Jackie Im is an independent curator, writer and artist living and working in Oakland, CA. She has curated exhibitions at the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA; the Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA; Liminal Space, Oakland, CA; S.H.E.D. Projects, Oakland, CA; Pro Arts, Oakland, CA; MacArthur B Arthur, Oakland, CA; and Queens Nails, San Francisco, CA. She has assisted on exhibitions at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Queens Nails Projects, San Francisco, CA; Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; and the Walter and McBean Galleries at San Francisco Art Institute. She received her BA in Art History from Mills College and her MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts. She is currently the editor of Art Cards San Francisco and co-director and curator of Et al., a gallery in San Francisco.
BIO
Hillary Wiedemann: Afterimage
Dates:
Fri Mar 02, 2012 19:00 - Sun Apr 01, 2012
Location:
Oakland,
California
United States of America
United States of America
Hillary Wiedemann
Afterimage
Curated by Kevin Clarke
March 2, 2012 – April 1, 2012
Reception Friday, March 2nd, 7-10 pm
Open Sundays, 1-5 pm and by appointment
MacArthur B Arthur is pleased to announce Afterimage, a solo exhibition of work by Hillary Wiedemann. Curated by Kevin Clarke.
An afterimage is defined as a visual sensation that remains after the initial stimulus is gone. The works in Afterimage stem from Wiedemann’s inquiries into the phenomenology of perception and the lingering sense impressions of memory. The sun plays many roles – a marker of time, a source of light, a determiner of place, and through its absence, the seed of an acute awareness of space. While distinctly aware of the impossibility of recreating the sense-experience of the sun, the works in Afterimage focus on a sensory residue and/or constant state of perceptual remembering.
In Theory of Colours, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe states, “every image occupies a certain space on the retina, and of course a greater or less space in proportion as the object is seen near or at a distance. If we shut the eyes immediately after looking at the sun we shall be surprised to find how small the image it leaves appears.” Wiedemann’s works mines this phenomenological incongruity – the actual image, its afterimage, and the memory of the image. This slippage continues from true recall into memories of memories.
Afterimage conjures something between two forms of spectra – that which pertains to phenomena of light, and that of the incorporeal.
MacArthur B Arthur
4030 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Oakland, CA 94609
macarthurbarthur@gmail.com
Afterimage
Curated by Kevin Clarke
March 2, 2012 – April 1, 2012
Reception Friday, March 2nd, 7-10 pm
Open Sundays, 1-5 pm and by appointment
MacArthur B Arthur is pleased to announce Afterimage, a solo exhibition of work by Hillary Wiedemann. Curated by Kevin Clarke.
An afterimage is defined as a visual sensation that remains after the initial stimulus is gone. The works in Afterimage stem from Wiedemann’s inquiries into the phenomenology of perception and the lingering sense impressions of memory. The sun plays many roles – a marker of time, a source of light, a determiner of place, and through its absence, the seed of an acute awareness of space. While distinctly aware of the impossibility of recreating the sense-experience of the sun, the works in Afterimage focus on a sensory residue and/or constant state of perceptual remembering.
In Theory of Colours, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe states, “every image occupies a certain space on the retina, and of course a greater or less space in proportion as the object is seen near or at a distance. If we shut the eyes immediately after looking at the sun we shall be surprised to find how small the image it leaves appears.” Wiedemann’s works mines this phenomenological incongruity – the actual image, its afterimage, and the memory of the image. This slippage continues from true recall into memories of memories.
Afterimage conjures something between two forms of spectra – that which pertains to phenomena of light, and that of the incorporeal.
MacArthur B Arthur
4030 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Oakland, CA 94609
macarthurbarthur@gmail.com
Hybrid Narrative: Video Mediations of the Self and Imagined Self
Dates:
Fri Feb 03, 2012 19:00 - Sun Feb 26, 2012
Location:
Oakland,
California
United States of America
United States of America
Hybrid Narrative: Video Mediations of the Self and Imagined Self
Curated by Susannah Magers
February 3, 2012 – February 26, 2012
Reception Friday, February 3rd, 7-10 pm
MacArthur B Arthur is pleased to announce Hybrid Narrative: Video Mediations of the Self and Imagined Self, a group show featuring multi-media installation and video work from the Bay area and beyond, by artists Sofia Cordova, Shana Moulton, Liz Rosenfeld, and Chris E. Vargas.
