Defining Detritus . 08Sep18 – 06Oct18 . Opening Reception Sat 08Sep 6-9p . Arena 01 Gallery

Arena 01 Gallery
3026 Airport Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90405

Defining Detritus
   curated by China Adams

“Defining Detritus brings together a group of Los Angeles based artists who share the practice of regularly working in collage – a medium that speaks specifically to the transient nature of material.  Collage celebrates the decayed, worn-out and cast-aside.  The exhibition offers a visual metaphor on how art can help us come to terms with our fragility (and even find beauty in it).” – China Adams

Participating artists: China Adams, Sandy de Lissovoy, Renée Fox, Jane Handel, Jacci Den Hartog, Doug Harvey, Seonna Hong, Jason Ellenburg Jones, Bernard Leibov (Boxo), John Luckett, Lilah Lutes, Nuttaphol Ma, Marisa Mandler, David McDonald, Michael Oliveri, Angela Stage, Don Suggs, Young Y. Summers, Jake Townsend, Ozzy Trujillo, Joan Weinzettle, Ewa Wojciak, Joan Wulf, HK Zamani, and Alexis Zoto.

Think towards arrival, but not of lost heart. – Nuttaphol Ma

For the exhibition, I present คิดถึงได้แต่อย่าเสียใจ (Kit tung dai, deh yah sieh jai).  They are words from a Thai elder which loosely translate to the title of my ephemeral sculpture – Think towards arrival, but not of lost heart.  The resulting work for the show gestures an act of ancestral veneration.  Using debris from newspaper and cast-off cardboard packaging material, I set out to collage these elements to construct a model of my ancestral house.  For the duration of the exhibition, the object becomes a temporal spirit house.  It rests on handcrafted sawhorses made from discarded wood scraps.  At the end of the exhibition, my family and I will cremate the house as an offering to our ancestors.  The ashes will be collected for my eventual pilgrimage to the highest peak of continental US.  There, I shall offer these ashes to the spirits in the sky.

08 Sep 2018 – 06 Oct 2018
Opening Reception:  Sat 08 Sep 2018 . 6p-9p
Gallery Hours:  Wed – Sat 12noon – 6pm
Phone:  310.397.7456
Link:  Arena 1 Gallery – Defining Detritus

 

Exhibition

6 September 2018

Leave a comment

Walk with Me . 24Aug18 – 14Sep18 . Reception > (opening) Fri 24Aug 5-8p (closing) Fri 14Sep 5-8p . Film Screening Thu 30Aug 730p-9p . Santa Fe Art Institute

 

Santa Fe Art Institute
1600 St. Michaels Drive
Santa Fe NM 87502

presents

Walk with Me

SFAI Alumni Fellow Nuttaphol Ma presents Walk With Me, a contemplative installation about a migrant’s tale, a journey into the heart of Ma’s durational work of rebuilding his ancestral house. “I do not have much but what I do have are my body, my words and my actions. When woven together, humble acts and gestures placed onto contested sites become powerful voices of poetic resistance over the course of time.” Since 2011, Ma has taken on a lifelong project entitled “The China Outpost” which he defines as his nomadic sweatshop of one. The outpost operates within a migratory framework where Ma labors on transforming discarded plastic bags into threads – a material he will use as one of the core building materials for the eventual reconstruction of his great- grandfather’s home.

Walk With Me invites participants to wander within the lobby and gallery space at SFAI. Relics, artifacts and photo documentation of activities within The China Outpost fill the lobby space. A partial model of Ma’s ancestral house anchors the main gallery. The south wall is activated by a map of the outpost’s forthcoming transcontinental journey suggesting Ma’s radical cartographic approach in remapping “The Grand Army of the Republic Highway” with his body, actions and words. The north wall is blocked off by a handcrafted fabric wall that becomes the surface for Ma’s video projection of his durational walk along Highway 190 from the Badwater Basin to Whitney Portal.

