REDCAT Presents Never Very Far Apart 4/29-6/27

The group exhibition Never Very Far Apart brings together six projects that cross the poetic and political ground between the individual and the group; the local and the global; this moment in time and that place in history. Proceeding from the particular conditions in which they live and work, these artists explore distance as both border and bridge--considering how a finite position may also parallel or intersect with seemingly disparate places or distant times. Using performance, moving image, painting and printed matter, the artists examine the parameters by which context is defined and consider how they can be re-imagined to activate social spaces for renewed thought and action. Organized by REDCAT curatorial assistant Ryan Inouye, the exhibition features new and recent works by Terry Chatkupt (Los Angeles), Michelle Dizon and Camilo Ontiveros (Los Angeles), Benj Gerdes and Jennifer Hayashida (New York), Adriana Lara (Mexico City), Elana Mann (Los Angeles) and RJ Messineo (St. Louis).

The exhibition includes two collaborative projects, both of which explore possibilities of revisioning the relationship between the present and the past. In the case of Michelle Dizon and Camilo Ontiveros' Westlake Theatre (2009), the video installation mines the layers of Los Angeles history that are held within the city's majestic 1926 cinema house. The proscenium that once presided over images of early Hollywood now arches across a swap meet that occupies the orchestra level below--bridging the various economies of production and presentation housed within the walls of one structure. Benj Gerdes and Jennifer Hayashida's 16mm film loop Populus Tremula (2010) channels the life of Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932), the industrialist, financier and founder of the Swedish Matchstick Corporation. While the camera follows the manufacturing process in two factories in operation since the 19th century, a sequence of superimposed textual interventions disrupt the seamless narratives advanced by industrialization and the nation state.

The exhibition moves from spaces of critical conjecture to exchange between individuals. Elana Mann's Can't Afford the Freeway (2008-10) is a performance video that grew out of conversations she shared with novelist and Iraq War veteran Captain Dylan Alex Mack. Oscillating between the experience of driving and being driven, the work pairs footage of the artist maneuvering her body in and around her station wagon with audio of Mack and Mann discussing the perils of vehicular travel in Iraq. The artist reconsiders her relationship to the car as a private space or personal freedom. Adriana Lara's practice examines similar questions of agency by creating conditions for dialogue. Through her involvement with Mexico City-based art office Perros Negros, Lara serves as editor of Pazmaker, a free, self-distributed foldout that gathers authors from various places, periods and disciplines. Conceived as both a meeting point and means of distribution, the publication facilitates ongoing exchange between cultural producers in Mexico and those working abroad.

Shifting from public dialogue to personal narrative, Terry Chatkupt's video trilogy Trail Memories (2008), Field Memories (2009) and Park Memories (2010), navigates visual and psychological passageways through open fields and wooded expanses outside cities the artist has called home. These sparsely populated landscapes provide a quiet backdrop for the artist's voiceover script, which contemplates the internal mechanisms that underlie notions of home and belonging. RJ Messineo's painting practice stems from quiet and continual acknowledgment of her immediate surroundings. The artist's recent works on mirror, window screen, and wooden lattice throw into relief the contingency of the paintings surface and the limits of its frame. Messineo's new works on wooden lattice, Shield Painting (garden) (2010) and Concept of Yearning (2010), continue to build elements of her personal life into a language that has a public presence.

Although conceptually abstract, the exhibition considers what material ground might emerge when circumstances are thought together that usually stand apart. Re-charting the contexts in which they live and work, these artists identify new spaces for reassessment, reinvention and possibility.

ARTIST BIOS

Terry Chatkupt (b. 1977, Excelsior Springs, Missouri) primarily works in film/video and photography. He has presented work in exhibitions at Seattle Art Museum, Seattle; Harris Lieberman, New York, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles and the Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California, Riverside in addition to participating in screenings at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Portland Documentary & Experimental Film Festival 2008 and Art Basel Miami Beach, Video Lounge, 2007. Chatkupt received both his B.F.A. and M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia and holds a B.S. from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York. In 2003, he attended the artist in residency program at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Chatkupt currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Michelle Dizon (b. 1977, Los Angeles) is an artist, filmmaker, and writer. Her work focuses on questions of postcoloniality, migration, human rights and historical memory. Dizon has presented solo exhibitions at the CUE Art Foundation, New York and the Art Gallery at the University of Texas, Arlington in addition to collaborating with Camilo Ontiveros on a project for the Vargas Museum, Manila. Her work has been presented in group exhibitions and screenings at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles and the Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, among others. Dizon holds a B.A. in English and History of Art from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Studio from the Department of Art at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is completing a Ph.D. in the Department of Rhetoric with designated emphases in Film and Women, Gender and Sexuality at the University of California, Berkeley. Dizon works between Los Angeles and Manila.

Camilo Ontiveros (b. 1978, Rosario, Mexico) works in sculpture, installation and video. He recently presented a project developed in collaboration with Michelle Dizon at the Vargas Museum, Manila and has presented work at Steven Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles; Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena; Gallery 727, Los Angeles; and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. In addition, he is Co-Founder of NOMART, a performance art space on wheels; a member of the DoEAT Collective; and Co-Founder of Lui Velazquez, an alternative art space in Tijuana, which supports cross-disciplinary discussion, art practice and events by inviting artists to participate in short-term residencies. The artist is the recipient of the 2010 illy Prize at ARCOmadrid art fair. He received his M.F.A. from University of California, Los Angeles and his B.F.A. from University of California, San Diego. Ontiveros lives and works in Los Angeles.

