The Reading Room Archives

At The Reading Room

Posted on January 15, 2016No Comments

Video still, Becoming Colette/Grand Vefour, 2015

Becoming Colette
new work by Colette Copeland
at The Reading Room/Dallas
3715 Parry Avenue, Dallas
January 16—February 20, 2016
opening reception January 16 from 6 to 9 pm

Becoming Colette, a project by Dallas multi media artist Colette Copeland, will open January 16 and continue through February 20. Copeland’s work examines issues surrounding gender, history and contemporary culture. The exhibition will feature video, prints and sculpture that take the viewer on a performative journey into the literary history of Paris and the writings of the iconic French author Colette.

Copeland’s work has been exhibited in 15 solo and 70 group exhibitions/festivals spanning 29 countries in the past 12 years. She received a BFA from Pratt Institute and MFA from Syracuse University. She currently teaches at University of Texas Dallas, Richland and Collin Country Colleges.

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

Posted on September 5, 2015No Comments

OCCIPUT
by Lucia Simek
at The Reading Room
3715 Parry Avenue/Dallas
September 5 — October 3, 2015
opening reception September 5 from 6 to 9 pm

OCCIPUT by Lucia Simek opens tonight at The Reading Room. This solo show OCCIPUT, which means the back of the head, features short films, images, objects, and a pair of socks. Themes of exile, instability and insecurity found within daily life are seen through the lens of nature and the sublime.

Simek is an artist, writer and curator based in Dallas. Her work has been shown at Dallas Contemporary. Simek is co-founder of the artist collective The Art Foundation which organized Boom Town at the Dallas Museum of Art in 2013 and Fountainhead in 2012. She completed a MFA in sculpture at Texas Christian University in 2014.

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

Posted on February 13, 2015No Comments

Carolyn Sorter’s Necronetworking performance at The Reading Room is this Saturday, Valentine’s Day, from 2pm to 5pm. It will be the perfect antidote to the day’s sappy hoopla. In her own words, “Walk in or out, observing or ignoring.” This event ties in with her current Seismic Hive exhibition which you can learn more about my clicking the link below.

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

Posted on November 14, 2014No Comments

Postal Mortem
Jennie Ottinger
at The Reading Room
3715 Parry Avenue/Dallas
November 15 — December 13
reception/stamp trade 11/15 from 6 to 9 pm

Postal Mortem by San Francisco based artist Jennie Ottinger will feature 25 postcards (front and back) sent by Ottinger as a creative endeavor to support the U.S. Postal Service and this endangered mode of communication. The postcards feature social media type messages that are handwritten with related drawings. The opening reception on Saturday, November 15 will involve a stamp exchange: bring some to swap for others (like tiny trading cards). Visit Jennie Ottinger’s website for further information about Postal Mortem.

Ottinger received a BFA from California College of the Arts and a MFA from Mills College. Her work has been shown at Volta NY Art Fair, NADA Art Fair/Miami, Headlands Center for the Arts, Johansson Projects and locally at Conduit Gallery and has been published in Art in America, ArtSlant, Daily Serving, 7X7, Huffington Post.

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

Posted on May 1, 2014No Comments

The Magician
an epic graphic novel by Chris Byrne
April 26 — May 17, 2014
reception on Thursday, May 1 from 7 to 9 pm
talk by publisher Ed Marquand at 7:30 pm

Please join us to celebrate the Dallas debut of Dallas Art Fair co-founder Chris Byrne’s The Magician (Marquand Books) on Thursday, May 1 from 7 to 9 pm at The Reading Room, 3715 Parry Avenue, Dallas.

The Magician is an epic graphic novel, a bookmaking tour de force, a mesmerizing art object, and the completion of over a decade-long obsession of Byrne. This enigmatic box of wonders houses a dozen separate publications, printed and hand bound using a variety of techniques.

The publisher Ed Marquand will talk about the making of the book at 7:30 pm. His interest in engaging new technologies and materials to push the limitations of book arts allowed this project to happen. The Magician is an edition of 20 with five artist’s proofs, designed by Chris Byrne and Scott Newton and produced by Paper Hammer Studios in Tieton, Washington.

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

Posted on March 15, 2014No Comments

Nicholas G Miller, 'FilmSoundMacro,' 2013 — Nicholas G Miller, ‘FilmSoundMacro,’ 2013

Common Sense
Nicolas G Miller
March 15 — April 13, 2014
opening reception 3/15 from 6 to 9 pm

The Reading Room will present Common Sense by Nicolas G Miller (Marfa,Texas) March 15 through April 13. Common Sense is an installation involving sound and sculpture that deals with ideas of communal, aesthetic experience and its relationship to moral judgment. The “soundtrack” for the exhibition is derived from Low Frequency Effects tracks of Stephen Spielberg films. LFE tracks manifest as low rumblings that give a bodily sensation and are used to “fill in” the sounds of thunder, explostions, crashes, etc.

