Schedule of Events

Spring 2002

February 8 - March 23, 2002

(Opening: Friday, February 8th, 5 - 8pm)

 

"Ordinary Icons" presents artists' reactions to both ordinary and extraordinary history, from the stories of New York night shift workers to the war crimes of the 1990's. These artists examine the relationship between popular culture and personal history; faith and geopolitics; familiar stories and social power; Bambi and the conquest of the West.

 

The exhibition is organized by G312 Programming Committee members

Tom Denlinger and Jennifer Yorke

 

Dana De Ano

explores the sweetness and perversity of childhood through images drawn from coloring books and fairy tales. Her evocative mixed media drawings present hybrid, stunted animals and people in recognizable yet disturbing vignettes.

Untitled, 2001, mixed media drawing

  

 

 

Joel Feldman's

woodcut relief prints illustrate familiar tales, sometimes with a Marxist- Leninist twist. Feldman references Aesop's fables, Breir Rabbit and other familiar stories to comment on social inequities and political change.

The Snake in the Bramble, 2001, linocut on paper

  

 

 

Bill Fick's

Hooligans series of large scale linoleum prints address the war crimes of the 1990 s. Grotesque, multi-legged creatures covered with pustules make lewd gestures and brandish weapons. These violent creatures seem on the brink of self-destruction.

Hooligan II, 1992, linocut on paper 

  

 

 

Alan Harmon

is inspired by his relationship with God and his Christian work in Uganda. His large Source of the Nile Playing Cards refer to this site at Jinga, Uganda as a place of cultural exchange and historical conflict.

Source of the Nile Playing Cards, 2000, intaglio, screen print, spray paint, shellac

  

 

Doug Huston

layers media and historical images of flora and fauna to comment on our relationship with nature. He mischievously demonstrates our conquest of land through cuteness as well as cultivation.

Sounds Carry Far on Such an Afternoon, 1998, monojet on wood

  

 

Joyce Neimanas

appropriates contemporary and historical imagery from high and popular culture in order to undermine and re-interpret traditional narratives of domesticity, power, and the construction of beauty.

Social Worker, 1993, inkjet print

  

 

 

Simon Grennan and

Chris Sperandio

interview ordinary people and present them in comic books using their own words. The Invisible City is a collaboration between the artists and New York City night-shift workers, including an exotic dancer, copy room manager, and janitor.

 The Invisible City, 1999

offset printed comic book,

commissioned by the Public Art Fund, New York

  

 

 

Video still from It Is A Crime, 1996, by Meena Nanji

Video Data Bank, Chicago has organized a program of works which will be shown continuously:

 

The result of over five years of Super 8 and 16mm filming on New York City streets, Jem Cohen's Lost Book Found (1996) revolves around a mysterious notebook filled with obsessive listings of places, objects, and incidents.

From A to Z, Martha Rosler's Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975) "shows and tells" the ingredients of the housewife's day, giving us a tour that names and mimics the ordinary with movements more samurai-like than suburban.

Loss Prevention (2000) by Jeanne Finley combines documentary and fictional elements to tell the story of Irene, who was arrested at the age of 79 for stealing a bottle of aspirin and sentenced to ten weeks of Senior Citizen Shoplifting Prevention School.

Using footage from mainstream British and Hollywood films, It Is A Crime (1996) by Meena Nanji explores the impact of cultural imperialism, including the erasure of language.

Visit Video Data Bank's Web site and on-line catalog at http://www.vdb.org

  

 

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