My 20 - July 3, 2004
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 20, 6 - 8:30pm
Artists Talk with Repeat Performance artist Tilo Schulz: Saturday, May 22nd, 2pm

<< Jeff Feld, The only part of Robert Raushenberg's "Pelican" that I know, 2001, black and white C-print, 8 x 10 inches. Courtesy the artist.

MAIN SPACE: Repeat Performance
Jason Dodge / Nancy Drew / Jeff Feld / John Jurayj / Jill Miller / Tilo Schulz / Mungo Thomson

Repeat Performance brings together emerging artists who have used works by other artists and architects as a starting point for their own creative process. By restaging historic performances, inscribing their own appearance into old video tapes, referencing public sculpture of the 1970s, or repainting iconic seascapes and abstractions by 19th and 20th century masters, these artists direct their attention to the operative potential gained from the temporal, spatial, and contextual distance between the first invocation of a work of art and its reappearance as an appropriated model of influence. The individual motivations behind these acts of acquisition may differ as they serve to assert ownership over a particular artistic and critical tradition, investigate the changed climate of utopianism and intervention between the cultural landscapes of the 1960s and today, or attempt to simultaneously use and disconnect the iconicity of certain historic artistic practices. The artists’ relations to their points of reference may range from the reverential to the ironic, but all attest to a continued historical awareness as well as to the power of transformative thought.

Mungo Thomson, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (12 Step), 1999, Ink on Holographic Vinyl, 3 x 36 in. Courtesy the artist.	Tilo Schulz, Remake of "Restless Ball by Coopo Himmelb(l)au, 1971" by Tilo Schulz, 2002. Video still, performance. Courtesy the artist and Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Museum Hagen, Germany.

PROJECT SPACE 1: Robin Rhode The Score
Curated by Claire Tancons as part of the Emerging Curators Series

<< Robin Rhode, Black Tie, 2003 (detail), Photo Credit: Cameron Wittig, Courtesy the artist.

For The Score, Robin Rhode will produce a new performance that incorporates wall drawings and audio recording. Using a broad brush and black paint, Rhode will depict the instruments typical of a classical jazz ensemble while the sound simultaneously replicates and destabilizes the visual representations. Echoing Miles Davis in his gesture to turn away from the audience, Rhode references the conventions of both musical and artistic performance histories. Video documentation produced by Rhode with the assistance of Tobin Yelland will be on view during the exhibition.

PROJECT SPACE 2: Marie Jager R.U.R.

<< Marie Jager, R.U.R., 2003, film still, 16mm film transferred on DVD, color/sound, 13 min., 15 sec. Courtesy the artist.

“Place: an island - Time: the future - This is the central office - organizing living matter …” Such begins R.U.R., a science-fiction film without special effects and shot with non-professional actors. Based on Karel Capec’s 1921 play, Rossum Universal Robot, that introduced the first use of the word "robot," R.U.R. presents a meditation on how to imagine a new beginning, how to represent the future, and how to create fiction without narrative.

PROJECT SPACE 3: Mark Bradford Can You Feel It

<< Mark Bradford, Can You Feel It, 2004, 10.5 x 5.5 in., Lithograph on brown paper bag with hand applied endpaper, Edition of 50, Courtesy the artist and Brent Sikkema Gallery, NY. Printed by Cirrus, Los Angeles.

Commissioned by Artists Space, Mark Bradford’s Can You Feel It is a limited edition of fifty monoprints that combine the artist's signature collage of appropriated text and image with singed permanent endpapers. An unusual edition, featuring five different slogans and the hand of the artist on each work, each print is unique. The individual works’ status as smaller parts of a larger whole and a public presentation in its entirety is critical to Bradford; he intended for the piece to exist both as one work and as fifty unique components sold separately. All proceeds benefit Artists Space's programs.