Photographer and performance artist Maury Gortemiller will present All-Time Lotion at The Reading Room February 9 through Feburary 23, 2013. The opening reception will be Saturday, February 9 from 6 to 9 pm and the closing/performance will be on Saturday, Feburary 23 at 5 pm. The exhibition is guest curated by Danielle Avram Morgan and photographer Kevin Todora.
Gortemiller lives and works in Atlanta. His practice includes photography, performance and artist books. He “mines the Janus faced elements of photography”, including alleged objectivity, context, and staged versus spontaneous events which leads to some very provocative and sometimes delightfully confusing images. The Feburary 23 performance/talk will focus on his Competitive Apnea series.
Tonight at The Reading Room, Kris Pierce’s Missed Calls will open with a reception from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. The Reading Room is located at 3715 Parry Avenue.
Using three separate phone numbers which will be posted in diverse geographic locations of the city, Pierce will output the data from the calls into one continuous scrolling printout in the gallery. The data will then be compiled into a book. The exhibition, which continues his investigation of technology and information and its influence on human behavior and quotidian activities, continues through February 2.
Kris Pierce is an artist, designer and animator who lives and works in Fort Worth where he is co-founder of the experimental art collective Homecoming! He has recently shown at Conduit Gallery‘s Project Room, Fort Worth Contemporary Arts‘ where is the power and Eastfield College. He is a graduate of the University of North Texas and is currently Art Director of video content for Funimation Entertainment.
At The Reading Room, Saturday, November 17 from 7pm to 9pm, is the opening of Brandon Kennedy’s Exit For Sale. This exhibition will include slightly absurd sculpture and confused signage and will continue through December 22. A conversation between Kennedy and Peter Simek, Arts Editor for D Magazine will take place on Sunday, December 9 at 3pm.
Kennedy received an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University and a BFA from the University of North Texas and is a DeGolyer/Kimbrough Award recipient from the Dallas Museum of Art. His work has been featured in The Art Foundation’s Fountainhead exhibition this spring, at And/Or Gallery, Plush, Dallas Center for Contemporary Art, McKinney Avenue Contemporary, University of Texas at Dallas as well as PAWNSHOP, an e-flux exhibition in New York City. He lives and works in Dallas with his wife and son.
Janeil Engelstad at The Reading Room. For over a century the State Fair of Texas, the largest state fair in the country, has been a mainstream showcase for agriculture, crafts and livestock that is sponsored, in part, by big agri-business. On Saturday, September 22 from 7 to 9 pm—during the 2012 State Fair of Texas—Janeil Engelstad is producing an exhibition at The Reading Room, which is located across the street from the fairgrounds that will be a parallel universe to the official state fair.
Titled, Y’UTOPIAS: An Almanac (of sorts) of Sustainable and Off-the-Grid Living in Texas, the project investigates and documents sustainable and off-the-grid living, farming and ranching throughout the state. The installation includes photographs, video and text from her interviews with people who are, in many ways, contemporary Texan pioneers. Like any good state fair, Y’UTOPIAS includes demonstrations and other events. Engelstad has built a functioning worm farm that will demonstrate how worm castings can be used to make worm wine and naturally fertilize a garden.
Engelstad is director of two multi-disciplined and multi-faceted art projects, Voices from the Center and MAP (Make Art With Purpose). Her practice is advocacy oriented, addressing social, political, historical and environmental concerns, and is international in scope. Engelstad has lectured and taught at universities throughout North American and Europe and was a 2006 Fulbright Scholar at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia. She received an MFA in Photography from New York University/International Center for Photography.
The opening reception is Saturday, Sept 22 from 7 to 9 pm, and you can look forward to some Shiner Bock and Wanda Dye’s infamous BBQ! This exhibition will be open during the State Fair of Texas on Thursdays through Sundays 1:00 to 5:00 pm through October 21.
There will be special demonstrations in conjunction with the exhibition: Sunday, September 23, 3:00 pm, Raw & Vegan Chef and Cook Book Author, Haylee Otto will demonstrate how to make milk from nuts and seeds. Sunday, Oct. 7, 3:00 pm, Lisa Staffelbach, Chef and Owner of 24 Carrot Health, will teach fermenting. Come learn how to make sauerkraut and take your own jar home! Sunday, Oct 14, 3:00 pm, Raw Food Chef Phebe Phiilips will demonstrate how to start a sprout farm and grow your vegetables indoors in your kitchen.
(left) ‘Esdenis’, 2012, Letraset, 10″ x 9”; (right) ‘Field #26’, 2012, collage on paper, 8/5″ x 7″
Eric Zimmerman’s Telltale Ashes and Endless Disharmony will open at The Reading Room on Friday, August 31 from 7 to 10 pm with a performance at 8 pm. The exhibition will include collage, drawings, a publication, and website and will continue through September 15.