The artists in this exhibition use video as a device to mediate certain idealized worlds, operating in and on various real, imagined and invented environments, states of mind, alter-egos—and, ultimately, themselves. As both maker and participant, Cordova, Moulton, and Vargas use the visual language of their own performative bodies to enact versions of the self, while Rosenfeld demonstrates this through the interaction of the performative bodies of others. They are at once themselves, other, and hybrids of both. As Moulton says about her character Cynthia in her episodic work Whispering Pines (2004–11), “I guess I’m not Cynthia. But if I’m not, then no one is. I don’t know how much I should separate her from myself.”
While some of the works appear as clear declarations of self, others are more entangled in the subconscious, uncertain of how the self will manifest. Invoking the satirical, Vargas performs in and around various recognizable American sites, including a Mormon temple in Utah and Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973-76), exposing himself by lifting his shirt followed by the declaration, “Have you ever seen a transsexual before?” (the title of this work). Dissatisfied with the reception by these real-world sites, Vargas turns to animated environments; a beach paradise surrounded by beachballs, and a tranquil wilderness, where transsexuality is visible and celebrated. Similarly, Moulton navigates a seemingly oppressive domestic space in her series Whispering Pines, languishing in front of Antiques Roadshow or painstakingly mixing a glass of Crystal Light, before escaping and transmuting herself into ethereal Enya Muzak dance parties and other animated, self-guided visualizations. Cordova’s narrative focuses on the (at times conflicted) merging of her Puerto Rican and American identities, infusing found footage with her own, as well as the music of Chu Cha Santamaria, her character that embodies this narrative. In homage to Barbara Hammer’s 1974 Dyketactics, Rosenfeld’s Untitled (Dyketactics Revisited) imagines an unapologetically liberated, queer utopia where, “androgynous figures, skin, and concrete, masquerade through a fantasia of fluid forms referencing history while looking into the future.”
Whether through ambiguous, yet symbolic, incorporation of popular cultural tropes, or more personally imbued visual information, the works create opportunities for identification by the viewer, and speak to an ever-evolving nature of the human spirit and how we continually shape and experience our sense of self.
MacArthur B Arthur
4030 Martin Luther King Jr Way (at 40th)
Oakland, CA 94609
Open Sundays, 1-5pm, and by appointment
Curated by Susannah Magers
February 3, 2012 – February 26, 2012
Reception Friday, February 3rd, 7-10 pm
MacArthur B Arthur is pleased to announce Hybrid Narrative: Video Mediations of the Self and Imagined Self, a group show featuring multi-media installation and video work from the Bay area and beyond, by artists Sofia Cordova, Shana Moulton, Liz Rosenfeld, and Chris E. Vargas.
The artists in this exhibition use video as a device to mediate certain idealized worlds, operating in and on various real, imagined and invented environments, states of mind, alter-egos—and, ultimately, themselves. As both maker and participant, Cordova, Moulton, and Vargas use the visual language of their own performative bodies to enact versions of the self, while Rosenfeld demonstrates this through the interaction of the performative bodies of others. They are at once themselves, other, and hybrids of both. As Moulton says about her character Cynthia in her episodic work Whispering Pines (2004–11), “I guess I’m not Cynthia. But if I’m not, then no one is. I don’t know how much I should separate her from myself.”