Public programs to accompany the exhibition include the following:

SFAI Lunch Time Talk

Wed 25 Jul 2018 > 1200-100p
Title:  “Mapping The China Outpost: Temporal Settlements within a Cobweb of Contentious Spaces”
Description:  Nuttaphol Ma presents the context surrounding the formation of his on-going project entitled The China Outpost. Ma highlights significant events that shape its current migratory form.
Location:  SFAI Library
Link:  SFAI Facebook Event

Wed 12 Sep 2018 > 1200-100p
Title: “Work-in-Progress: How do I begin to talk about the spatial injustices that rest beneath the kindred sites of Angel Island and Shamian Island?”
Description:  Nuttaphol Ma examines the relationships between Angel Island and Shamian Island and how they relate to the future direction of The China Outpost project.
Location:  SFAI Library
Link:  SFAI Facebook Event

Film Screening

A series of films by Nuttaphol Ma will accompany the exhibition. Ma interweaves storytelling between each films to contextualize The China Outpost’s thematic exploration about invisible labor and her occupation of contested sites.

The films to be screened are the following:
+ Born by the River (28 min) . 2013
+ Shitpipe Explosion @ The China Outpost (28 min) . 2012
+ A Grain of Rice Under a Microscope (8 min) . 2013
+ The China Outpost > on the road @ Union Station (2 min) . 2014
+ The China Outpost > on the road . New Mexico . 01May027May2016 (15 min) . 2016
+ Mr. Proud, Why do I have to Memorize the Star Spangled Banner? (2 min) . 2017
Link:  SFAI / Walk wth Me / Film Screening / Nuttaphol Ma

24 Aug 2018 – 14 Sep 2018
Opening Reception:  Fri 24 Aug 2018 5p-8p with Artist Walkthrough @ 630p
Film Screening:  Thu 30 Aug 2018 730p-9p @ SFAI Lobby Space
Closing Reception:  Fri 14 Sep 2018 5p-8p
Gallery Hours:  Mon – Fri 10a – 5p
Phone:  505.424.5050
Link: SFAI / Walk with Me / Exhibition / Nuttaphol Ma

Artist Talk / Conversation, Exhibition, Film

27 July 2018

Leave a comment

Walk with Me / Film Screening . Thu 30 Aug . 730p-9p Santa Fe Art Institute

 

Santa Fe Art Institute
1600 St. Michaels Drive
Santa Fe NM 87502

presents

Nuttaphol Ma:  Walk with Me >>> Film Screening

 

A series of films by Nuttaphol Ma will accompany his Walk with Me Exhibition.  Ma interweaves storytelling between each films to contextualize The China Outpost’s thematic exploration about invisible labor and her occupation of contested sites. 

The films to be screened are the following:

Born by the River (28min) . 2013
From a chance finding of a B/W photo circa 1885 of an unknown Chinese laborer working in Death Valley, Nuttaphol Ma took on his persona to march out of Badwater Basin.  The resulting essay film questions the interpretation of the structural remnants of Harmony Borax Works, the laborer’s employer, as to why the plaque of this national landmark honors the owner and not the workers.  This absurdist undertaking exemplifies what one can do to break the silent norm. The work begins my probe into the ideals of the American Dream by revealing the spatial injustice of such contested sites.

Shitpipe Explosion @ The China Outpost (28min) . 2012
The short film captures an event that took place at The China Outpost, a self-imposed sweatshop created by Nuttaphol Ma at the basement of a defunct art gallery in Chinatown Los Angeles from 01 Oct 2011 to 31 Dec 2012. As a result of sewage water from the gallery’s toilet directly above the sweatshop overflowing into the space, Ma was told that part of the sweatshop was to be jack-hammered on 10 Feb 2012. In preparation for the event, Ma cut the site in half, one side to continue to iron while the other side to stage the workers’ excavation and realignment of the shitpipes below. Readings from Maxine Hong Kingston, Andrew Lam, dialogues between the unknown workers, sounds from Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, the saw, the pounding align the seemingly disconnected points to create murmurs between the spectacle of the mundane and the absurdity of the everyday.

A Grain of Rice Under a Microscope (8min) . 2013
The film’s undertaking was inspired from an event that took place at Ma’s retail day job on a busy Autumn Sunday in 2010. One of his colleague approached him looking deeply distraught. She saw our managers watching our activities on the sales floor from the office’s computer monitor making a “play-by-play” commentary of us. This exchange left the artist numbed – waking up the following day feeling like a grain of rice under a microscope.

