de Soto Gallery News

Connie Samaras review in LA Times

2011-02-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/02/the-city-of-the-future-exposed-at-uc-riverside-museum.html

Connie Samaras at UCR/California Museum of Photography

2011-01-31T10:38:00.000-08:00

Connie Samaras: After the American Century

Saturday, February 5, 2011
6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
UCR/California Museum of Photography
3824 Main Street
Riverside, California
www.cmp.ucr.edu/exhibitions/samaras
www.artsblock.ucr.edu

The exhibition is on view February 5–April 2, 2011

Shot at the start of the worldwide economic downturn in December 2008 and March 2009, After the American Century is a series of photographs and videos examining the self-branding of Dubai, United Arab Emirates as a far future, global capitalist haven nestled in the imaginary of an unchanging past, the Arabian desert. Shown for the first time in Southern California, the photographs selected for this exhibit depict the urban landscape in such a way that it is difficult to tell whether the city is moving towards a state of becoming or obsolescence. Magic Planet, a video installation newly created for the CMP show, formally draws from the textured quality of establishing shots in science fiction films and focuses on the laborers imported to build Dubai and the varying landscapes they inhabit.

This exhibition coincides with UC Riverside’s annual Eaton Science Fiction Conference (February 11-13, 2011) at which Samaras will be giving a paper about recent projects and their relationship to differing tropes of future imaginaries.

After the American Century was funded by grants from UC Institute for Research on the Arts, UC Council on Research, Computing & Libraries, and the Montalvo Arts Center for the exhibition series Agency: The Work of Artists, Julie Lazar, curator.

February 5 is the opening celebration for three exhibitions at UCR ARTSblock.
From 6:00pm to 9:00pm artists and curators will be present during opening receptions for exhibitions taking place at the California Museum of Photography, Sweeney Art Gallery, and Culver Center. Curatorial introductions and artist talks begin at 6:30pm at UCR/CMP. Maya Goded will discuss Las Olvidadas - The Forgotten Women; Connie Samaras will speak about After the American Century. At 7:30pm at the Sweeney Art Gallery artist Margarita Cabrera and Artistic Director and Curator Tyler Stallings discuss Pulso y Martillo - Pulse and Hammer. Cabrera’s performance, “Pulse and Hammer” will be presented in the Culver Atrium throughout the evening.

Photo by Connie Samaras, “Workers, Sheikh Zayed Road,” 2009

Trujillo-Paumier's Quince Quinceañeras at Colette, Paris August 2 - 28, 2010

2010-08-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.colette.fr/#/page/5204/trujillo-paumier/

Denis Darzacq on Artforum.com

2010-07-14T10:04:00.001-07:00

http://artforum.com/picks/section=la#picks23928

Denis Darzacq on Artslant.com

2010-07-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.artslant.com/la/articles/show/17615

Pascual Sisto at Five Thirty Three

2010-04-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

ABSOLUTELY NOT: Recent Works by Pascual Sisto.

APRIL 10, 2010 - MAY 1, 2010
Opening April 10th from 7-10pm

533 South Los Angeles Street
Second Floor
Los Angeles, California 90013
213 627 1541
www.fivethirtythree.org

Five Thirty Three in collaboration with de Soto Gallery presents
Absolutely Not: Recent Works by Pascual Sisto.

Pascual Sisto's new works explore themes of emancipation and the absolute, or better yet, absolute emancipation. The artist reconsiders historical events and significant philosophical documents that greatly influenced contemporary society and specifically his own personal artistic practice. These include the ephemeral writings on the walls of Paris that preceded the events of May 1968 to centuries-old monuments and significant philosophical works in either book or film. Sisto emancipates these seminal works by revisiting and modifying the original sources with a range from subtle to sometimes destructive variations. Through looking back, the works play with the anticipation of what is to come.
The exhibition includes neon, video, photography, text, and a confetti blast performance at 8pm.

Jeffrey Wells: Seeing While Seeing at SMMoA

2010-01-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

Santa Monica Museum of Art
Project Room: Jeffrey Wells - Seeing While Seeing
January 16 - April 17, 2010

Opening Reception: Friday, January 16, 7 to 9 p.m.

Jeffrey Wells' work stems from wanting to explore and exploit the optical phenomenon that happens to us while doing something as simple as staring at a white wall. His video projections are participatory performances that use light, time and optics to create an element of surprise. For Seeing While Seeing, Wells will create a series of new, site-specific, projected works that mimic a variety of visual phenomena from after-effects and aura to color and shape-shifts - the room will literally come alive with his animated projections. Each work makes you questions whether what you see is real or just an animated effect.

Wells received his M.F.A. from UCLA in 2006, and lives and works in Joshua Tree, California.

http://www.smmoa.org/index.php/exhibitions/details/226

Homesick - Group Show curated by Joaquin Trujillo

2009-12-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, CA

Opens December 12, 2009, 4 - 7pm

On view through February 21, 2010

http://www.trujillopaumier.com/homesick/

Sonja Vordermaier's Dämmerzunder on Artforum.com

2009-10-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

http://artforum.com/archive/id=23928

Connie Samaras at Montalvo Arts Center

2009-07-16T16:14:00.000-07:00

AGENCY: THE WORK OF ARTISTS

Enjoy Your Time, a new installation by Connie Samaras. Excerpts from After the American Century (2009), Vast Active Living Intelligence System (2005), Angelic States-Event Sequence (1998-2003)

As an artist, photographer, activist and professor, Connie Samaras addresses a broad range of subjects in her work, including constructions of technology and history.