While some of the works appear as clear declarations of self, others are more entangled in the subconscious, uncertain of how the self will manifest. Invoking the satirical, Vargas performs in and around various recognizable American sites, including a Mormon temple in Utah and Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973-76), exposing himself by lifting his shirt followed by the declaration, “Have you ever seen a transsexual before?” (the title of this work). Dissatisfied with the reception by these real-world sites, Vargas turns to animated environments; a beach paradise surrounded by beachballs, and a tranquil wilderness, where transsexuality is visible and celebrated. Similarly, Moulton navigates a seemingly oppressive domestic space in her series Whispering Pines, languishing in front of Antiques Roadshow or painstakingly mixing a glass of Crystal Light, before escaping and transmuting herself into ethereal Enya Muzak dance parties and other animated, self-guided visualizations. Cordova’s narrative focuses on the (at times conflicted) merging of her Puerto Rican and American identities, infusing found footage with her own, as well as the music of Chu Cha Santamaria, her character that embodies this narrative. In homage to Barbara Hammer’s 1974 Dyketactics, Rosenfeld’s Untitled (Dyketactics Revisited) imagines an unapologetically liberated, queer utopia where, “androgynous figures, skin, and concrete, masquerade through a fantasia of fluid forms referencing history while looking into the future.”
Whether through ambiguous, yet symbolic, incorporation of popular cultural tropes, or more personally imbued visual information, the works create opportunities for identification by the viewer, and speak to an ever-evolving nature of the human spirit and how we continually shape and experience our sense of self.
MacArthur B Arthur
4030 Martin Luther King Jr Way (at 40th)
Oakland, CA 94609
Open Sundays, 1-5pm, and by appointment
Two Point Oh
Dates:
Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:00 - Wed Feb 29, 2012
Little Paper Planes is pleased to present Two Point Oh, an online exhibition curated by Jackie Im and Aaron Harbour, featuring work by Constant Dullaart, Ian Dolton-Thornton, Ryan Trecartin, Sabrina Ratté, Pronunciation Book, Kalup Linzy, Sara Ludy, David Horvitz, Chris E. Vargas and Greg Youmans, and Jeremy Deller.
The internet has been a site for art since before the current pervasiveness of home and portable computing. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s artists produced Net Art, often by creating a web page in which a work or a group of works was sited. While these artists were indeed venturing into new territory, their works were and continue to be challenged by specific limitations: how does one present, maintain and drive traffic/viewers to a URL? Should the work become archived? Preserved on a disc or database do interactive elements become null and void? Through a combination of institutional exhibition and acquisition, as well as what could be called a short-sighted view of the ubiquity of the internet equating a universality of access, many early net art works vegetate, islands in a vast sea of websites – accessed via art world specific portals, rarely visited, stationary and un-linked to.
The internet has been a site for art since before the current pervasiveness of home and portable computing. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s artists produced Net Art, often by creating a web page in which a work or a group of works was sited. While these artists were indeed venturing into new territory, their works were and continue to be challenged by specific limitations: how does one present, maintain and drive traffic/viewers to a URL? Should the work become archived? Preserved on a disc or database do interactive elements become null and void? Through a combination of institutional exhibition and acquisition, as well as what could be called a short-sighted view of the ubiquity of the internet equating a universality of access, many early net art works vegetate, islands in a vast sea of websites – accessed via art world specific portals, rarely visited, stationary and un-linked to.
Expanded Field
Dates:
Fri Dec 02, 2011 19:00 - Sun Jan 08, 2012
Location:
Oakland,
California
United States of America
United States of America
Expanded Field
Curated by Jackie Im and Aaron Harbour
December 2, 2011 – January 8, 2012
Reception Friday, December 2nd, 7-10 pm
MacArthur B Arthur is pleased to announce Expanded Field, a group show featuring new work by Torreya Cummings, Amy M. Ho, Sarah Hotchkiss, Christine M. Peterson, and Emma Spertus. Curated by Jackie Im and Aaron Harbour.
Expanded Field is an exhibition that takes the gallery space of MacArthur B Arthur – the physical characteristics of the space and its location – as a jumping off point but not an end. In an attempt to move away from the autonomy of the art object and in reaction to their working conditions, artists created works that were specific to a site. Making reference to Rosalind Krauss’ seminal essay, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, the artists in this exhibition have been asked to expand the field of the gallery; to produce work that bears a physical relationship to the exhibition space, yet stretches beyond it creating a hybrid of autonomy and dependence. Through use of visual illusion, architectural reference, and narrative allusion, Expanded Field hopes to explore an artwork’s potential to disorient the viewer and to radically exceed its surroundings.