In 2013, Ma set out to retrace his experience of that busy Autumn Sunday. Under his own terms, he performed the act of sitting and surveying in and around the premise of a fast food restaurant to mirror the 8 hour shift of the workers behind the counter. Two rolls of B/W super 8 film were deconstructed to shoot one frame for every four seconds in order to captured his 8 hour sitting where he recorded unfolding events and conversations that occurred between management, himself and two police officers.

The China Outpost > on the road @ Union Station (2min) . 2014
According to the statement of significance from National Register Nomination, “ Los Angeles Union Station, is a very handsome landmark that is a milestone in architectural history and the history of transportation in America.” What the statement of significance failed to acknowledge was the displacement of community members of what was the original Chinatown where the station is built upon. Ma’s site specific performance of re-situating and working within the mobile unit of The China Outpost at Union Station silently protested the spatial injustice that lies beneath the land. The durational performance of processing plastic bags into threads at this contested site invited curious passerby to meaningful conversation about my actions and the history of Union Station.

Whist there, Mike, a wanderer from St. Louis approached him. He asked the wanderer if he has family. His mother lives in Phoenix caring for his 84 year old grandmother. Ma asked him why not join them. He responded, “the house is too small.”

The China Outpost > on the road . New Mexico . 01May-27May2016 (15min) . 2016
Day in and day out, from 01May to 27May 2016, The China Outpost occupied parking lots of big box stores along Cerrillos Road – a major thoroughfare leading to Santa Fe that has eroded its intimacy to a web of megastores. The sociocultural interventions at these contested sites function as make-shift forums that invite curious passerby to open ended conversations about migration and the labor of adapting to a new home.

The month’s work is housed in an essay film that captured an unscripted journey culminating to a serendipitous conversation with the Governor of Abiquiu Pueblo named Ten Crows in which he posed an un-answerable question, that is … How do we free our oppressors?

Mr. Proud, Why do I Have to Memorize the Star Spangled Banner? (2min) . 2017
Invisible labor goes unseen, unheard and those who put in the labor repeat the task over and over again. It is an arduous conditioning of the mind to stomach the pace, the rhythm. It is heroic because collectively these unspoken tasks are the voiceless blood and tears of our socio-economic landscape. This site specific durational work transforms the gallery’s wall space into a form of a flag – a nameless, stateless flag that honors the heroic mundane with dimension repurposed from a typical drywall size flipped horizontally.

The video documents the labor of Ma’s wall markings that took place at Human Resources Gallery’s “off” hours at 8 hour shift intervals as part of his durational performance work. These hours replicated the graveyard shift suggesting not as an artist’s attempt to romanticize and patronize the idea of invisible labor but it was Ma’s honest truth. At the time of making this piece, the artist juggled jobs between multiple teaching sites and his retail day job. The only available hours in the day to navigate around his situation was from 11pm to 7am.

---

 

Place:  Santa Fe Art Institute
Date:  Thu 30 Aug 2018
Time: 730p – 9p
Phone: 505.424.5050
Link: SFAI / Walk with Me / Film Screening / Nuttaphol Ma

Artist Talk / Conversation, Exhibition, Film

27 July 2018

Leave a comment

Lunch Time Talks with Nuttaphol Ma . Wed 25Jul18 noon-1p + Wed 12Sep18 noon-1p @ Santa Fe Art Institute

Santa Fe Art Institute
1600 St. Michaels Drive
Santa Fe NM 87502

presents

Lunch Time Talk with Nuttaphol Ma

Join SFAI Alumni Fellow, Nuttaphol Ma, for lunch time talks on Wednesday, 25Jul and Wednesday, 12Sep from noon- 1p in the SFAI Library.

