Involved, Socially: Curated by Michelle Blade

Involved, Socially
Curated by Michelle Blade
Amanda Curreri, David Horvitz, Mark McKnight, Jessica Williams and Christine Wong Yap
August 7 – September 6, 2009

Involved, Socially is a group exhibition curated by San Francisco-based artist Michelle Blade. Paralleling Blade’s own practice, the exhibition brings together five artists that create both physical works and coinciding events to facilitate an active interchange between the viewer, the artist, and the gallery and examine the potential social function of the art object.

Blade says, “I was once told that every artist, no matter how solitary their process is, has a parallel social practice that informs their work. Be it involvement in a collective, band, a film club, or having a fervent social life, every artist borrows inspiration from it. While most may keep this private or at least segregated in some way, I am interested in the artists who meld the line between art and life, utilizing their practice to create new roles and unexpected connections between their work and life.”

Our culture is obsessed with sending messages–we email, blog, text, and twitter to the world at random, firing flares into the air and sending signals back. An artist’s practice can be thought of in the same way. The works in this exhibition beg the question: What is the creative role in our desire to connect and communicate? Be it on the internet, an unlikely highway, or through a curated exhibition, the artists represented in Involved, Socially navigate the commonplace in order to stay engaged, often finding something spectacular in the process.

Christine Wong Yap will create an installation of foil wrapped letters to hang in the Triple Basement. The words “unlimited promise” will dangle from the ceiling, creating shadows and reflections that suggest available potentials and underachieved goals.

In the spirit of reciprocity and with the modest hope of generating small surprises and unexpected exchanges, Yap will host 32 multi-disciplinary visual artists and collaborative groups in an international mail art exchange titled “This or That”. Submissions will be exhibited in the back room at Triple Base Gallery. To learn more visit: mailartswap.christinewongyap.com

Jessica Williams will create a video montage that questions individuality and how it may be communicated though the internet.

David Horvitz’s subtle interventions will plant soft seeds of distraction into our attention. His window piece is available as a free PDF file with instructions so you may print and install yourself. Click here to download.

Mark McKnight creates photographs of seemingly unremarkable individuals, but look closer and you will see that he is helping to build an understanding of the quotidian through the process of image making.

Amanda Curreri’s t-shirts and two-way welcome mat encourage a relationship between the artist and viewer by using the art object as mediator. On opening night Curreri will present “An Event to Make a Conversation Visible” with artist Sally Elesby.

Additional Events:David Horvitz and Jessica Williams