Cringe
May 17th – July 31st 2008
Opening exhibition reception:
Saturday May 17th from 6 – 9pm
http://www.deanproject.com
Included artists:
Larry Litt – May 17th – May 25th
Brina Thurston – May 31st – June 15th
Elena Tejada-Herrera – June 18th – June 28th
Noritoshi Hirakawa – July 3rd – July 13th
Nicolás Dumit Estévez – July 19th – July 31st
DEAN PROJECT, in collaboration with Y Gallery, is pleased to present “Cringe” a five-part performance-based exhibition series curated by Cecilia Jurado.
Opening exhibition reception and performance by Laurence Chirsteby Litt – Saturday May 17th
from 6-9pm.
Considering the current state of the art market — an unlimited oasis and supply of commercial art goods ready to be exchanged in multiple venues around the world — Cecilia Jurado questioned, “What about those in search of a small piece of an artist’s idea and not merely their detritus?” The answer she found: five culturally critical performance artists who ask, “why not be critical of one’s own world? Art has thousands of followers and many creators, but let’s be honest, much of the world’s population lives fine without it.”
Some artists, while they agree with those who cringe at the art world and its financial excesses, still have a deep desire and love for art that stimulates, provokes, and makes them think. Larry Litt, Brina Thurston, Elena Tejada-Herrera, Noritoshi Hirakawa and Nicolás Dumit Estévez remind us that the unmediated and unrecorded performance experience cannot be acquired and collected itself.
This exhibition is a conversation about contemporary art and its arbitrary values; like gold, art is only valuable when someone is willing to pay for it. Yet the collecting of art has an intellectual and cultural status far superior to the crass collecting of gold. When considering the idea of collecting art the average man in the
street cringes.
Each of the participants will present original first-time-exhibited work. These performers have a razor sharp attitude towards their subjects and they clearly display their opinions. Sometimes these opinions make us cringe as well.
Be prepared to cringe.
“CHRISTEBY’S ART AUCTION TONIGHT! WE DON’T CARE WHO YOU ARE…LONG AS YOU
GOT MONEY!”
A performance by Laurence Christeby Litt on New York’s bottom feeder fundraising live auction art events.
Larry Litt was born in New York. He has been working with performance, video and photography for the last 20 years doing shaman rituals, burning books and making TV-series among other things. He performed his ‘Video-Mudang’ ritual with several Korean artist/musicians in the 1993 Venice Biennale, sharing the award winning German Pavilion with Nam June Paik and Hans Haacke. He has since performed it worldwide. Since 2001 Litt has written and produced 30 short films as part of his Blame Show series. The videos were seen on Time-Warner cable television from 2005 to 2007. His videos are in the collections of many museums and art libraries. His ‘Hate Books-Holy Fires’ has been seen at the Moscow Biennale 2007, in New York at the Emily Harvey Foundation’s Blago Bung Festival and at Magnan Projects, Litt’s Chelsea gallery. Larry Litt lives and works in New York.
DEAN PROJECT is located at the back right corner of the P.S.1 Museum in Long Island City
DEAN PROJECT
45-43 21st Street
Long Island City, NY 11101
Tel. 718.706.1462
Gallery hours: Thurs – Sun
Noon – 7pm & Mon by appt
Email. mark@deanproject.com