Date:  Wed 25 Jul 2018 . noon – 1p
Title:  “Mapping The China Outpost:  Temporal Settlements within a Cobweb of Contentious Spaces”
Description:  Nuttaphol Ma presents the context surrounding the formation of his on-going project entitled The China Outpost.  Ma highlights significant events that shape its current migratory form.
Link:  SFAI Facebook Event

Date:  Wed 12 Sep 2018 . noon – 1p
Title:  “Work-in-Progress:  How do I begin to talk about the spatial injustices that rest beneath the kindred sites of Angel Island and Shamian Island?”
Description:  Nuttaphol Ma examines the relationships between Angel Island and Shamian Island and how they relate to the future direction of The China Outpost project.
Link:  SFAI Facebook Event

Contact Details:
Phone:  505.424.5050

Uncategorized

22 July 2018

Leave a comment

MANIFESTO: A Moderate Proposal . 20Jan – 29Mar 2018 . Curated by Ciara Ennis and Jennifer Vanderpool . Reception 20Jan 3-5p @ Pitzer College Nichols Gallery . Symposium 23Mar 10a-3p @ Pitzer College Benson Auditorium

Pitzer College Art Gallery
1050 N Mills Avenue
Claremont CA 91711

presents

MANIFESTO:  A Moderate Proposal

The people have spoken.  They have put it in writing.  They have created manifestos.  Pitzer College Art Galleries has collected these works and put them on display in MANIFESTO: A Moderate Proposal, an exhibition of the ideas, wishes and demands of scores of citizens with something to say and a need to be heard. It is our current climate of discord that created Manifesto: A Moderate Proposal. It was conceived to give these citizens a soapbox and to amplify their voices.

MANIFESTO: A Moderate Proposal is a multitude of opinions hung densely, floor-to-ceiling, in sections that reflect the numerous themes that include immigration, ableism, race, resistance, religion and gentrification.  Funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the exhibition was conceived as an outlet for ideas and proposals for the healing of discord in our society and improvement of conditions for all citizens.  With the public sphere embroiled in a seemingly intractable contest of us-versus-them so virulent that it has filtered down to a neighbor-vs-neighbor antagonism, it is essential that we reexamine just who we are and what we stand for.  MANIFESTO: A Moderate Proposal has joined the conversation.

The art community has come together. In solidarity, we are

Alexandra Juhasz & Craig Dietrich, Alice Könitz, Alice Marie Perreault, Alison O’Daniel, Amy Elkins, Andrea Bowers, Andrew Bracey, Alice Wingwall, Anthony Bodlović, April Bey, Arseli Dokumaci, Astri Swendsrud, Ava Morton, Bill Anthes, Byron Toledo, Candice Lin, Carlin Wing, Carlos Jackson, Carrie Paterson, Catherine Long, Cathy Akers, Charlotte Sherman, Chris Christian, Chris Michno, Christina Ondrus, Connie Samaras, Dana Sperry and Natalya Pinchuk, Danielle Adair, David Goldblatt, David Michael Lee, Doran George, Edgar Endress, Edgar Heap of Birds, Edgar Arceneaux, Elena Bajo, Elana Mann & John Burtle, Faith Wilding, Faye Ray, Fiona Jack, First Street Gallery Art Center: Patrick Dwyre, Katie Mendoza and Joe Zaldivar, Francesca Lalanne, Glenn Harcourt, Gluklya (Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya), Ginger Wolfe-Suarez, Helén Svensson, Ian Ingram, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Ingrid Von Sydow, Jane Callister, Jennifer Moon, Jennifer Moon & Laub, Jen Smith, Jenny Perlin, Jenny Yurshansky, Jesse Lerner, Jessica McCoy, Jessica Wimbley, Joe Parker, Johanna Karlin, Josh Callaghan, Joyce Campbell, Juan Siliverio, Julia Haft Candell, Juliet Johnson, Justin Arroyo, Kang Seung Lee, Karen Lofgren, kate-hers RHEE (이미래), Kaucyila Brooke, Kotti & Co, Berlin, Liat Yossifor, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Lisa Jevbratt, Liz Glynn, Liz Young, Lorenzo Hurtado Segovia, Luis Zepeda, Mary Clare Stevens, Matt Ohm, Martabel Wasserman, Max King Cap, Michael Parker, Michelle Dizon, Michelle Wiener, Mike Bode, Nancy Baker Cahill, Nuttaphol Ma, Olga Koumoundouros, Peter Su, Racial Imaginary, Robin Lehleitner, Sadie Barnette, Sandra de la Loza & Eduardo Molinari, Sara Hendren & Caitrin Lynch, Sarita Dougherty, Seher Uysal, Seth Pringle, Sheila Pinkel, Southwark Notes, London, Stephanie Syjuco, Suné Woods, The artists from California Institution for Women, Chino, The artists from California Rehabilitation Center, Norco, The Rational Dress Society, Theo Tegelaers, Timothy Berg & Rebekah Myers, Tom Skelly, Tony Crowley, Ultra Red & School of Echoes, Los Angeles, Vermont College of Fine Arts | VCFA: Felipe Baeza, Hazel Batrezchavez, Julian Harper, Luis Mejico, pegah pasalar, Ythan Ponio, Zahra Zavareh, and XIAOQING ZHU, Victoria Marks, Việt Lê, Von Curtis, Warren Neidich, Weshoyot Alvitre, Women’s Center for Creative Work, Xarabyte

