Kevin Francis Gray
Coco 16, 2005 Cast resin, auto body paint 52h x 48w x 48l inches

Coco, you?ve got a face that?s all ovals and angles, a smooth blank that swivels at once backward and forward in time. Built for Parmigianino to balance upon a swanlike neck, it sparkles with anachronous bling - most notably a Chanel nose-ring - and is sealed under an identikit hooded top that, to reverse again, could be the Virgin Mary?s cloak. Vest, sports pants, familiar with Nike but far from Olympian. You: old but young, out of time, a teenage mother from Hackney Wick or Ravenna, splitting the difference between serenity and sulk. The pose: old but young, out of time, that of an almost-adult baby cradling an adult-eyed baby in the wasteland of your second decade in 2005, centuries of Madonna-and-child iconography rippling outward through your ribcage.

Opening Reception: Friday, May 20, 6 ? 8 pm
Show Dates: May 20 ? June 18, 2005
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6 PM or by appointment

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Roebling Hall is very pleased to present More Today Than Yesterday, an exhibition of the paintings of Nancy Drew.

For her second solo exhibition, Nancy Drew ups the ante on her sparkling and fuzzy soft renditions of the modern masters. Aptly titled, More Today Than Yesterday, Drew continues to riff on and refashion the once avant-garde works of mid-century mega stars, which have now become the pillars of museum collections and the archetypal paintings of a bygone era.

Revisiting the likes of Clifford Still, Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns and Lucio Fontana, among others, Drew packs a visual punch that echoes back and forth between past and present. On the one hand, Drew mines the iconic significance and magnetic power of the past by reworking undeniably recognizable masterpieces. At the same time, the works pop forward into the present through her use of uncharacteristic materials such as glitter, flocking and Swarovski crystals. The upfront and in-your-face flashiness of the works give them a contemporary bling, in contrast to the staid stature of the original works on which she riffs.

In the Now & Then series, Drew skews and twists the rigorous grids of Mondrian into dynamic distortions of what they once were. Expanding her range of scale and amping up the color combinations of her glitter and flocking, Drew pushes past the territories of appropriation and reverence, totally transforming the referenced works into scintillating, luscious paintings very much her own.

Nancy Drew recently exhibited in Open House: Brooklyn Art Today at the Brooklyn Museum. Her work was included in Repeat Performance at Artists Space in New York, as well as BQE at White Box, New York.

Reception: Saturday, April 16, 6-8 PM
April 16 ? May 14
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 12-6 PM or by appointment

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Roebling Hall is very pleased to present Nausea 2, Guy Richards Smit?s porn rock opera, which premiered last December at MoMA.

Nausea 2 is a feature length video project in the tradition of cinematic rock operas. It is the absurdist journey of two adult film stars through crippling doubt, self-discovery, healing and finally ? thanks to an ecstatic fashion-filled shopping spree ? unconditional love. Smit?s carnal, rocking, stylish and hilarious tale doubles as a pop critique of the contemporary art world as it exposes the eternal themes of love and vanity.

After achieving stardom in the art world and literary circles, Guy Richards Smit?s character Maxi Geil! experiences a physical repulsion to his vocation as an adult film star and is left unable to perform. He calls a press conference to announce his retirement, and there he meets another adult film star, Giselle Thurst (Rebecca Chamberlain), who has experienced a similar physical reaction to her work. They bond but are thwarted in their search for help. Ultimately, they achieve a state of ecstasy and healing by way of high fashion consumption.

Written, starring and directed by Guy Richards Smit, Nausea 2 features the music of Smit?s band Maxi Geil! & PlayColt. Time Out New York has described the band as a ?glammy art-rock group whose sly, tuneful music hearkens back to early Bowie and Roxy Music, with all the camp, drama and fabulousness the description implies. The band is tight and funky, and backing vocalist Rebecca Chamberlain's purr makes us weak in the knees." In addition to Smit and Chamberlain, the supporting cast includes the fantastic Zoe Lister-Jones as a young conflicted starlet and King Lou Fernandez as Maxi Geil's loyal manager. Nausea 2 features a cameo studded roster of art world notables such as Leo Fitzpatrick (Kids), Delia Brown, Fritz Chesnut, Chris Chiappa, Will Cotton, Tony Matelli, John Pilson, and many others.