Zimmerman’s work deals with the problematics and complexities of representation and the creative process. He will approach these issues by having concurrent exhibitions at TRR in Dallas and Art Palace in Houston and by establishing relationships/harmonies and dis-harmonies between the two sites.
Telltale Ashes is the name of one of Houdini’s card tricks that appears to impart the magician with mystical and telepathic abilities to communicate with the “other” side. Endless Disharmony derives from Zimmerman’s interest in the idea of infinity and refers, among other things, to the looping cassette tapes his work has incorporated for several years.
Zimmerman’s work has shown in Texas at Art Palace, Old Jail Center, Grace Museum, Austin Museum of Art, 2009 Texas Biennial, Fort Worth Contemporary Art and in New York at Horton Gallery and The Re Institute. He received a MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Zimmerman was in residence at The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in spring 2012 and will be a visiting artist at the Wassaic Project this month. He is currently editor of … might be good journal.
One of many selected artworks from the Oil and Cotton Creative Exchange summer classes.
Should you be looking for a respite from the Tax-Free Weekend, consider coming to The Reading Room Sunday, August 19 from 4 to 6 pm. There will be a short musical program of American Revolutionary era songs and action rhymes at 4:30 performed by The Yankee Doodles featuring John Dufilho on drums and guitar.
This will be followed by a hands-on art activity, making your own personal flag or banner, by the Oil and Cotton Creative Exchange. Selected artwork from summer classes at the O&C will be on display also. Learning about art, history, and individual versus collective action and thinking underly these programs.
Come sing along and bring all tiny patriots and future revolutionaries for this one day only, back-to-school program.
‘The Rachel’s Wave,’ 2011, inlaid maps and acrylic on aluminum panel. Click on it for a larger version.
Matthew Cusick: Scenes Et Types. This summer exhibition at The Reading Room will feature Matthew Cusick’s collage work from his wave series comprised of map fragments as well as the sirens which use imagery derived from vintage travel postcards.
Cusick’s collage work has been written about in such diverse publications as The Surfers Journal and The Paris Review, indicating his range of references from diverse cultures and geographies. Cusick received a BFA from The Cooper Union and is currently pursuing graduate studies at SMU. His work has been shown internationally as well as in New York City at Andrew Kreps Gallery, Kent Fine Art, and most recently Pavel Zoubok Gallery where he has an exhibition this fall.
Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, June 16 from 7 to 9 pm. The Reading Room will be open that day from noon until 9 pm in conjunction with East Dallas Gallery Day. There will be an artist talk on Saturday, July 14 at 3 pm.
Tendered Currency, new work by Shane Mecklenburger, will open at The Reading Room on Saturday, April 14 from 7 to 9 pm with a reception for the artist followed by a reading on Sunday, April 15 at 4 pm. The exhibition will continue through May 12.
Mecklenburger’s work investigates American culture and various market functions and transactions, “our internal struggles and contradictions, our national self-perception and the way we are perceived, valued and devalued”. TRR will feature video, sculpture, prints and a live eBay auction. During an election year and while the Dallas Arts Fair is in progress, Mecklenburger will show how he sold The Future on eBay and made a diamond from the script of Superman III.
An intermedia artist working between installation, media art and performance, Mecklenburger holds an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently Assistant Professor of Art & Technology at Ohio State University’s Department of Art. His work has exhibited at Hoxton Gallery/London, The Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music/Amsterdam, Ubersee Museum/Bremen, Centro Cultural Paso del Norte/Juarez, The El Paso Museum of Art and Dallas Museum of Art.
The Reading Room is a project space dedicated to the intersection of visual and text based culture located at 3715 Parry Avenue, Dallas. For further information Karen Weiner 214 952 4109.
Andrea Goldman at The Reading Room.Madness Q & A: The Watery Part of the World, a video and related work by Andrea Goldman will open at The Reading Room on Saturday, February 11. You’re invited to join us for the reception with the artist from 7 to 9 pm. The exhibition will continue through March 10 and can be seen by appointment.
Goldman creates videos, drawings and songs that enact dialogues between brilliant animals, canonical authors, children’s choirs, ideological bodies and other doppelgangers. Her characters use humor and dialogue to investigate and upset dichotomies. TRR will present a work that engages Melville’s Moby Dick, Foucault’s History of Madness, and a family vacation. Reason, history, philosophy, politics, medicine, and otherness are examined in a playful manner.
Provided by Karen Weiner of The Reading Room. Here’s another ornament that I managed to wrangle from the The MAC’s Blue Yule ten plus years ago. It has remained charming and timeless despite being moved around during my home’s seven year restoration process and has now found a permanent home in my office.
