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Art works of Dimitrios Loumiotis http://www.artmajeur.com/loumiotis/

Ray Sell, Hi Ho Silver! Mixed Media On Canvas, 72 x 52 inches, 2008

Leo Kesting Gallery Presents:
GALLERY 1: RAY SELL - Raise ‘Em To Be Cowboys
GALLERY 2: Parker’s Box artists: JASON GLASSER and JOSHUA STERN
Opening Night Reception: Thursday June 19th from 7:00 - 10:00 pm
812 Washington St (at the corner of Gansevoort) New York NY 10014
8th Ave A, C, E and L train Stop or 1,2,3 to 14th Street
Tuesday - Sunday from 11:00 am until 7:00 pm
Admission is free to the public
phone: 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865 http://www.leokesting.com

GALLERY 1: Ray Sell - Raise ‘Em To Be Cowboys

Men on horses carrying guns, fathers teaching their sons the joys of the opposite sex and the seductive curve of a confident woman are the subject of Ray Sell’s first New York solo exhibition, Raise ‘Em To Be Cowboys, a collection of mixed media collages and large format paintings.

In this exhibition, Ray Sell draws inspiration from pin up magazines, wild west frontiers and hot rod manuals, to illustrate the hey day of “the man’s man.” One subject of focus is the relationship between father and son as exemplified in the paintings “Quality Time” and “Life Lessons”. In “Quality Time”, a father and son work side by side on a hot rod engine while televisions frame out imagery that is overtly masculine. This imagery resonates particularly well, as the engine can be viewed as a symbol of the young boy approaching manhood. While in “Life Lessons” a father and son work together on a science experiment while lovely ladies bounce up and down in a circular view finder, possibly from the microscope the duo are looking through. It is this imagery that emphasizes the masculine development leading to the early stages of puberty and male sexuality.

GALLERY 2: Parker’s Box artists: Jason Glasser and Joshua Stern

Trail-blazing is certainly part of the theme of Ray Sell’s Raise ‘Em to be Cowboys, affording both common ground and dialogue with the work and careers of Jason Glasser and Joshua Stern.

Jason Glasser was one of the founder members of the cult indy rock band, Clem Snide, and has continually oscillated between making paintings, videos and rock music. His subjects include recurring hunters, cowboys and motorbikes, for example, often reverse painted on auto-glass. Glasser explores a love-hate relationship with what might be the father figure, or the symbol of authority, government, or even planetary oppression…Joshua Stern first exhibited his paintings with Colin De Land at American Fine Arts, before beginning to photograph his own maquettes of bizarre yet familiar psychological worlds. Stern has recently returned to painting, and a monumental series of “Beaver” paintings, some of which are presented concurrently at Leo Kesting Gallery and at Parker’s Box. As Stern’s paintings testify, the beaver played a key role in American trail-blazing, as the US economy was founded on trading in beaver skins, a commodity far more important at the time than oil is!
today.
The resulting resonance of beavers appears far more often than we may realize, gliding smoothly and surely into the masculine world that Ray Sell’s work inhabits.

Parker’s Box is proud to have been invited to jump aboard the latest anti-mainsteam commando operation to be organized by the Kesting/Capla/Leo trinity- originating of course, in Williamsburg, then hurtling through the L-train tunnel like a banshee on speed in order to infiltrate the Meat Packing site of the future Whitney museum- symbolically trail-blazing ahead of the establishment which will be bringing up the rear sometime circa 2012…The CK-LK work ethic of doing stuff in order to open up new territory (for art and artists) is based on generosity, motivation and passion, and can only be commended and admired.

Ray Sell’s Raise ‘Em To Be Cowboys and Parker’s Box JASON GLASSER and JOSHUA STERN opens to the public with a reception for the artists at Leo Kesting Gallery on Thursday June 19th from 7:00 until 10:00 pm.

From its origins as Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn, the Leo Kesting Gallery launched in 2003 and developed an aggressive campaign to introduce new figurative artists to collectors and art supporters. Leo Kesting offers the art viewing public an opportunity to see forthcoming talents in an intimate setting where undiscovered, cutting-edge artists are presented to the contemporary art scene.

Leo Kesting Gallery is located at 812 Washington St at the corner of Gansevoort in Manhattan’s Meat Packing District. A, C, E, or L train to 8th Ave and 14th Street or 1,2,3 train to 14th Street. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 11am until 7pm.

Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos

“THE ROYAL ART LODGE”
13 June- 28 September

Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos
C. Saldaña s/n
09003 BURGOS
+ 34 947 256 550
fax + 34 947 256 553
navarro@cabdeburgos.com

http://www.cabdeburgos.com

13 June- 28 September

“THE ROYAL ART LODGE”

the Centre for the Arts Caja de Burgos presents the first major exhibition of the work by Royal Art Lodge to be organized in Spain by presenting a selection of their most relevant and complex works as well as a new piece -in absolute premiere- at CAB.

The possibility of contemplating this series of works that the three Canadian artists -Michael Dumontier, Marcel Dzama and Neil Farber- have progressively developed since 2003, when the group -originally conceived in Winnipeg in 1996- became finally comprised of these three artists, is thus a true privilege.

The group fixed Wednesdays as their meeting day. An encounter in which one of them would begin to paint, subsequently leaving the work at the disposal of whoever wished to add or modify something, introducing those meaning and linguistic shifts which are currently the household brand of the RAL.

In the paintings by RAL the choice of some particularly recurrent themes may be easily detected. Characters and situations always bear a strong narrative potentiality, which has nevertheless been willingly hidden, making it impossible to trace a beginning or an end.

“IGOR ESKINJA”

Igor Eskinja is a young Croatian artist who has developed, since his recent enrolment in the international artistic scene, installations and interventions, which provide us the opportunity to give free rein to our senses and experience various ways of perception.

They often are trompe l’oeils, games halfway between reality and fiction created by means of materials of povera ascendancy such as adhesive tape or dust, according to a minimalist aesthetic.

Generally, these installations are built through the intervention of physical space with various shapes. However, once photographed one feels that these shapes have been added later, through mechanical means such as, for example, computers. Thus, the perception of a selfsame thing varies according to whether we look at it in a physical space or on the snapshot which freezes for us an image, taken from a specific point of view. A veiled criticism by the artist on the manipulation that technology exerts on us, making us perceive things in a way different from what they really are.

“NATI BERMEJO”

As regards Natividad Bermejo, it is a source of great pleasure and satisfaction for CAB to be in a position to present a sizeable amount of her latest graphite pencil and black pastel works on the –1 level of the centre, as well as an installation created for one of the galleries situated on that very level.

The work of Natividad Bermejo is positively sensory, an invitation to experiment with our sight, yet at the same time a subtly compelling necessity to reflect about ourselves to which we are subjected by the artist after having contemplated her works. Inevitably, a reflection on the numerous enigmas that surround our existence as individual human beings and our coexistence in a cosmic universe, enormous in its magnitude as opposed to our smallness, tends to unify us in spite of the different ways of fulfilling the faculties that we enjoy as humans: of thinking, intuiting, perceiving time…

We are nobody. We are a whole.

25 April - 6 July

“JORIS LAARMAN”
Stranger than fiction

There is a different kind of product, of artistic object –the fruit of contemporary creation- that is born with a predetermined, added utility. That object was originally conceived by artists so as to be convenient and of everyday use. It is what is commonly called design.

This other kind of art work trasncends mere contemplation and is susceptible of being applied to daily life. This is far from causing it to lose its artistic essence, since it is the indisputable and original product of the artist’s mind. Neither does its utility make it any less interesting from a creative point of view.

His studio has progressively shaped numerous, different ideas that we will have the opportunity to contemplate at CAB: lamps, jewels which are, in turn, credit cards, editions limited by the actual publishing process.

TINA B. 2008

Photography: Martina Chloupa, Adam Vackar, Marek Tomin

TINA B. 2008 ONGOING PROJECTS

TINA B. 2008
The Prague Contemporary Art Festival
BILLBOARD TEXT ART: EMERGING WOR(L)DS
June 2007 - October 2008
MOBILE VIDEO ART: INTIMATE LIFE OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
Second Edition: June - October 2008
Call for Artists

http://www.tina-b.com
http://www.mobilevideoart.com

The third edition of TINA B. – The Prague Contemporary Art Festival would like to announce the continuation of two of its major projects – Billboard Text Art: EMERGING WOR(L)DS and Mobile Video Art: INTIMATE LIFE OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE. Organised by Prague’s Galerie Vernon, TINA B. strives to combine the creative energy of the cultural scene in Central and Eastern Europe with emerging talents and trends from around the world.