Also included in the exhibition are a number of Guy Richards Smit?s hilarious watercolors that riff on the front pages of The New York Times. With dark humor and painterly panache, Smit evokes an emotional response to current events that is half interior-life diary and half old-fashioned social commentary.

The production of Nausea 2 was partially funded by the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art. Additional funding was provided by the MAT Charitable Foundation. Clothes supplied by Amarcord; make-up by 3 Custom Color; post-production by Subvoyant; incidental music by David Abir; music produced and recorded by Roger Fife; produced by Ami Armstrong.

Guy Richards Smit has previously exhibited his work in, among other venues, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, MOMA?s Mediascope, La Bienal de Valencia, the Havana Biennial, the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, the Bass Museum of Art, Aeroplastics (Brussels), and G-Module (Paris).
Guy Richards Smit has upcoming exhibitions at Sketch (June 2005) and the new Fred (London) Ltd (June 2005), both in London, UK.

March 12 ? April 9, 2005
Reception Saturday, March 12, 7-10 PM
Hours: Monday-Friday 12-6 PM or by appointment

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Roebling Hall is proud to present Niagara, a new solo exhibition of the work of painter Cadence Giersbach.

For her second solo show at Roebling Hall, Giersbach turns her focus towards Niagara Falls, with all its ambiguities and contradictions. Working in her signature color-saturated, hallucinatory style, she focuses on the complexity of the surrounding areas, particularly in the interaction between the natural environment and what is imposed on the landscape. The artist sees the Falls themselves as sublime, in contrast to their outlying areas, which have been compromised with the appearance of power towers, factories, waste dumps, hotels, and casinos.

Giersbach makes paintings that describe the social character of a particular place while playing with the reality and fiction of pictorial space. Her process begins by taking photographs, which she then manipulates digitally to enhance their subjects? inherent sense of the fantastic. A further understanding of the image develops through the process of translating the image by hand into paint. This process is well suited to Niagara, where nature is perpetually molded, reformed, used as both spectacle and backdrop, turned into vistas, converted into power, polluted and re-claimed.

Cadence Giersbach?s work has been included in exhibitions such as "Painting/Not Painting" at White Columns, New York, ?Reality Bytes: The Look Mediated by the Media? at the Kunsthalle Nürnberg, in Germany, ?Insites? at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Champion, Stamford, CT, ?Operativo? at the Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City, Mexico, among other venues. She has also completed several public commissions, including a soon-to-be unveiled mosaic ceiling at the Myrtle and Wyckoff Ave. subway station in Brooklyn, New York.

March 5 ? April 9, 2005
Reception for the artist: Saturday, March 5, 2005, 6-8pm
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 12-6 PM or by appointment

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Roebling Hall is extremely pleased to present The Brazil Project, a new film and installation by Christoph Draeger in collaboration with New York film director Gary Breslin.

The Brazil Project centers on the film Constructio Infernalis, a 30-minute cinematic horror thriller inspired by the failed utopian aspirations of modernist architecture. The film was shot on location in São Paulo, Brazil, with an entirely Brazilian cast and crew, including Brazilian horror film legend Zé do Caixao as a terrifying vagrant, and rising star Paula Zwicker as Lucia.

Constructio Infernalis unfolds in an abandoned, never-completed modernist building on the outskirts of São Paulo. With a knowing nod to horror movie conventions, a teenage couple enters the old building in search of adventure, only to find themselves pulled into a vortex of nightmarish encounters that culminate into a brutal murder and Lucia?s descent into madness.

By combining the projection of the film with an installation that echoes its sets, Draeger interferes with the illusionism of movies while placing the viewer in a similar position to that of his protagonists.

Christoph Draeger has recently exhibited his work in the Kunstwerke KW Berlin, Kunsthaus Graz and the New Britain Museum of Contemporary Art. He has had solo exhibitions in, amongst other venues, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Musee d?Art Contemporaine, Toulouse and the Kunsthalle Fri-Art, Freiburg. He recently designed the sets for the performance of Damnation Road (with Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People) at The Kitchen, New York.

For further information or images, please contact the gallery.

January 14 ? February 26, 2005
Reception for the artist: Friday, January 14, 2005
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 12-6 PM or by appointment

(Click for images, directions)

Roebling Hall is extremely pleased to present an exhibition of works on paper by visionary artist John Lurie.

