The Lab for Installation and Performance Art

The Lab 2008 Archive l 2007 Archive l 2006 Archive

	JANUARY 05-14 SYNTHETIC AESTHETIC CURATED BY CHRISTOPHER CHAMBERS WITH BRUCE MOORE . PETER SORIANO . DOREEN MCCARTHY . CHRISTOPHER CHAMBERS . BERND NABER MICHAEL ZANSKY . JEAN BLACKBURN . CASSANDRA LOZANO Synthetic Aesthetic comprises innovative current sculptures and bas-reliefs focusing on the use of tangible synthetic new media such as plastics, epoxies, and the like to create an abstracted and futuristic art that stylistically draws on many sources; from current industrial design to modernism in general.
	JANUARY 19-28 ICONS OF THE 21ST CENTURY CURATED BY LISA PAUL STREITFELD . WITH VINCENT BALDASSANO. MIKE BIDLO. ABRAHAM BREWSTER. LAUREL JAY CARPENTER . ARTURO CUENCA . RICHARD HUMANN . BAPTISTE IBAR . ANTON KORUBSKY KANDINSKY . MARNI KOTAK . PETER KREBS . YULIYA LANINA . D. DOMINICK LOMBARDI ABRAHAM LUBELSKI . RANAN LURIE . SOPHIE MATISSE . REUBEN NAKIAN . OLU OGUIBE KEVIN ROBINSON. GAE SAVANNAH. DONNA SHARRETT. ANITA STECKEL. MARGARET TSIRANTONAKIS. SUSAN WEINREICH. FRED WILSON. MYKOLA ZHURAVEL. Icons of the 21st Century presents a new movement in which contemporary artists explore the forms of the hieros gamos, or sacred marriage of the opposites. The exhibition seeks to extend the dialogue between Wolfgang Pauli and C.G. Jung, who believed this emerging archetype to be the icon of the 21st century.
	FEBRUARY 02-11 SPEAKING IN STRINGS CURATED BY D. DOMINICK LOMBARDI WITH KEN BUTLER AND KURT COBLE These artist/musicians challenge the definitions of musical art and instruments with a provocative and animated dialogue between “hybrid” instrument sculptures and an automated “robotic jukebox” of strings and percussion. Function and form collide and transform in a charged audio-visual environment of hyperactive hardware.
	FEBRUARY 16-25 MANIPULATING THE FOUND BODY CURATED BY KEVIN MUTCH WITH ADAM KLINE . KEVIN MUTCH . ALEX RADAR . SHANE SWANK One of the hallmarks of digital art has been the explosion of strategies it has allowed for manipulating images. Manipulating the Found Body examines the work of four artists using digital imaging to radically reimagine found images of the body and its surroundings. Using varied sources (comic books, software, pornography) and imaging techniques (collage, distortion, corruption) these artists all attempt to disrupt the flow of images by which we picture ourselves.
	MARCH 02-11JILL CORSON: PHOTOGRAPHS CURATED BY ELIZABETH STEVENS PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH YELLOW BIRD GALLERY Jill Corson walks New York's streets peering into shop windows. Her multi-layered, jewel-toned photographs juxtapose the bustling activity of crowded streets with luscious window displays. Her message is as clear as the panes of glass she shoots through: advertising seduces us into believing we need to acquire more.
	MARCH 16-25 CHRONICLE CURATED BY RICHARD ROTH WITH SIEMON ALLEN . ROYCE HOWES . RICHARD ROTH The newspaper has been a source for artists at least since Picasso and Braque adhered scraps of newsprint to their paintings. The three artists in this exhibition approach the newspaper from a variety of directions: socio-political critique, poetic exploration of image, and as source material for curating micro-exhibitions. These artists rescue the delicate pages of aging newsprint from oblivion and find meaning in the mundane.
	MARCH 30 – APRIL 08 A QUANTUM INSTALLATION MAURIZIO BOLOGNINI CURATED BY ENRICO PEDRINI Since the 1980s Maurizio Bolognini has programmed hundreds of computers to produce inexhaustible flows of random images, leaving them to function indefinitely, usually without monitors. His unique research, which has been presented all over the world, is based upon installations generating out-of-control processes, and combining programming and communication devices. This research not only represents an original development in the art language, but also helps us to understand the complexity and potential of the neo-technological environment.
	APRIL 13-22 I.D. CHECK CURATED BY MATTHEW GARRISON WITH GEORGE BOLSTER, ROBERT CONGER, LINDA DENNIS, MATTHEW GARRISON, GEORGE KIMMERLING, TIM LAUN, KATE TEALE, JONATHAN THURSTON, PAN XING LEI ID Check approaches the idea of identity as an outward projection of oneself defined by memories, imagination and experiences. Art has the potential to radically change one’s identity. This phenomenon takes on an even greater significance in our time of heightened security. Together the nine artists in ID Check establish identity as a malleable concept open to interpretation
	APRIL 27- MARCH 06 BEYOND THE THRESHOLD A PERFORMANCE INSTALLATION BY KATA MEJíA BEYOND THE THRESHOLD will explore the human crisis of separation, the experience of moving through and beyond the crisis, and the process of reaching toward the discovery of a stable center. The 10 day performance will involve the physical transformation of both performer and space through re-enactments of the structures and habits of everyday life, ultimately arriving at a new beginning beyond the limenal state.
	MAY 11-20 CUT IT OUT CURATED BY CLINT BROWNFIELD WITH ANITA SEAY . ANDREAS KOCKS . HENRY SANCHES . LAURA BREITMAN BERNICE SOKOL KRAMER Preschoolers do it. Matisse did it. They simply cut it out. Five top collage artists join together to exhibit their works using everything from paper and fabric, to metal-coated plastic and found objects.