Billboard Text Art is a one-year international site-specific project featuring textual and word-based artworks on billboards at various locations in the Czech Republic’s capital Prague. Entitled EMERGING WOR(L)DS, the project is a platform for diverse art interventions, messages and statements, tackling a broad spectrum of issues and subjects concerned with the complex social, political, corporate and cultural structures currently emerging within the context of the post-Cold War – and post 9/11 – world.

Rather than using billboard spaces dedicated to the project for its entire duration - performing the function of a public art gallery - EMERGING WOR(L)DS’ artworks are interspersed among commercial advertising hoardings. Each month, the website http://www.tina-b.com (under Sections – Billboard Text Art) carries maps displaying the locations of the current billboards, as well as providing details about each artist and a translation of the key textual element of each artwork. Having reached its halfway mark, the first phase of the project runs until October 2007 and more than 100 artists are expected to participate.

EMERGING WOR(L)DS is curated by the collective Grey Zone. So far, contributors have included Kendell Geers, Kay Rosen, Vittorio Santoro, Jonathan Monk, Bethan Huws, Koki Tanaka, Adam Pendleton, Solange Fabião, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Claire Fontaine, Kimberley Rugg, Deatnico & Lain, Artus de Laveillon, Franco Angeloni, Hiroshi Sunairi, as well as internationally renowned Czech artist Jiri Kovanda and emerging Czech artists Guma Guar, Pode Bal, Jiri Skala, Jan Serych, Tomas Vanek, Adam Vackar, Zbynek Baladran, Jan Nalevka, Petra Feriancova, Mario Chromy and Katerina Seda.

An exhibition of the billboards displayed within the framework of the project is planned during the Main Event of TINA B. 2008, which will take place from September 25 and October 15, 2008. The project and exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive publication.

MOBILE VIDEO ART: INTIMATE LIFE OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

This year’s second ongoing TINA B. project is Mobile Video Art, the first festival devoted entirely to video art created with the mobile phone, exploring its use as a contemporary art tool and medium, as well as its possible aesthetic and ethical impacts on contemporary art and culture. Curated by the collective Grey Zone and Francesca di Nardo, Mobile Video Art is designed as both an art laboratory and a popular festival for the general public, employing the website http://www.mobilevideoart.com to involve the audience in the creative process, engendering a stimulating creative dialogue on the nature and essence of
contemporary art.

Subtitled INTIMATE LIFE OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE, Mobile Video Art explores social, political, cultural and personal aspects of everyday life in the 21st Century as influenced by the interweaving of global and local cultural symbols and artefacts. This year’s Special Category is entitled INTIMATE LIGHT OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE.

The body of work submitted by renowned and emerging artists, as well as the world’s general public, is forming a dynamic and constantly evolving collage of perceptions of contemporary life and culture. Last year, contributors included Stafano Cagol, Sookon Ang, Valter Luca Signorile, aiPotu, Alek O., Sabine Delafon, SEMP, Kirsimaria E. Törönen-Ripatti, Vladimir Skrepl, Aisen Chacin and many others. Artists may submit their work via the website http://www.mobilevideoart.com

TINA B. 2008 – THE MAIN EVENT

The Main Event of TINA B. 2008 will take place from September 25 until October 15, 2008. TINA B.’s third edition has adopted the leitmotif FORMS OF ENGAGEMENT. By focusing on art in public space, including billboards, video screenings and light art, as well as the new media generated by digital and mobile technologies, TINA B. 2008 places emphasis on the role of contemporary art, artists and artistic practice as socio-cultural agents that not only provide a critique of social order, but also serve a direct, positive and symbiotic social function.

Artists wishing to get involved with either of the two projects mentioned above, or the TINA B. 2008 festival in general, may submit their proposals at the email address below.

For more information, please contact: Marek Tomin, TINA B. - The Prague Contemporary Art Festival, E: marek.tomin@tina-b.com , M: +420 604 237 974.

