Dead Center / Marginal Notes: Peter Downsbrough / Jeanne Silverthorne curated by John Neff
In the Drawing Room:
Emily Blair
In Gallery 1:
Western Exhibitions presents �Creative Accounting� a solo exhibition by New York based artist Mark Wagner with a public reception from 6 to 9pm on April 5, 2008.
Wagner makes meticulous, beautiful, bizarre collages with U.S. currency. As he puts it the one-dollar bill is �the most ubiquitous piece of paper in America�. Wagner transforms this icon of American capitalism into images and abstractions whose symbolic force ask us to question our understanding of money, its cultural significance, and relationship to art.
For his second solo show at Western Exhibitions, Wagner invites us in to his creative process. He takes us from blank page and initial impulse, through sketches and work records, to finished works of art and the detritus left behind.
Blank sheets embossed with meditative phrases represent the moment right before "starting". These are followed by post-it notes, drawings, timesheets, and to do lists and lead to small (4 x 6 inch) study collages and elaborate larger currency collages. Accompanying these are a collection of modified and home-made tool (foot counter, adhesive dispenser, pencil sharpener, doorstop) Wagner has crafted to aid in his work. Also present are a selection of �degenerate sculpture": amusing asides Wagner uses to re-focus his brain as a counterpoint to his tedious collage process.
Wagner�s collages shine a light on the overlooked beauty of the dollar bill, with all its engraved decorative filigree and symbolism. His imagery ranges from portraits of friends, art historical icons, and allegorical scenes, to fantastical architectural tableaus and mesmerizing abstract reformations.
Mark Wagner's book and collage work is collected nationally and internationally by dozens of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, The Walker Art Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His work has been shown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Getty Research Institute, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Renaissance Society, The Milwaukee Art Museum and the Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York. His work has been written about in the Chicago Reader and in Artnet, writer Abraham Orden stating �Mark Wagner�s � practice of cutting up the almighty dollar and reassembling it into new images.... throw(s) a fresh light on the graphical ritualism of the state, but without being smug about it.� Wagner lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Dead Center / Marginal Notes: Peter Downsbrough / Jeanne Silverthorne is the second in a yearlong series of exhibitions for Western Exhibitions' Gallery Two curated by John Neff. Each show in the program will present one piece each by two artists or a small selection of works by a single maker. All of the works exhibited will deal � directly or indirectly � with the relationships of centers to margins (culturally, geographically, politically and within works themselves as a formal concern). The second show in the series, opening April 5, partners an untitled sculpture by Peter Downsbrough with the 1998 work Wires with Computer by Jeanne Silverthorne.
Jeanne Silverthorne's twisted network of cast-rubber electrical wiring plays on oppositions between energy / dissipation, image / object, and sculpture / environment. Peter Downsbrough�s exactingly installed, perceptually challenging arrangement of two black pipes is likewise activated by tensions between the graphic and the volumetric and also works to disturb the distinction between the object and its setting. Dead Center / Marginal Notes: Peter Downsbrough / Jeanne Silverthorne juxtaposes these two works � which initially appear quite different � to investigate how artisanal and de-skilled, studio-based and post-studio, representational and abstract practices address similar concerns.
Since the 1960s, Peter Downsbrough�s work in installation, print, sculpture and video � among other media � has been exhibited throughout Europe and the United States. Downsbrough�s wide-ranging practice was the subject of a 2003 traveling retrospective organized by the Palais des Beaux-Arts in the artist�s adoptive hometown of Brussels, Belgium.
Jeanne Silverthorne has been exhibiting her work in installation, photography and sculpture nationally and internationally for over twenty years. Her recent projects have included solo presentations at the Butler Gallery in Kilkenny, Ireland and at Seoul�s Gallery Seomi. Additionally, the artist is a widely published critical writer and a noted educator. Silverthorne is represented by McKee Gallery in New York, were she lives and works.
Dead Center / Marginal Notes series curator John Neff lives and works in Chicago. His artwork is represented by Western Exhibitions, where he will be presenting a solo exhibition in May of 2008. Neff's past curatorial projects have included �Hysterical Pastoral� at the Ukrainian Museum of Modern Art and �Cold Conceptualism� at Suitable Gallery, both in Chicago. His writings have recently been published in BAT Journal #5 and in the exhibition catalog Vincent Como: In Praise of Darkness.
Emily Blair will be presenting new �peepshow� books in Western Exhibitions Drawing Room Gallery. The Drawing Room, in the rear of Western Exhibitions multi-room space, is periodically used to exhibit artists working on paper, with a concentration on artist books. The show opens on April 5, 2008 with a public reception from 6 to 9pm.
Emily Blair�s books physically telescope to show a series of receding planes, each one collaged with the image of a discrete, theatrical space. The effect is one of dream-like disjunction: an office cubicle leads into a redwood forest, an aquarium merges with a costume drama. The scenic elements are drawn on scratchboard, in a manner reminiscent of line engraving, enhancing the impression that the books are conventional illustrations that have unfolded to meet the viewer. Incorporating eclectic images and subjects, Blair examines the ways in which power operates through visual structures such as dioramas and television� as well as the ways in which a motivational poster can seriously harsh your mellow. Kim Novak, Alphonse de Lamartine and George Eliot are featured, in addition to a renowned celebrity feud of Hollywood�s golden age, when they knew how to carry a grudge.
Emily Blair�s work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally, including solo and collaborative shows in Belgrade, Florence, Italy, Alfred University in New York, and the Map Room in Portland, Maine and group shows at Ironworks Gallery in the Bronx, the Warhol Museum and Wood Street Gallery, both in Pittsburgh, and the Soap Factory in Minneapolis. Blair�s comic books, �Living Statues� and �Soap Opera� have been lavishly praised in the Comics Journal, Bags and Boards, Zine World, Art New England, and the Portland Gazette. Of �Soap Opera�, Steven Grant of Comic Book Resources said �If this is a debut, it's the best debut I've seen in a long time�. She has been awarded a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Fiction and a Xeric Foundation Self-Publishing Grant. Blair received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lives and works in Brooklyn.