For over 30 years, Lurie has been drawing and painting yet only recently has he chosen to exhibit. Once again, Lurie brings his own genuine and soulful touch to the world, combining a stylistic naïveté with incisive, wry humor.

John Lurie?s drawings and paintings express a disarming mixture of corrosive wit, raw emotion and unblemished sensitivity. His drawings bear the mark of an outsider, a quality present throughout his idiosyncratic career, whether in music, acting or the countless film scores he has written. To quote the artist: ?I like to draw and paint. It is a river to me. I am not an Indian.?

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1952, John Lurie moved to New York in 1976. During this time, he formed the musical group the Lounge Lizards. In the mid-80's, he scored and starred in the cult classics "Stranger Than Paradise" and "Down By Law." He has scored countless films and was nominated for a Grammy for "Get Shorty." In the late 90's, he directed and acted in "Fishing With John," his own TV series on the Independent Film Channel, which has been described as "Jacques Cousteau on LSD."

John Lurie has exhibited his art in the United States and Europe with shows at Galerie Daniel Blau in Munich, Germany and Anton Kern Gallery in New York. The Museum of Modern Art recently acquired five drawings for the permanent collection.

For further information or images, please contact the gallery at or visit roeblinghall.com.

January 7? February 14, 2005
Opening Reception: Friday, January7, 7-10 pm
Hours: Monday-Friday 12-6 PM or by appointment

Roebling Hall is extremely pleased to present the first New York solo exhibition of the paintings and drawings of Kysa Johnson.

Drawing from scientific sources and theories, such as string theory and the mapping of the subatomic decay of particles, Kysa Johnson creates explosive abstract tableaux, dense with intricate mark making. The various forms and marks that Johnson creates correspond to either microscopic representations of subatomic decay patterns and the known forms of diseases, or they depict macroscopic renderings of the mapping of the known universe.

Johnson?s paintings engage in the many forms of the very essence of life, ranging from the elemental bits of matter that form the world around us to the conceptual ideas that we form about our universe. Effectively, her work addresses both the smallest and largest possible representations of reality. She also seeks out the beauty and complexity found in the most brutal and infectious diseases such as whooping cough and tuberculosis. Johnson?s visual explorations into the realm of science and theory reveal the depth of complexity, beauty and interconnectedness of our natural world.

In a new series, Johnson combines art historical references to paintings of the Immaculate Conception with the drawn forms of bacteria and other life forms that reproduce asexually. In one example, Blow Up #43 (the asexual reproduction of yeast after Juan de Valdes Leal), Johnson references the painting The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, with Two Donors (c. 1661) by Valdes Leal from the National Gallery in London, by appropriating Leal?s composition for her drawing of the asexual reproduction of yeast. By fusing these two seemingly discordant subjects, Johnson humorously plays with the underpinnings of both religion and life while linking them to a long history of artistic representation.

In the fall of 2004, Kysa Johnson had a solo exhibition with the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. In 2000 she was commissioned to create a permanent installation of six paintings for the concourse level in The Empire State Building. She has exhibited in, amongst other venues, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, The Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, Scotland, The Mackintosh Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College, Allentown PA, DUMBO Art Center, Brooklyn, NY.

Nelson Leirner

Nelson Leirner
N.LEIRNER - 1999+5

Reception: Thursday, October 21, 6-8 PM
October 21 ? November 27, 2004

Roebling Hall is extremely pleased to present an exhibition of the renowned Brazilian conceptual artist Nelson Leirner.

Nelson Leirner throughout his forty plus years of artistic activity has continually produced visually explosive works that experiment and explore the possibilities within a socially conscious conceptualism. Making use of a wide array of materials ranging from agglomerations of ready-made objects to imagery loaded with historical weight and significance within a popular consciousness, Leirner creates dynamic sculptural and painterly objects that cleverly comment on the expansion of mass culture in Brazil and by associative analogy the global community.

For his North American gallery debut, Leirner presents as a centerpiece to the exhibition a giant sculptural installation titled, Futebol (Soccer). Amassing together hundreds of figurines into a configuration of the most widely diffused sporting showdown, Leirner pits two teams of little maneki neko (lucky cat) ceramics - the type common to East Asian communities in any international city - that face off against each other on a soccer stadium field. The throngs of spectators that crowd the stands are made up of religious and military figurines that run the cultural gamut from Saints to Buddhas and Indian chiefs to Roman cavalry.