Fremantle Arts Centre

Ian Haig
still from Eastland Shopping Centre, September 1975
2008, digital animation
duration 1:20 minutes
Courtesy and Copyright the artist

The Bon Scott Project -
Bon to Rock’n’Roll
Fremantle Arts Centre puts the
spotlight on one of rock’s leading lads
17 MAY - 29 JUNE 2008

http://www.fac.org.au
http://www.bonscottblog.com

Inspired by Australia’s most iconic rock and roller, the Bon Scott Project is a multi-faceted program celebrating and critiquing the life and times of Bon Scott, lead singer and co-lyricist of AC/DC (1974-1980). The exhibition is presented by Fremantle Arts Centre, in the city where Bon grew up and where his grave, now listed by the National Trust, is the most visited in Australia.

The Project sets out to uncover how notions of masculinity, remembrance and rebellion coalesce around the iconic figure of Bon Scott. How these notions play out in relationships forged between Bon, the curator, his fans and the nineteen artists in the spaces of the gallery, the street and the web are
also explored.

The Project is led by three works which have the capacity to stimulate interest in the question of public art. Lucas Ihlein was commissioned to write a blog, http://www.bonscottblog.com , for the public sphere of the World Wide Web that records his experience as a non-fan coming to know Bon through the eyes and ears of the fans. Ihlein is also curating the LED welcome sign situated on the main road into Fremantle. Bon’s lyrics and messages from fans are being transmitted during the exhibitions and shown on the blog. Bevan Honey’s Apparition sees Bon’s face stencilled onto the southern pylon of the Stirling Highway Bridge, appearing only sporadically depending on the time of day and the atmospheric conditions. For those missing Bon, self-described professional mourner Tanya Visosevic (Madam TV) is also on hand to connect callers to Bon whom she channels in a live videophone performance.

A group show of sixteen artists across the Centre’s five galleries presents new works by artists who are fans and non-fans alike. Notable inclusions are Stuart Bailey (NSW), who has created a bootleg merchandise stand designed to cash in on the profile of the newly bronzed Bon Scott memorial statue; Richard Lewer (VIC), whose charcoal wall drawing of AC/DC members mingling with church figures references his strict Catholic upbringing; Ian Haig (VIC) whose animation recreates his excitement as an eleven year old seeing AC/DC perform at his local shopping centre; and Guy Benfield (New York) whose video characterises the artist as a quixotic figure for whom ‘it is a long way to the top if you want to rock ‘n’ roll’.

These works and many more are framed by the first curated exhibition of Bon Scott’s letters, compiled by curator Katie Dyer; a panel discussion on the unlikely topic of The Ugly/Sexy Factor: Bon and Fashion; and the creation of two bands - a house tribute band, FAC/DC, with its line-up drawn from notable Western Australian acts, and the hit-interpreting Dolomiten Polka Band.

The Project’s eclectic structure is a reflection of Fremantle Arts Centre’s multi-arts role and its increasing desire for local resonance and international reach. The Project is unashamedly framed by the interests of the Centre’s staff, who have jointly developed a generative programming methodology which seeks to value uncertainty, rigour and participation. A first for Australia and indeed the world, the Bon Scott Project opens up a far-reaching conversation between fans, artists and the community and unites them through the power of rock‘n’roll!

The Bon Scott Project is made possible through the support of the Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts, the Australia Council for the Arts, and the Gordon Darling Foundation.

BON SCOTT PROJECT
FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE
17 MAY - 29 JUNE 2008
http://www.fac.org.au
http://www.bonscottblog.com

Curated by Jasmin Stephens
Featuring Stuart Bailey (NSW)
Guy Benfield (USA)
Adam Cullen (NSW)
Rebecca Dagnall (WA)
Cecilia Fogelberg (VIC)
Alex Gawronski (NSW)
Ian Haig (VIC)
Bevan Honey (WA)
Matthew Hunt (WA)
Lucas Ihlein (NSW)
Richard Lewer (VIC)
Michael Moran (NSW)
Ryan Nazzari (WA)
Vanila Netto (NSW)
Nat Paton (QLD)
Scott Redford (QLD)
Eli Smith (WA)
Martin Smith (QLD)
Tanja Visosevic (WA)

Fremantle Arts Centre is located at 1 Finnerty Street, Fremantle

Ends-
For more information, images or to arrange an interview:
Robyn Fergusson, Communications Coordinator, 08 9432 9564, robynf@fremantle.wa.gov.au