As part of AGENCY, selections from Samaras' recent photographic series and videos will be on display:

Angelic States—Event Sequence: examines the techno-landscaping of U.S. urban spaces in L.A., New York and Las Vegas
V.A.L.I.S. (Vast Active Living Intelligence System): a National Science Foundation sponsored series of pictures that depict liminal spaces between life support architecture and the extreme environment of the South Pole, Antarctica.
After the American Century: a partial commission by Montalvo, combines photography and a video installation shot in Dubai, U.A.E. investigates speculative landscapes, future imaginaries, and global capitalism.

http://montalvoarts.org/exhibitions/connie_samaras/

Pascual Sisto at the Istanbul Modern

2009-05-29T14:38:00.001-07:00

Significant and Insignificant Events.

Exhibition at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art

May 26th - Aug 16th

Curated by Paolo Colombo.

www.istanbulmodern.org

This exhibition explores the meaning of events deeply steeped in military pageantry, that can appear to the viewer as bearers of lofty significance and value, and a number of apparently random and puzzling events, which are in fact loaded with hidden meaning. Through the juxtaposition of the works of three artists, Amar Kanwar, Shahzia Sikander and Pascual Sisto, this program suggests that events that are rooted in tradition and in courtly spectacles follow similar modes and rituals of anodyne events (as one can gather from the procession of joggers and cyclists in Pascual Sisto’s Beneath the Paving Stones the Beach and the retinue of army bands in Shahzia Sikander’s Bending the Barrel.)

The title of this exhibition is culled from a sentence that overlays an image of a Pakistani army band in Shazia Skander’s latest video, Bending the Barrel.

Fernando Sanchez on Flavorpill

2009-05-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

The performances and video, audio, and sculptural installations of LA-based artist Fernando Sanchez are often as sparse and DIY as it gets; favoring grainy images, unframed photographs, cardboard pedestals, and limited post-production fanciness, Sanchez opts to focus more on the contents' premises and a naughty sense of humor. A perennial subject of his work is the ruthless deconstruction and rampant substitution of identities — for example, students assume the personas of gangsta rappers to examine the nature of power. In the web-based series LA Art Sucks, meanwhile, Sanchez disguised himself as a disgruntled amateur critic and posted his rantings. – Shana Nys Dambrot
http://flavorpill.com/losangeles/events/2009/4/4/fernando-sanchez

Connie Samaras @ Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland, NZ

2009-05-07T13:33:00.000-07:00

Antarctica: Joyce Cambell, Anne Noble, Connie Samaras

8 May - 20 June, 2009

Antarctica brings together work by Joyce Campbell, Anne Noble, and Connie Samaras on the subject of Antarctica, the most extreme continent on the planet. Artist residencies enabled each of them to photograph and experience firsthand the severe and almost inhuman conditions. Each artist's work approaches the subject with differing yet overlapping frameworks, creating a transcultural dialogue that seeks to de-exoticise a landscape that has been romanticised, idealised, and made epic.

http://www.creative.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/about/art-collection-and-galleries/gus-fisher-gallery/events/template/event_item.jsp?cid=114837

Jeffrey Wells in LA Times

2009-05-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

Review: Jeffrey Wells at De Soto Gallery

10:45 AM, March 6, 2009

Jeffrey Wells is a bit of a trickster, interested in the porous boundary between perception and deception. He has a sense of humor reminiscent of Bruce Nauman and a curiosity about visual processing akin to the Light and Space artists of the 1970s.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/03/review-jeffrey.html

Pascual Sisto in Contemporary Semantics Beta

2009-02-10T11:04:00.000-08:00

Arti et Amicitae, Amsterdam February 13rd - March 22nd

Group exhibition with Ryan Barone, Chris Coy, Harm van den Dorpel, Constant Dullaart, Martijn Hendriks, Frank Koolen, Jan Robert Leegte, Guthrie Lonergan, Ellis McDonald, Jon Rafman, Pascual Sisto and Ola Vasiljeva.

Curated by Constant Dullaart.

LINK

SE Barnet upcoming London exhibition

2009-02-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

DOES GOD LIVE IN THE NO-FLY ZONE’
SE BARNET and THE KIT COLLABORATION

SE Barnet and The KIT Collaboration take a look at the restricted airspace above the dwellings of selected Heads of States in cities such as London, Berlin, Paris and Moscow. Their images capture the act of looking up into the nationalized sky, a space of covert restrictions, surveillance, threat and anxiety. The photographs are accompanied by Symphony for No Fly Zones, a twelve hour audio work. This uses layers of national anthems, slowed and transformed into a textured sonic universe.

http://www.fiveyears.org.uk/archive2/pages/041/pages/041.html

Jeffrey Wells in Jerry Saltz' Top 10 List of 2008

2009-02-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

6. Jeffrey Wells

"For his sleeper show, Wells projected barely visible auras of light, shifting blips, and flickering effects on the white walls and onto the furnishings. Visitors experienced the vision that happens without lenses, the glitches, negative images, flashes, and floaters our eyes produce."

http://nymag.com/arts/cultureawards/2008/52749/index1.html