In a series of painterly objects, Leirner includes works from his sticker paintings, which employ as a medium the mass-produced stickers from all facets of entertainment culture. Thousands of stickers of cartoon characters from Disney and Warner Bros. share the ground with those from Japanese anime such as Pokemon. In works such as the world map, Leirner skewers first world economic imperialism by his placement of happy Mickey Mouse stickers across the United States and Europe while other less developed countries across the globe are covered with skulls.

Nelson Leirner is one of the most critically acclaimed artists working in Brazil. He has been exhibiting on the Brazilian and international scene since the early 1960s. His work has appeared in numerous Sao Paolo Biennials and he represented Brazil in the 1999 Venice Biennial. He has exhibited in, among other venues, Grey Art Gallery (New York), Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paolo, Museé d?Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian-American Institute (Washington D.C.), and Galeria Brito Cimino.

Leirner will be present for the opening of the exhibition. For further information or images, please contact the gallery at or roeblinghall.com.

Roebling Hall 390 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn 11211
Paul Campbell September 24 ? October 18, 2004
Doug Young October 29 ? November 29, 2004

Satellite® 94 Prince Street, New York 10012
Melanie Baker September 29 ? October 23, 2004
Courtney Smith October 27 ? November 27, 2004

DOUG YOUNG

The House of Dark Hours

The House of Dark Hours
DOUG YOUNG

Opening reception Friday, October 29
October 29 ? November 22, 2004

Roebling Hall is proud to announce The House of Dark Hours, an exhibition of work by New York artist Doug Young. Doug Young revels in the low-end aesthetic of haunted houses, tent revivals, magic shows, community plays, model kits, fortune tellers, and séances. His exhibition at Roebling Hall wallows in the spirit world, including attractions such as a self-portrait of the artist as a corpse.

When the viewers walk through the installation, they are first confronted by And They Came from Beyond, a lonely tree rustling in the howling wind, and it quickly becomes apparent that as they look at the work something in it (the ?they? in the title) is looking back at them. Elsewhere, in a Pietà-like composition a ghostly figure mourns someone ? another ghostly figure ? at his deathbed. The Mirror From My Front Hall holds a respite for some, and a shocking surprise for an unlucky few. The Sad Death of Doug Young features the corpse of the artist as it lies abandoned in the living room floor, his uneasy spirit leaving it as the day turns to night. And in what might be the centerpiece of the show, the aptly named The Scary House is dramatically lit by startling lightning as The House?s Center reveals what happens in the eerie mansion?s heart.

?The House of Dark Hours? reveals a bit of the conjurer in Doug Young. While the humor in the work?s conception is apparent, there is something truly earnest in its realization. As he says, ?the goal is not necessarily to make art, but to live life. The life of an idea-mad enthusiast who searches for the fundamentally big forces out there, and who creates a more than ordinary existence.?

Doug Young has exhibited widely in New York and Chicago. In 2001 he was awarded the Guinness Book World Record for the longest non-stop banjo performance in history?24 hours total.

Psyche?s Complex

SATELLITE® - a division of ROEBLINGHALL
94 Prince Street (on the corner of Mercer)

Tel Fax
roeblinghall.com

Psyche?s Complex
COURTNEY SMITH

Reception Wednesday, October 27, 7-9 PM
Hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 12-6 PM
October 27 ? December 11, 2004

SATELLITE is extremely pleased to present Psyche?s Complex, an exhibition of a large, multi-phase, transformable sculpture by Courtney Smith.

For her second solo exhibition with Roebling Hall, Courtney Smith presents Psichê Complexo, an intricate sculptural transformation of finely crafted Brazilian furniture from the early 20th Century. Continuing her exploration of deconstructing and reconstructing materials that already exist, in Psichê Complexo, Smith - drawn to the inherent hybridized, even bastardized, forms of Brazilian design that mix art deco and art nouveau design elements with fine craftsmanship and beautiful woods ? exploits this dichotomy between the beauty and impurity of the fine but authorless furniture. Smith begins by cutting an armoire, vanity table, stool and two bedside tables; she then reassembles the elements using exposed hinges that contrast starkly with the fine artisan furniture. The hinging system allows the sculpture to be manipulated and reconfigured into many diverse forms, ranging from a self-contained wardrobe to the entire contents of a dressing room.