—————————————————

I am thrilled and honored to be a part of this collective voice.  My contributing MANIFESTO is entitled Small Gestures > Poetic RESISTANCE!

“I do not have much but what I do have are my body, my words, and my actions.  When woven together, these humble acts of small gestures become powerful voices of poetic resistance over the course of time.  Since 2011, I’ve taken on a lifelong project entitled The China Outpost which I define as my nomadic sweatshop of one.  It operates within a migratory framework where I labor on transforming discarded plastic bags into threads – a material I am amassing as one of the core building materials for the eventual reconstruction of my ancestral house.

The work presented in the exhibition maps out The China Outpost’s transcontinental journey across US-Route 6, also known as “The Grand Army of the Republic Highway”.  The map details all the towns intersecting Route 6 which will become sites for the outpost’s sociocultural interventions as make-shift forums that invite passerby to open ended conversations about migration and the labor of adapting to a new home.”

 

Time:  Saturday 20 Jan 2018 – Thursday 29 Mar 2018
Opening Reception:  Sat 20 Jan . 3-5p
Related Event:  Symposium Fri 23Mar2018 . Benson Auditorium Pitzer College . 10a-3p
Contact:  pitzer_galleries@pitzer.edu
Phone:  909.607.8797
Link: https://www.pitzer.edu/galleries/manifesto-moderate-proposal/ 

Uncategorized

17 January 2018

Leave a comment

Duty of Care . 14Oct – 24Nov . Opening Reception / Artist Talk Sat 14Oct 6-8p @ Collective Arts Incubator

The Collective Arts Incubator
1200 North Avenue 54
Los Angeles CA 90042

presents

Duty of Care

Political and social abuses of power dehumanize and efface disenfranchised people through avarice actions, thereby robbing them of hope and ultimately pacifying their resistance. Despite the odds, some soldier on. There are organizations that fight for social justice, authors who dare to dissent, and artists who create works that affirm humanity and rouse our burdened spirit. It is at this juncture where the artworks in Duty of Care exist, querying rather than resolving prevailing practices. 

Max King Cap (USA), Edgar Endress (Chile) and Nuttaphol Ma (Thailand/USA) in Duty of Care document, enact, and embody our responsibilities and failings.  Their activism-inspired works in this exhibition continue our ongoing conversation on the role art should play in society. 

In his “Tyrants” series, Cap inhabits megalomania through a series of self-portraits as dictators, asking the viewer, “What would you do with unlimited power?” He asked himself this question and become ashamed of the answer.  What lies underneath Endress’s series of portraits in The Mask of the Shoeshiner were once young Bolivian professionals who, after a financial collapse due to international speculation, took any sort of job to make ends meet.  One of those jobs was that of a shoeshiner wearing masks so that the shame of their social diminishment might remain hidden.  With an ascetic’s devotion, Ma’s durational performance of a sweatshop of one entitled “The China Outpost” embodies the struggles of the unknown laborers which he draws from his own experiences at his retail day job of thirteen years.  Within his outpost, Ma embeds an ecological coda as he transforms plastic bags into threads, amassing them to one day use to reconstruct his ancestral house.  Relics from The China Outpost (2010-present) provides a chronicle of objects, text and images that has resulted from Ma’s self-imposed sweatshop.