Curated by Jackie Im and Aaron Harbour
December 2, 2011 – January 8, 2012
Reception Friday, December 2nd, 7-10 pm
MacArthur B Arthur is pleased to announce Expanded Field, a group show featuring new work by Torreya Cummings, Amy M. Ho, Sarah Hotchkiss, Christine M. Peterson, and Emma Spertus. Curated by Jackie Im and Aaron Harbour.
Expanded Field is an exhibition that takes the gallery space of MacArthur B Arthur – the physical characteristics of the space and its location – as a jumping off point but not an end. In an attempt to move away from the autonomy of the art object and in reaction to their working conditions, artists created works that were specific to a site. Making reference to Rosalind Krauss’ seminal essay, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, the artists in this exhibition have been asked to expand the field of the gallery; to produce work that bears a physical relationship to the exhibition space, yet stretches beyond it creating a hybrid of autonomy and dependence. Through use of visual illusion, architectural reference, and narrative allusion, Expanded Field hopes to explore an artwork’s potential to disorient the viewer and to radically exceed its surroundings.
Run Off
Dates:
Fri Oct 07, 2011 07:00 - Sun Oct 30, 2011
Location:
Oakland,
California
United States of America
United States of America
MacArthur B Arthur is pleased to announce Run Off, a group show featuring new work Marcella Faustini, David Kasprzak, Jon Kuzmich, Hunter Longe, Reuben Lorch-Miller, and Cybele Lyle. Curated by Aaron Harbour, Brandon Drew Holmes and Jackie Im.
The take-away, created by the artist’s own accord or at the behest of a curator as a physical object for the viewer to take and own, carries with it some unquantifiable value and residual aura of the exhibition, artist or space from which it was derived. Yet the validity of the take-away as a piece of art is far from a given. Alluding to and eluding the original/unique/unobtainable works, the take-aways’ tenuous value status is often exemplified by their tendency towards being simply produced copies as a means of cutting cost, versus dealing with the take-aways’ specific concerns (i.e. media and multiplicity).
The artists in Run Off were invited to create and present a work that is in the form of a take-away, produced primarily via a photocopy machine. Each work takes into account the situation of the give-away and the media of reproduction (whether mechanical or phenomenological in nature). The exhibition will explore the hidden potentials within these well-worn processes re-administered as integral mediums. Each work will be produced in an edition of the artists’ choosing, perhaps presented in a form that recalls the stacks of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and the pieces will be free for viewers to take, questioning the notion of monetary value in artwork and by extension, intellectual capital. Run Off intends to explore alternative notions of reproduction and distribution – here, is the reproduced individual object ever the “original”? Does such work, indeed such an exhibition, find a new mode of existence via its diffusion?
The take-away, created by the artist’s own accord or at the behest of a curator as a physical object for the viewer to take and own, carries with it some unquantifiable value and residual aura of the exhibition, artist or space from which it was derived. Yet the validity of the take-away as a piece of art is far from a given. Alluding to and eluding the original/unique/unobtainable works, the take-aways’ tenuous value status is often exemplified by their tendency towards being simply produced copies as a means of cutting cost, versus dealing with the take-aways’ specific concerns (i.e. media and multiplicity).
The artists in Run Off were invited to create and present a work that is in the form of a take-away, produced primarily via a photocopy machine. Each work takes into account the situation of the give-away and the media of reproduction (whether mechanical or phenomenological in nature). The exhibition will explore the hidden potentials within these well-worn processes re-administered as integral mediums. Each work will be produced in an edition of the artists’ choosing, perhaps presented in a form that recalls the stacks of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and the pieces will be free for viewers to take, questioning the notion of monetary value in artwork and by extension, intellectual capital. Run Off intends to explore alternative notions of reproduction and distribution – here, is the reproduced individual object ever the “original”? Does such work, indeed such an exhibition, find a new mode of existence via its diffusion?