Playing off of the super feminin nature of the furniture, Smith enhances these qualities while simultaneously morphing them at times through the position of the elements and by exposing the very masculine hardware. Psichê Complexo is both a conceptually metaphorical examination of the complexity of the mind and an investigation of sculptural possibilities through physical transformation. Smith, through her process of deconstruction and reconstruction takes one body and turns it into a space.

Courtney Smith has exhibited in, among other venues, Museo de Arte Moderna São Paulo, Museu de Arte Moderna Rio de Janeiro, Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, Museo de Bellas Artes Buenas Aires, Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Mexico D.F., Museu de Arte Moderna Salvador, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (São Paulo), Culturgest (Lisbon), Galeria Fortes Vilaça (São Paulo), and will be showing at Galeria Vermelho (São Paulo) in 2005.

Roebling Hall 606 West 26th Street, New York 10001
Nelson Leirner October 23 ? November 27

Roebling Hall 390 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn 11211
Doug Young October 29 ? November 22, 2004

For further information or images, please contact the gallery or .

Primetime
Bjorn Melhus

Reception Wednesday, September 15, 6-9 PM
September 16 ? October 16, 2004

Roebling Hall is extremely pleased to inaugurate its new Chelsea space with the first American showing of Primetime, a massive video installation by the German-Norwegian artist Bjorn Melhus.

Composed of twenty-nine wall-mounted monitors, a pillar of another five large monitors and a large projection, Primetime floods the gallery with a rapid assault of images, washes of color and a barrage of audio snippets. Drawing from the Jerry Springer Show, the consummate daytime television talk show, Melhus weaves together a mix of sound bites and audio clips appropriated from Springer and others with a number of characters, all portrayed by the artist himself. His layering of bizarre, unsettling and humorous dialogue and imagery avoids any definite narrative, yet builds in suspense and density until the climatic and tragic demise of the weirdly magnetic character of Melhus as an androgynous hula dancer with an oversized bobble head.

The enigmatic spectacle of Primetime draws one into a shocking realm that vacillates between attraction and repulsion. The rhythmic cuts and visual fireworks fascinate, while the startling shouts of phrases like ?I?m having sex with my father!? create a tension that draws the viewer into uncomfortable territory. With a dark sense of humor, Melhus exposes a raw, television-overloaded, schizophrenic contemporary collective unconscious.

Melhus? work has been recently featured in The American Effect at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Istanbul Biennial. He also recently had a large-scale solo exhibition at FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool.

Bjorn Melhus has exhibited his work in, among other venues, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, Long Beach Museum of Art, Kunsthalle Bremen, Museum Ludwig Cologne, Serpentine Gallery London, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Sprengel Museum Hanover, and The Goethe-Institute New York.

Roebling Hall 390 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn 11211
Paul Campbell September 24 ? October 18, 2004

Satellite® 94 Prince Street, New York 10012
Moises Saman through September 25, 2004

Projection Series
Paul Campbell

September 24 ? October 18, 2004
Reception Friday, September 24, 6-9 PM
Hours: Monday-Friday 12-6 PM or by appointment

Roebling Hall is extremely proud to present ?Projection Series,? a new solo exhibition of the work of painter Paul Campbell.

In a bold new step in his explorations into alternative ways of mark-making, Campbell adds a new layer to his quirky, unusual processes. Rather than painting directly on his canvases with unorthodox tools such as motorized cars and toy robots as he has in previous series (such as the ?Imperfect Systems? and ?Remote Control? paintings), Campbell now begins by making those initial marks on paper, then enlarges selections from those drawings by carefully, painstakingly painting what was initially fairly haphazard.

There is a remarkable vibrancy to Campbell?s new paintings, bringing to mind a myriad of associations, from explosions to weather maps, and encompassing references ranging from Roy Lichtenstein?s ?Brushstrokes? series to Japanese animation and skateboarding graphics. The works of course also continue Campbell?s tweaking of the conventions of High Modernist abstraction, complicating the traditional interpretation of gesture and the artist?s hand by delicately painting what are essentially mechanical actions, and then collapsing our ideas of what is accidental and what is calculated.