This exhibition is curated by Ciara Ennis and Jennifer Vanderpool.

Time:  Sat 14 Oct 2017 – Friday 24 Nov 2017
Opening Reception / Artist Talk:  Sat 14 Oct . 6-8p
Gallery Hours:  by appointment only
Contact:  Max King Cap
Phone:  323.314.9856
Link:  Collective Arts Incubator – Duty of Care

Exhibition

Ciara Ennis, contemporary art, Edgar Endress, Jennifer Vanderpool, Max King Cap, Nuttaphol Ma

9 October 2017

Leave a comment

Equal Justice . 20Sep – 27Sep . Opening Reception Wed 20Sep 530-8p @ Santa Fe Art Institute

Santa Fe Art Institute
1600 St. Michaels Drive . Santa Fe . New Mexico 87505

presents

Equal Justice

SFAI’s Equal Justice Residents are creative practitioners from all over the world, coming together to investigate how can art be used to engage systems of power and foster social and racial equity. This exhibition will highlight the work of current and local artists in residence.

Participating artists / collectives include:  Alicia Marie Rencountre-Da Silva . Cara Levine . Confluence Collective . Gil Arnold Ngolé . Israel Francisco Haros Lopez . Jacinthe TwoBulls . Jackie Munro . La Familia Medical Center . Naomi Fawn Moss . Nuttaphol Ma . Peggy Diggs . Shelbie Loomis . Tamara Ann Burgh . Tiger Toe Collective.

Time:  Wed 20 Sep 2017 – Wed 27 Sep 2017
Opening Reception:  Wed 20 Sep . 530p – 8p
Gallery Hours:  M-F 9-5p
Phone:  505.424.5050
Link:  https://sfai.org/ej_exhibition/

As part of the Equal Justice exhibition, I shall be presenting Juárez Thumbleweed – a video documentation of a site specific performance that took place in Ciudad Juárez.

Exhibition, Film

17 September 2017

Leave a comment

Analog Dissident . Conversations with Nuttaphol Ma and Nooshin Rostami . THU 13Jul17 . 1900p @ The Mistake Room

Analog Dissident is an on-going project by multidisciplinary artist Jimena Sarno that brings together radical/immigrant/queer artists and thinkers to have meaningful conversations on topics ranging from inclusion/exclusion, consensus, capitalism, security culture, immigration, citizenship, and the environment.  Analog Dissident creates a non-hierarchical space that is supportive and fosters relationships / collaborative opportunities.

Analog Dissident / July 2017 features conversations with Nuttaphol Ma and Nooshin Rostami.  Nuttaphol Ma is a nomad, a storyteller and a rock climber.  Nooshin Rostami is a slow running, a fast swimmer and a curious adventurer/soul.

Time:  Thursday 13 Jul 2017 . 1900p
Place:  The Mistake Room . 1811 East 20th Street . Los Angeles CA 90015
Link:  http://analogdissident.org/about-analog-dissident

Artist Talk / Conversation

art, Jimena Sarno, Nooshin Rostami

11 July 2017

Leave a comment

Mauricio Esquivel: At the Borders . 18Mar – 29Apr 2017 . Video Installation of “Bells from an Empty Flagpole . Lokkus Arte Contemporáneo . Medellin COLOMBIA

Lokkus Arte Contemporáneo
Carrera 36 No. 10A 35 Edificio “La double Elle”
Medellín . COLOMBIA

presents

Mauricio Esquivel:  At the Borders

 “At the Borders” brings together the most striking aesthetic proposals of Salvadoran artist Mauricio Esquivel.  The exhibition presents Esquivel’s work from 2010 to 2016.  The project also presents three guest works by artists with whom Esquivel has had a dialogue on violence, migration and informal economy.  The guest artists are:  Michael Conti (United States), Nataliya Petkova (Bulgaria) and Nuttaphol Ma (United States / Thailand).

