"WORK"

September 15 - October 21, 2000

Opening Reception: Friday, Sept. 15th, 5 - 8pm

 

An exhibition of artists responding to the necessity of employment.

Organized by Advisory Committee members Carol Jackson and Jake Jacobs.

 

Including work by:

Anthony Elms (Chicago) has fabricated intricate, small sculptures from the paper detritus of his former job in the bookstore of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. These 25 abstract miniatures exemplify the plight of many artists seeking to work in the art world and the amount of spare time one has to fill with creative endeavors when faced with a job in retail. Elms is now Managing Editor at Whitewalls.

Better Idle Than Workin' For Nothin', (detail) 2000, mixed media

Meat & Potato #1, 1999, acrylic on dropcloth

Brett Green (Los Angeles) earned a M.F.A. in 1986 from the University of California/Irvine and is currently the manager of a SoCal Albertson Supermarket where he has worked since 1984. His humorous large scale paintings on canvas of people, produce and meat cleverly demonstrate the ubiquity of artists (and subjects for art) in all walks of life.

	Shane Hassett's (London) video recalls the myth of Sisyphus with its images of a "suit" with a briefcase running towards an office building and cutting to the next approach as soon as the entrance doors are reached. Hassett's work appears courtesy of Blum and Poe Gallery, Santa Monica, CA.
Running, 1998, still from video

	Michael Jefferson (Chicago) makes limited palette, oil paintings of architectural/ office structures wherein an occasional collaged figure can be found. Paul Klee, Philip Guston and the writings of Max Weber are all rolled onto one.
The City: One Day, 2000, oil and collage on canvas

	Steve Lacy's (Chicago) Sandbox collaborative and Academy Records are involved in a number of projects blurring the interactions between art and business. Lacy will be making recordings at the opening and during the exhibition which will be burned on to a CD.
installation view Academy Records: The Demonstration Process, 2000

Artworld, 2000 (installation details)

Mick O'Shea's (New York) "Artworld" is an elaborate model train set incorporating elements from his career as an artist, including small buildings constructed from exhibition announcements, landscapes littered with used artist materials (brushes, paint tubes, etc.), and boxcars advertising popular art publications.

	Thompson Owen (Columbus) left Chicago after earning his M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute where he poked fun at American consumerism, goofy products, and self-help obsessions. He started a Web based, roast your own coffee bean company a few years ago which has become a successful full-time business. Life imitates art. Sweet Maria's

	John Pilson's (New York) Interregna project investigates the strange goings on in what, at first, looks like a typical office environment. In Pilson's video and related still photographs, bizarre actions and details begin to emerge, as if a secret society has taken over this concentration of cubicles.
Still Image from the Interregna series, 2000, B & W photo

	Mindy Rose Schwartz (Chicago) creates elegant conceptual art works from simple, everyday materials and events. In her video work for this exhibition, she depicts her exhaustion in the evening after working a full-time job, when she has no energy to make artwork, but becomes a couch potato instead of doing anything constructive.
installation view, On T.V., 2000, videos and mixed media

Maria Troy (Columbus) is another artist involved in supporting the work of other artists. She is an Associate Curator at the Wexner Center for the Arts on the Ohio State University campus, where she has listened to outgoing voice mail messages from colleagues so many times that she can convincingly imitate them. She is developing a new sound piece for this exhibition.

 

	Marie Walz (Chicago) is a digital artist who spends her downtime, (at a Web design job), keeping up with continuous Internet Associated Press updates of catastrophic stories. The visual result of this obsession are several large series of digital collages, with images and text taken from stories of plane crashes, factory recalls, and other unpleasant events.
Recall (detail), 2000, digital print

Marquette Michigan Prison has one of the oldest gift shops of prisoner-made items in the country. In their downtime, prisoners use cast-off materials (food wrappers, cigarette packs, leather scraps, soap, etc.) to craft highly detailed works of art, decorative items and functional objects. These works are then bartered or sold in the closed economy of the prison to provide luxury items for the prisoner.

Various anonymous items, installation view

Temporary Services (Chicago) has been engaged in work-related curatorial practices for several years. The group's anonymous members mount exhibitions, perform tasks, support other artists, create socially oriented public art and stage public events in storefronts, through the mass media and outdoors. Temporary Services will be contracted to perform tasks for the Gallery and The PEACH Club during the run of this exhibition.

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