Paul Campbell?s work has been included in exhibitions such as Postmark: An Abstract Effect at Site Santa Fe, NM, Metro-New York at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, NY, and New Work at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, NY. He has also exhibited at the Rose Art Museum, the Danforth Art Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, among other venues.

Roebling Hall, 606 West 26th Street, New York 10001
Bjørn Melhus Primetime September 16 ? October 16, 2004

Satellite®, 94 Prince Street, New York 10012
Melanie Baker Hiding the Elephant September 29 ? October 23, 2004

Bush League

BUSH LEAGUE
Melanie Baker Dan Ford Joan Linder Laura Parnes
Jane Benson Wayne Gonzales Bjørn Melhus Michael St. John
Anne Deleporte Deborah Grant Ivan Navarro Moises Saman
Christoph Draeger Eric Heist David Opdyke Guy Richards Smit

Reception Friday, July 9, 7-10 PM
Hours: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday 12-6 PM
By appointment in August
July 9 ? September 6, 2004

Roebling Hall is extremely pleased to present Bush League, an exhibition of works by 16 artists who step up to the plate and take a cut at ?President? Bush & Company.

George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States of America, has polarized the country, perhaps more than any other president in history. His policies and those implemented by his closely knit group of Neo-Con advisors and cabinet members have had a devastating effect on the United States, ranging from a floundering economy to a dangerously decaying perception of America abroad. The reverberations of this president?s actions continue to ripple out into all facets of American society, including contemporary art, where more and more artists have been making overtly political work to express their displeasure and fear of the current administration. Bush League brings together work by a selection of artists that take on the image and ideas put forward by President Bush and his cadre of colleagues - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Rice - that make up this bush league team.

In works that range in media from painting, drawing, sculpture, video and sound pieces, these artists play with both the image and actions of President Bush in various ways that span from outright mockery and parody to much darker and serious interpretations both direct and oblique. The President and his public image is the subject of works by Melanie Baker, Wayne Gonzales and Joan Linder. In large ominously dark charcoal drawings, Baker zooms in on the loaded gestures and silent communication between the Attorney General and the President. Gonzales also makes use of the public image of these figures and others by employing images from newspapers and other sources that he then manipulates digitally and reworks by hand using a process of layering bendy screens and powdered graphite over a metallic ground. The resulting drawings portray a frighteningly direct and coolly stylized presence that is both dark and shimmering like the blade of a knife. In contrast Linder exposes the president and crew in humorous drawings that show them caught with their pants down, a direct and hilarious interpretation of the current administrations debilitating gamut of using false and unsubstantiated information and intelligence to promote the war against Iraq.

Other artists such as Christoph Draeger and Moises Saman use very real and serious images to reveal the terrible events of the recent past since Bush became president. Draeger creates on his signature puzzle pieces, using the loaded image of the remains of the World Trade Center, while Saman shows a horrifying portrait of a bombing victim from the American air raids on Baghdad. Also confronting serious and frightening policies of the president is Ivan Navarro, who presents a sculpture titled You Sit, You Die which focuses on the issue of the death penalty, in particular that of Florida where Gov. Jeb Bush, the president?s brother wields power. Other works such as Michael St. John?s collaged paintings show the expansive influence of Bush?s control of the media and mainstream perception. While Bjorn Melhus fashions a catchy pop song out the frightening and overtly arrogant proclamations of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The exhibition will continue through the beginning of September as a form of protest against the Republican National Convention, which will be held in New York from August 30 ? September 2.

For further information or images, please contact the gallery.

Reception Friday, May 21, 7-10 PM
Hours for the exhibition:
Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday 12-6 PM
May 21 - June 21

Roebling Hall is extremely pleased to present ?Monuments? for D. Flavin by Iván Navarro.

Appropriating the signature materials associated with Dan Flavin, Navarro builds visually dynamic, radiant structures such as tables and chairs with fluorescent lights. In a nod to his precursor, Navarro titles this exhibition ?Monuments? for D. Flavin, after the late artist?s seminal ?Monuments? to V. Tatlin (1964-1990), itself an homage to another precursor. In contrast to Flavin, Navarro?s interests reach beyond the minimalist tenets of formal and material concerns, engaging the perception of the viewer and revealing social and political content behind the misleadingly neutral veneer of formalism.