For the exhibition, Nuttaphol Ma presents a video installation of his recent film entitled “Bells from an Empty Flagpole” which chronicles a man’s journey, a wandering search for the coveted yucca flower deep in the heart of the desert sea.  The film gives a complex glimpse of a hopeful observer’s response to discovering that his two Salvadorian friends had been denied entry to the US.  The unfolding story negotiates the landscape of New Mexico to make sense of the current socio-political uncertainties where borders and boundaries are in question.

Exhibition, Film

18 March 2017

Leave a comment

Making Plans . 18Mar – 26Mar . Opening Reception Sat 18Mar 7p-10p . Film Screening Sun 26Mar 6p-8p @ Human Resources

Human Resources
410 Cottage Home Street . Los Angeles . 90012

presents

MAKING PLANS

MAKING PLANS brings together a coalition of artists engaging with issues of labor, access, invisibility, and power through various actions. In the introduction to Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (1974), a transcription of interviews with working people, oral historian Studs Terkel begins by likening work to violence. This “daily humiliation,” is at the root of a Capitalist condition which, as Marx wrote many years prior, “uses up its material factors, its subject and its instruments, consuming them,” yet continues to endure, despite an established discourse and data all but exhausting its systemic flaws and troubled histories.  

This violence also emphasizes a search for daily meaning, rationale for the empty hours, dissent and hopelessness of that condition. In MAKING PLANS, new economies of production emerge or return in retaliation, deliberately positioning life and practice in such a way that acknowledges complicity, yet still consistently working to eradicate that which does not work.

If we accept that Capitalism has failed us, but that a true Communism cannot [yet?] be achieved, how do we proceed? As Paulo Freire’s writes,“only human beings are praxis;” a constant and vigilant re-examination of the pervasive, endangering methodologies are needed, so that something else, something better, might arise. MAKING PLANS unsettles politics of the felt sense, the haptic, oral, performed and unforming; laboring for emancipation through an indeterminate apparatus, unfolding through the show’s duration.

“I’m not so much despairing as asking a question about making plans.”
Fred Moten

Artists in the exhibition include: Astrovandalistas (Rodrigo Frenk, Lleslie Garcia and Thiago Hersan), Díaz Lewis (Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera and Cara Megan Lewis), Ishi Glinsky, Nuttaphol Ma, Jimena Sarno, Aram Han Sifuentes and Kim Zumpfe.

MAKING PLANS is organized by two artists, Kyle Bellucci Johanson and Matthew Lax, who work as preparators, facilitating and fabricating the work of others.

Time:  Sat 18 Mar 2017 – Sun 26 Mar 2017
Opening Reception:  Sat 18 Mar . 7p-10p
Film Screening:  Sun 26 Mar 6-8p > work by Nuttaphol Ma, Behrouze Rae and others will be presented.
Gallery Hours:  Wed – Sun 12-6p
Directions:  http://humanresourcesla.com/visit/
Link:   http://humanresourcesla.com/event/making-plans/
_______________________________________________

My proposed work is entitled Mr. Proud, why do I have to memorize the Star Spangled Banner?  It is a durational performance resulting in a site specific wall intervention in reference to the sketch above.  Over the course of the performance the intervention shall transform a wall space into a form of a flag – a nameless, stateless flag that honors the heroic mundane with the dimension repurposed from the standard size of a typical drywall, often referred as the “4×8 drywall”.  The intent is to flip this around to an 8’ x 4’ size that shall serve as the blueprint to house the flag.

The labor of these wall markings will take place during Human Resources “off” hours at 8hr shift intervals starting on Mon 13Mar to Thu 16Mar from 11pm to 7am.  These hours replicates the graveyard shift and shall be my proposed work hours.  It is suggested not as an artist’s attempt to romanticize and patronize the idea of invisible labor but it is my honest truth.  I, too, juggle multiple jobs between teaching and my retail day job.  The only available hours in the day to navigate around this is from 11pm to 7am.

The resulting evidence or marks of my actions on the wall shall be accompanied with a screening of a film entitled A Grain of Rice Under a Microscope. Together, they make a contemplative couplet on the heroic mundane.

Exhibition, Film, performance, Screening

contemporary art, exhibition, film, Human Resources Chinatown, invisible labor, performance, Screening

7 March 2017

Leave a comment