	MAY 25–JUNE03 MIDTOWN MEDITATIONS AN INSTALLATION BY DANIEL ROTHBART CURATED BY ENRICO PEDRINI The business district of midtown, with its broad avenues, stately architecture, entrepreneurs, office workers and tourists serves as inspiration for this multimedia installation. The show will be made up of sculpture derived from vines, artifacts and refuse culled from a ten-block radius of the Roger Smith Hotel and video projections of performance work from midtown streets.
	JUNE 08-17 THE FEMALE FORM: THREE VISIONS CURATED BY DANIELLE MAILER WITH ILISHA HELFMAN . DANIELLE MAILER . AMELIA DE NEERGAARD These three exceptional artists interpret the female body, exploring issues of sexuality, race, mythology, fashion, modesty and exhibitionism through out their work. Using various mediums, and a handful of materials each, the works in this exhibition serve as a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit.
	JUNE 22 – JULY 01 KAMOKU CURATED BY RIEKO FUJINAMI WITH KEIKO NAKAMURA . ERI MIZUNO . JUNJI YAMADA . RIEKO FUJINAMI KAMOKU: a japaneese word which describes an attitude of speaking less in order to express more; a space for silence between persons, meant to elicit a deeper, more subtle understanding. This show seeks to expose artists with very different motifs, styles and techniques, but all of whom have a sensitivity for “the silence before, and after, speaking”. Each one makes their art slowly and carefully, with many layers between their inner world and the outside, between existence and situation, between subject and object.
	JULY 06-15 501 LEXINGTON CURATED BY MCKENDREE KEY WITH MICHAEL CATALDI, CATARINA LEITAO, MARIE LORENZ 501 LEXINGTON presents works by 3 artists whose work all addresses the idea of adventure or escape in an urban setting. Michael Cataldi, Catarina Leitåo and Marie Lorenz create site-specific pieces that speak to the notion of the urban journey.
	JULY 20-29: WANDERINGS CURATED BY DEBRA DREXLER WITH CALVIN COLLINS .KAREN GOINS. PUNI KUKAHIKO. JULIE WOODDELL LAYMON. MARK MARESCA. ISAAC PARKER. BEN PFISTER DIETER RUNGE. KILEY SMITH. WILL WILLIAMS III Through the deconstruction of maps these 10 artists from Hawai’I examine their own relationship to place and interrogate the concept of mapping. The process was begun through a collaborative “Exquisite Corpse”. Subjects investigated include; memory, globalization, anthropology, shifting weather patterns, nationalism, colonialism, racism, and Hawaiian cultural heritage and history.
	SEPTEMBER 7-16 SCAPES: A BOLD NEW WORLD CURATED BY D. DOMINICK LOMBARDI WITH Joseph Ari Aloi aka JK5, Saul Becker, Toc Fetch, Ron Johnson, Michael Perrone, Liza Phillips, Kent Rush, Patricia Smith, Alejandra Villasmil. Landscapes and seascapes are two of the oldest genre of the visual artist. Over the years, through Modernism and now in Contemporary Art, artists represent our world through perspectives that lean to the psychological, where relative proportion can become a political statement, and individual features metaphor. For this show, Lombardi will select some of the most intriguing artists which illustrate these current trends.
	OCTOBER 05–10 GLORIA GARFINKEL– OBI PAINTINGS CURATED BY PAUL SHARPE & PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH PAUL SHARPE CONTEMPORARY ART Gloria Garfinkel combines color and pattern in a powerful way that David Butler of the Ulrich Museum of Art has likenened to Matisse. Her work is inspired loosely on the culture and color of Japan and South East Asia. When she first saw a small Hiroshige print, her visual world became entranced with layering, mystifying, taking apart, and revealing. Garfinkel’s art is both beautiful and entrancing… always offering the eye new delights while challenging the brain and soul to see more and to live more with each encounter. Gloria Garfinkel’s work is presented courtesy of Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art, New York
	OCTOBER 19-28 COLOR CORRECTION CURATED BY MATTHEW GARRISON WITH JOEL CARREIRO . MARY CARLSON . NICHOLAS GAFFNEY . MATTHEW GARRISON . STACY GREENE . YUKO ODA . Research shows that behavior and perception are directly linked to the presence of color. The six artists in Color Correction investigate the exaggerated and enhanced colors of the new millennium. In turn, this exploration of contemporary esthetics reshapes perceptions of nature, history and current events.
	NOVEMBER 16-25 EELight AN INSTALLATION BY BILL FITZGIBBONS & CREIGHTON MICHAEL EELight, the premiere collaboration of sculptors, Bill FitzGibbons and Creighton Michael, transforms The LAB Gallery into an underwater sea inhabited by forms, which suggest the whimsical descendants of a distant union between eels and humans. A continuous, computerized light program that mimics the flow and density of seawater helps to create this aquatic illusion. Viewers, like visitors to an aquarium, may experience this other world only by looking through the glass.
	NOVEMBER 30 – DECEMBER 09 URBAN ALCHEMY SCULPTURE AND INSTALLATIONS BY ROBERT DELL Now powered by Consolidated Edison’s steam and powered previously by geysers in Iceland and Yellowstone National Park, these works have audible mammalian hot water circulation systems that make electricity directly from the temperature difference with the microclimate. This creates visual ballads of brilliant LEDs, laser light and color where changes occur in a slow, rhythmic, turtle - time cadence.
	Metaphysics and the Virtual Dec 14-23 This exhibition focuses on two artists that deal with the rehabilitation of metaphysics and the virtuality of the information age.