Jennifer Hayashida (b. 1973, Oakland) works as a poet, translator and visual artist. She is the translator of Fredrik Nyberg's A Different Practice (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007), and Eva Sjödin's Inner China (Litmus Press, 2005). Hayashida has presented work in Luleå Biennial, Luleå, Sweden; Artist Space, New York and The Vera List Center for Art & Politics at The New School, New York. She is presently a NYFA Fellow in Poetry and works as the Acting Director of the Asian American Studies Program at Hunter College. She is the recipient of a PEN Translation Fund Grant, a Witter Bynner Poetry Translator Residency, a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and has been a MacDowell Colony Fellow. She holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Bard College and a B.A. in American Studies from University of California, Berkeley. Hayashida's recent work has been published in Salt Hill, Chicago Review, and Harp & Altar. Hayashida lives and works in New York.

Benj Gerdes (b. 1978, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania) is an artist and activist working in film, video, and a number of other public formats. He frequently works in collaboration with other artists, activists, and theorists, including as a member of 16 Beaver Group. His work has been included in film festivals and exhibitions internationally, including the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial; Musuem of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna; Luleå Biennial, Luleå, Sweden; Moscow International Film Festival; and Art in General, New York, among others. He is the recipient of grants from the Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, and the Experimental Television Center. Gerdes holds an M.F.A. in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College, City University of New York, a B.A. in History of Technology/Film and Digital Studies from Brown University and has attended the Visual Arts Program at M.I.T. and the Whitney Independent Study Program. He teaches at The Cooper Union School of Art. Gerdes lives and works in New York.

Adriana Lara (b. 1978, Mexico City) has presented solo exhibitions at Air de Paris, Paris and most recently at Artpace, San Antonio. She has participated in group exhibitions at California College of the Arts, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; Triennal Poli-gráfica de San Juan, Puerto Rico; New Museum, New York; Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Berlin; Gaga Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; Colección Jumex, Ecatepec and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, among others. With Fernando Mesta and Augustina Ferreyra, Lara co-founded the Mexico City-based art office Perros Negros, which organized, Localismos: 20 Artists Working In The Center of Mexico City, A Global Collaboration For A Local Strategy--a month long residency and workshop that brought together artists based in Mexico and abroad. She has served as editor in chief of the office's quarterly publication Pazmaker since its inception in 2006. Lara lives and works in Mexico City.

Elana Mann (b. 1980, Boston) has presented work at Apex Art, New York; Galerie Califia, Horazdovice, Czech Republic; A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro; WILDNESS, Los Angeles and Outpost for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Mann organized Performing Economies (2009), an exhibition and series of actions at the Fellows of Contemporary Art and Exchange Rate: 2008, an international performance exchange created in response to the 2008 U.S. presidential election--both presented in Los Angeles. In 2012, Mann and artist Audrey Chan will co-chair The Feminist Art Project, a day of panels organized for the College Art Association in Los Angeles. She is a recipient of California Community Foundation's 2009 Visual Arts Fellowship and has published two books, Exchange Rate: 2008 (2009) and GIVE IT TO ME, DO IT TO ME, MAKE ME... (2007). Mann received her B.F.A. from Washington University, St. Louis and her M.F.A from California Institute of the Arts, Valencia. She lives and works in Los Angeles.

RJ Messineo (b. 1980, Hartford) earned her B.F.A. from Cornell University, Ithaca and her M.F.A. from University of California, Los Angeles. In Fall 2009, the artist presented a solo project at the alternative art space Imprenta, Los Angeles and has also participated in group exhibitions at Redling Fine Art, Los Angeles and StEve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles. Messineo currently lives and works in St. Louis.

About Gallery at REDCAT
The Gallery at REDCAT aims to support, present, commission and nurture new creative insights through dynamic projects and challenging ideas. The Gallery presents five exhibitions every year, often of newly commissioned work that represents the artist's first major presentation in the U.S. or Los Angeles. The Gallery also maintains an active publishing program producing as many as two major monographs per year. Proceeding from the geographic and cultural specificities of Los Angeles, its program emphasizes artistic production of the Pacific Rim--namely Mexico, Central and South America and Asia--as regions that are of vital significance to California. The Gallery aims to facilitate dialogue between local and International Artists contributing to a greater understanding of the social, political and cultural contexts that inform contemporary artistic practice.

About REDCAT
Opened by CalArts in 2003, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater introduces diverse audiences, students and artists to the most influential developments in the arts from around the world, and gives artists in this region the creative support they need to achieve national and international stature. REDCAT is the newest partner in an international network of adventurous art and performance centers, which together are playing a vital role in the evolution of contemporary culture. REDCAT is a center for experimentation, discovery, and lively civic discourse.

REDCAT is located at the corner of W. 2nd and Hope Streets, inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex (631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012).

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