Miller lives and works in Marfa, Texas. He received a BS in math and physics from the University of North Texas and studied music and art at CalArts. In 2013 he received a Dallas Museum of Art Kimbrough award. Miller is known for his musical compositions, including the opera APOTENTIALLYGOODEXPERIENCE, and his artist’s editions project Recondite Industries. His work has been shown at Marfa Book Company and The Locker Plant; and he was an artist-in-residence at Colpa Press where he produced a limited edition publication.

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

Posted on February 7, 2014No Comments

Jessica Iannuzzi Garcia, 'Kookaburras sit in the old gum tree,' 2014 — Jessica Iannuzzi Garcia, ‘Kookaburras sit in the old gum tree,’ 2014

never to be yourself and yet always — that is the problem
a project by (wo)manorial
February 8 — March 1

The Reading Room will host an exhibition presented by the collective (wo)manorial from February 8 through March 1, with an opening reception on Saturday, February 8 from 6 to 9 pm. The title never to be yourself and yet always — that is the problem is taken from Virginia Woolf’s The Modern Essay. The group exhibition addresses those endless doubts and beliefs, searches and frustrations, manipulations and attempts to be honest with art and with ourselves, questioning the freedom that gives pleasure but also uncertainty.

(wo)manorial, founded by Jessica Iannuzzi Garcia and Haley Kattner Allen, is an online platform that addresses issues of contemporary femininity. Since its inception, the collective has produced six exhibitions and featured the work of over 75 artists. Garcia and Allen are joined by guest curators Lilia Kudelia of The Dallas Contemporary and independent curator Daria Prydybailo as well as LauraLee Brott, Courtney Brown, Rebecca Carter, Gabriela Ochoa, Alison Starr, Tori Whitehead.

from their facebook page: “As a collective of artists, creatives, and thinkers who contemplate the ever-changing concept of the feminine, we identify with being human before any political group. As (wo)manorialists, of course we are feminist, but identify with that after our femininity. (wo)manorial provides a global space with which to create, communicate, and document an ever-shifting notion of femininity. Our work shares our experience.”

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

Posted on September 6, 2013No Comments

Asteroid Belt of Trash Blocking Transmissions of Love
The Art Foundation for the Texas Biennial 2013 at
The Reading Room, 3715 Parry Avenue in Dallas
September 7 through November 2, 2013
Opening reception: September 14, 7 to 9 PM

Drawing inspiration and content from Jonathan Lethem’s novel Chronic City, The Art Foundation will create a series of broadsides referencing the slow revelation of layered truths embodied within a city. Utilizing pop-culture, esoterica, and cinematic reference the works will be a layered series of pasted graffiti style “advertisements” covering the gallery wall. Considering the city as a willful entity, often suppressing transparency of intent behind emotive distraction and conspiracy, the exhibit introduces far-flung fragmented ideas as the channel from which truth is revealed, though often mistaking fanciful simulacra for the real and reality for myth.

Take-away fliers/propaganda will be available in an attempt to expand the tangled revelations beyond the gallery in an effort to mirror and permeate the city. Additional programming, including readings and lectures, will be announced during the run of the exhibit as details are confirmed.

The Art Foundation (established in 2012) is an artist collective based in Dallas, with current members Ryder Richards, Lucia Simek and Andrew Douglas Underwood.

The Reading Room (recently chosen D Magazine‘s Best Art Space) is a project space which features monthly exhibitions, readings and performances that involve text and image and is located at 3715 Parry Avenue in Dallas.

The Art Foundation and The Reading Room are participating organizations in the Texas Biennial 2013.

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

Posted on June 1, 2013No Comments

Season, an installation by Jesse Morgan Barnett, has opened today at The Reading Room and will continue through June 22. The exhibition includes photography, video and sculpture, making subtle connections between fishing, weather, food preparation, philosophy and artistic endeavors. TRR is open today, Saturday, June 1 from noon until 8 pm in conjunction with East Dallas Gallery Day. There will be a closing reception and artist remarks on June 22 from 6 to 9 pm.

Barnett is a University of Texas at Arlington graduate in Intermedia and member of the collective DB12. His work has been shown locally at Marty Walker Gallery, Oliver Francis Gallery, Kirk Hopper Gallery, and Eastfield Community College as well as in Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.

Contemporary Art

Getting to Know You

Posted on March 9, 2013No Comments

‘Getting to Know You #1’

Terri Thornton’s Getting To Know You opens tonight at The Reading Room. This exhibition of drawings and related material will explore the idea of how we acquire knowledge and the diverse sources, visual and textual, that we learn from. The title is taken from the musical The King and I. Tonight’s opening reception is from 6 to 9 pm, and the show will extend through April 14, 2013. There will be an artist talk Saturday, April 6 at 5 pm.

Thornton lives and works in Fort Worth where she is Curator of Education at the Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth. Thornton recently curated where is the power at TCU’s Fort Worth Contemporary Arts. Her own work has recently been shown in November House, Modern Ruin, at Brand 10 and The Old Jail Art Center/Albany. Other past exhibitions include Ether at testsite/Austin (a project of Fluent~Collaborative) and things held and never understood at Free Museum of Dallas.