypal divine feminine called Babalon , also
known as the goddess found in the mystical system of Thelema, established by
the author and occultist Aleister Crowley. She represents the liberated women
and the female sexual impulse; although she can also be identified with Mother
Earth. An important component to these rituals is the setting of Big Sur, which has
strong historical currents of both literary/artistic bohemia and countercultural
spiritual practices. Its dramatic terrain evokes the power of nature like few places
on earth. The environment becomes an essential tool in the magical ceremonies.
The essayist Bronislaw Malinowski theorized that the observation of nature was a
means to a kind of reverence that sits at the core of religious, scientific and magical
belief systems. The film acts both as documentation of the magic rituals and an
interpretation of the supposed energies summoned.
TONIGHT - Leigh Ledare & Kenneth Tam, Thursday, May 12th, 8pm
Just as “America’s Funniest Home Videos” was once a staple of the American home, more literally, “Home Videos” re-presents videos, films and moving images within the habitudinal setting of the home. Questions of intimacy, the private, self awareness vs. self consciousness, and performance are raised in the works of Kenneth Tam and Leigh Ledare.
Kenneth Tam http://www.oralvisual.com/
Home Videos at LOISAIDA
A selection of videos, short films, moving images + sound forthcoming May/June 2011
Dates:
May 12, 8pm - Kenneth Tam and Leigh Ledare
Date and time to be announced- Kristin Kahler
Final Weekend of Share Chair Cher, Asha Schechter
Loisaida will be open on Sunday, April 10th from 1-4pm. Please stop in!
Share Chair Cher- Asha Schechter, March 5-April 11, 2011
Loisaida is pleased to present Share Chair Cher an exhibition of new work by Asha Schechter opening Saturday, March 5 from 7-10pm. Guest curator Mackenzie Schneider.
Schechter’s work is largely focused on the generation and circulation of images. Culling material and text from a variety of sources such as local newspapers and CAD databases and presenting this material in varied stages of production and distribution he considers how specific experiences are overly determined by generic representations. Through the reconfiguration of these elements he emphasizes theambiguity of representations of daily life, suggesting that they serve more to instruct and construct than to reflect.
In the exhibition, Schechter focuses on how a domestic space is assembled and utilized; each element connotes a particular style and class, which reinforce the way we perceive that space and its inhabitants. In Newspaper #4, Schechter reproduces digitalized images of furniture typically used by architects, interior designers and realtors. These domestic avatars are used to create hypothetical layouts, for oft-unrealized spaces, meant to allow potential inhabitants to imagine lived-in interiors, but in Schechter’s work they exist as symbols of projected and/or internalized associations. Similarly, color swatches of wall paint with names such as “Glass of Milk” or “Mimosa” are meant to conjure nostalgic memories even if those memories are not our own. It is through the loose associative translation from avatar to model to actual and back again that Schechter depicts this process of feedback, distortion and imitation. This newspaper is shown alongside artifacts of its production that have been redeployed and reconfigured into other pieces, confusing the moment of production and completion of any given work.
The exhibition will on view by appointment only through April 9, 2011.
Contact Sarah Walzer at info@loisaidanyc.com
Bio:
Asha Schechter received an MFA from UCLA in 2009 and currently lives and works inLos Angeles. His work has been shown at various venues including the CCS Bard Hessel Museum, The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Museé Los Angeles, and the Margo Leavin Gallery.
Installation images
details
image from BHQFU event March 22, 2011, crit via skype with Asha Schechter
PRESS: THE LAST MAGAZINE
February 9, 2011
Is Loisaida NYC, a project space inside Sarah Walzer and Kris Kahler’s Alphabet City apartment, a gallery? Walzer’s not very interested in the term. “So much baggage comes with the idea of owning and running a gallery,” she says. Instead Walzer, a California native and six-year veteran of Peres Projects, views Loisaida, which began presenting semi-public programming in 2010, as a way of allowing artists to develop work that reflects the changing rhythms of everyday life. Wishing to avoid the decontextualization of work in the traditional, neutral gallery setting, Walzer seeks to present works that actively engage the space.
Loisaida’s current show, “Projection Conditions,” presents three pieces by Düsseldorf-based artist Adam Harrison. Harrison’s Lichtspielhaus (Spooling mechanism for film projection), is projected onto the north wall of the apartment’s living room, in front of the couch, by a compact vintage projector that rests on the coffee table. The projector, the furniture, the glowing image on the wall, the battered casement windows framing a view of the building’s enviable backyard garden—it’s hard to deny the effectiveness of the tableau.
“The apartment has good architecture and separate rooms,” Walzer notes. “Why not let artists interact with the limits of the space and the existing furniture?” The apartment has a warm patina of age, with weathered wooden floors and a mellow, arched beam bisecting the living room. It also has a unique pedigree: previous residents include the late Dash Snow.
Harrison’s works, especially the beguiling Lichtspielhaus (The cooling of a Xenon projector bulb), are marked by a delicate mixture of striking visual beauty and an almost documentary objective distance. His close study of the mechanical processes of cinematic projection create a dizzying dual aspect—an endless mirror casually unfurling on the wall of a third-floor walk-up. The films themselves are alternately rendered in luminous black-and-white and a lush palette of blues, blacks, and oranges. In both scale and scope, they call to mind Tacita Dean’s mesmerizing studies of projection and reflection, films like Kodak, Palast, and the masterful Disappearance at Sea, with its loving shots of the enormous rotating mirrors and lanterns of a lighthouse.
What happens when no one is home but the leaseholder herself? “The films keep running. Routine and time are an important part of what we’re doing here,” Walzer notes. “I make small routines and rules about the work that I abide by every day. Depending on what I’m doing, the work constantly shifts between background and foreground.”
Don’t sleep if you want a glimpse of Loisaida’s programming: the shows can be seen only on the evening of the opening, and by appointment thereafter.
“Projection Conditions,” runs through February 13 at Loisaida NYC, 62 Avenue C, #3. The gallery’s next show will open the first week of Marc
Projection Conditions January 13- February 13, 2011
Projection Conditions presents recent work by Düsseldorf-based artist Adam Harrison that address physical and temporal aspects of the presentation of moving images. Two video works, Lichtspielhaus (Spooling mechanism for film projection), and Lichtspielhaus (Mirror system for raising the projection of film), depict improvisational responses of a cinema to spatially difficult architectural spaces. By highlighting these responses, attention is also drawn to the provisional nature of the video installations themselves, with the dual situations pointing to the contemporary dis-assembly of cinematic space, especially in regards to home viewing situations.
Also presented is Lichtspielhaus (The cooling of a Xenon projector bulb), an example of what the artist calls a “slow film”. Here, a set of sequentially shot images are shown temporally, but with the frame rate slowed down to an open-ended speed, allowing the viewer to view each frame at a pace more characteristic to the viewing of pictures. For this presentation, the duration of the work will be determined by the length of the exhibition opening.
Adam Harrison was born in Vancouver, Canada, and currently lives and works in Düssedorf, Germany. He has exhibited in Düsseldorf, New York, Toronto, and Vancouver. He has published texts in Canadian Art, Fillip, and various catalogues, and is the co-curator of CSA Space, an independent project space in Vancouver.
—Images—
Lichtspielhaus (Spooling mechanism for film projection)
Lichtspielhaus (Mirror system for raising the projection of film)
Lichtspielhaus (The cooling of a Xenon projector bulb)
Opening Night