As Navarro states in his remarks on the ?Monuments,? also a modified appropriation of remarks by Flavin made in 1965:

Thus far, I have made a considered attempt to poise hot and silent electric light in crucial concert point to point, line by line and otherwise in the box that is a room within the viewers that interact with it. This dramatic decoration has been founded in the young tradition of a plastic revolution which gripped American art only forty years ago. My joy is to try to build from that incomplete experience.

Navarro plays with both the immediate seduction of formalism and the underlying issues it tends to obscure. Joy Division (2004)?a seductively formal red structure of burning red fluorescents topped with glass, named after Nazi concentration camp brothels?is immediately recognizable as a table of minimalist design, but only after further contemplation does one notice the support structure takes the haunting shape of a swastika. Homeless Lamp (2004), a fluorescent supermarket shopping cart, at first seems to be a witty Pop Art reference, but the title reveals different connotations for that object. This work and others such as Blue Electric Chair (2004) incite an underlying sense of fear and apprehension that lingers beneath the clean lines and radiant glow of the fluorescent bulbs.

Iván Navarro has exhibited in, among other venues, Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago (Chile), National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Hartell Gallery, Cornell University (New York), Gasworks studios, London (UK), Museo de Arte Moderno de Guadalajara (Mexico), Museo Nacional de Arte, Lima (Perú), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago (Chile). Current and upcoming projects include: ?Terrorvision? at Exit Art (New York), La Biennale Adriatica di Arti Nuove (Italy), a project room at the Jersey City Museum (New Jersey), Asosiassione Prometeo (Italy), and ?Departures from Common Things: Emerging Paths, Chile?, Las Ataranzas, Valencia (Spain).

Reception Friday, April 23, 7-9 PM
Hours for the exhibition:
Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday 12-6 PM
April 24 - May 17

Roebling Hall is extremely pleased to present "INSIDE 89 SECONDS AT ALCÁZAR," its first exhibition of the video and photo based work of Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation. An artistic complement to Sussman's fantastically poetic video, 89 Seconds at Alcázar-presently on view at the Whitney Biennial-the current gallery exhibition elegantly explores the elaborately layered fact and fiction inherent in what the artist has called her "cinema verité costume choreography."

Featuring Sussman's still and moving image improvisations on the theme of Diego Velázquez's Las Meninas, the exhibition will include photographs from the production by collaborating photographers Bobby Neel Adams and Benedikt Partenheimer, flat screen 'moving painting' videos, and "The Making of 89 seconds?", a Super 8 film and video journal documenting the development of the project.

"INSIDE 89 SECONDS AT ALCÁZAR" presents just a small part of the intense activity that surrounds this artist's recent spectacular project. A set of captured moments in a fluid choreography of movements that includes actors, photo and video cameras, and especially takes into account the point of view of the viewers themselves, Sussman's work engages centuries old questions of perception and artistic creation with some of the world's most up to date technology.

Starting with a set built inside a garage space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as well as an intensely researched Baroque wardrobe by costume designer Karen Young, Sussman and actors Jeff Wood, Helen Pickett , Walter Sipser, nine-year-old Sophie Zamchick and the rest of the cast worked with choreographer Claudia de Serpa Soares, Director of Photography Jeff Blauvelt and Steadicam operator Sergei Franklin to bring the drama of 89 seconds at Alcázar to life. An immensely difficult and intricate riff on a single painting supposedly representing a simple snapshot of the world, "INSIDE 89 SECONDS AT ALCÁZAR" provides a peek behind the scenes of the densest of artistic processes. Hers, that is, that of painters like Velazquez and those of countless, important others.

Eve Sussman has exhibited her highly innovative work at, among other venues, The American Academy in Rome, the V International Istanbul Biennial and the Sculpture Center. Her work, the 10 minute video "89 Seconds At The Alcazar," which premiered at the Whitney Museum, has also been seen at the University of Hertfordshire's Margaret Harvey Gallery (U.K.) and will be exhibited at the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporaneo (Spain) in June of 2004.

The creation of "89 seconds at Alcazar" has been supported by HD Cinema, the New York State Council on the Arts, Smack Mellon Studios, Dan Wurtzel Studios, Panasonic, The University of Hertfordshire and Digital Society Computor Center Inc.