Curated by SPECTREVISION
Wynwood Arts District, December 2-5, 2010
Lions Gallery @ Museovault
346 NW 29th Street, Miami, FL 33127

Showcasing contemporary work inspired by current events. In navigating the borderlands of investigative practice, spectre long ago abandoned the catalogue notion of “genre”; as such spectrevision humbly presents studio art work juxtaposed interchangeably with experiments and efforts that defy current modes of categorization, displayed alongside research materials and other relevant findings.

Featuring:
Jeremy Dean, Jonathon Keats, Abigail Portner, Oliver Laric, Judi Werthein, Julieta Aranda, Michael Mandiberg, Iris Lasn, Nellie Appleby, Mike Ross, hacker Dan Kaminsky, authors Stephen Mihm (“Nation of Counterfeiters”), Howard Bloom (“Lucifer Principle”), Robert Eisenberg (“Boychicks in the Hood”), & Zachary Mexico (“China Underground”), Philip Tinari (founding editor artforum.com.cn & LEAP), photographers Cheryl Dunn, Tod Seelie, Jamel Toppin, Janine Gordon, Stacy Kranitz, Olivia Wyatt, & Julia Solis, Miami firefighter Myles Kaplan, holographer Mark Diamond, psychic economist Eva Destruction, artist/activist Ben Sisto, ‘missed connections’ curator Gillian Sneed, consumer advocate Dewey LLC, and others.

Lisbon City Council and Miguel Amado Projects are presenting the exhibition “The Philosophy of Money”, which opens on June 22 at 10 pm at the Pavilhão Branco of the Museu da Cidade in Lisbon. This exhibition brings together works by 28 artists who, in the light of the current financial crisis, examine money as the “God of the modern age”.

Works by Alejandro Vidal, Alfredo Jaar, Carey Young, Carolina Caycedo, Cildo Meireles, Danica Phelps, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Joana Bastos, Liam Gillick, Lotte Lindner & Till Steinbrenner, Mads Lynnerup, Mariana Silva, Melanie Gilligan, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Michael Mandiberg, Nika Oblak & Primoz Novak, Raymond Pettibon, Regina José Galindo, Rita GT, Runo Lagomarsino, Ruth Ewan, Sara & André, Sparring Partners, Superflex, Triiibe, Xurban Collective + Alex Villar, Yonamine e Zanny Begg + Oliver Ressler
Curated by Miguel Amado

Museu da Cidade
Campo Grande, 245
1700 Lisboa, Portugal
www.museudacidade.pt

Through September 5
Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am to 1 pm and 2 pm to 6 pm

Chas Bowie wrote a really tight insightful essay for the show’s mini-catalogue entitled Total Money Makeover. Pacific Northwest College of Art’s UNTITLED magazine has just re-published the essay here. A choice snippet:

Monuments invariably testify to their own physicality as much as they do to the memory of the subjects they commemorate. Mandiberg’s installation of investment guides emblazoned with the logos of fallen banks is no different. The get-rich-quick volumes that comprise FDIC Insured were purchased from the dollar bins of Manhattan’s Strand bookstore, where they served as pitiful markers of their own failure. For every bank that the government bailed out or brokered into sale, Mandiberg laser-cut the fallen institution’s logo on the covers of tomes such as Nothing Down, The Business Bible, and Dress Like a Million. At more than 220 titles and counting, Mandiberg’s library of financial failure is built upon the promise of buying even when you have no money, trading when you have nothing to trade and profiting when you have nothing to provide.

The full essay is here

The Great Recession is an exhibition of new work exploring the psychic implications of this most recent burp by the American economy, late Capitalism, gold hoarding, and the end of an empire. Some of the works on display include FDIC Insured, a collection of 220+ cast off investment guide books laser engraved with the logos of all of the failed FDIC insured banks, Under the Floorboards, a video about hiding and hoarding, and 1 Million Iraqi Dinars secured in a Zero-Halliburton case.

The show opens April 1st at the Feldman Gallery at PNCA, and runs through the end of May. There will be an opening April 1st during First Thursday from 6-8. Location is: PNCA Main Campus Building, Feldman Gallery, 1241 NW Johnson St. RSVP on Facebook.

I will also be giving a lecture the night before, March 31st, from 630-8pm at The Lab at Museum of Contemporary Craft, 724 NW Davis St. RSVP on Facebook. Both events are free and open to the public.

My solo show “The Great Recession” at PNCA in Portland, OR is a little over one month out. The listing just appeared on the PNCA website. Now I just have to finish making the work! The biiiiig work is mostly done, but there are a number of smaller works that have to be made, or finished, or framed-just-so.

BTW, I am from PDX, so this is officially a homecoming…

Exciting!

A short interview video with Michael Mandiberg shot and Edited by Dan Eckstein (daneckstein.com) in March 2009, with Music from Au Revoir Simone at Eyebeam and Postmasters Gallery NYC.

From the dialog:

I’m Michael Mandiberg. I am an artist, designer, and educator, and I am a Senior Fellow at Eyebeam, which is an Art and Technology Center in Chelsea, Manhattan.

As an artist I am pretty omnivorous. I have a background in photography, so it is pretty image based, but I was also a really really good bad high school poet. So I am particularly interested in words and their meaning, and their nuances and their poetic value. So I am always looking at the world around us visually, informationally, and culturally, and politically for inspiration

Some of my more recent work involves the laser cutter, cutting paper and books, making sculptures and drawings. The laser cutter takes the information from the computer file, and it uses a laser to cut that shape out of the material being cut, which in this case is a newspaper.

A few of my recent works are at The Future Is Not What It Used To Be, which is a show at Postmasters Gallery. One is called Old News, which is a stack of New York Times into which I am cutting daily the phrase “Old News” into it. The other is DATA BASE, which is an Oxford English Dictionary with the phrase “DATA BASE” cut into it.

The show itself is about the promise and the failed promise of technology, and its potential to connect people or not connect people.

Security Patterns is a studio visit installation of recent laser cut work. These sculptures and drawings are made from old books laser cut with poignant words, and drawings made from industrial patterns, all of which explore transformations in technology and their relationships to evolutions (or devolutions) in economies. Some choice examples include: two display bookshelves with an ever growing collection of 130+ investment guide books and get-rich-quick books (e.g. “Weath is a Choice” or “Investing by the Stars”) all laser engraved with the logos of failed FDIC Insured banks, A shrink wrapped bundle of 12 Yellow Pages that have been cut all the way through with the phrase “GOOGLE” and a dictionary with the phrase “OMG LOL” cut from its pages.

I have previously burned the OED, Atlases, and Phonebooks. I am interested in exploring books, especially expensive reference books, as a symbol of technological obsolecense and consumption culture. Once they were a huge symbol of prestige, now they are a sign of a era whose time has passed away. I burn them with word and symbols, as a way of commenting on their technological obsolescence, and simultaneously restoring their aura as precious objects.

More images on this blog post, or on James Wagner’s review of his studio visit

I just put up an installation of work at Eyebeam for Studio Visits. This is work I have been producing over the last 6 months. The work is primarily old found books cut with the laser cutter, as well as some laser cut drawings.

The central piece against the wall is “FDIC Insured” a collection of 130+ cast off investment books from the Strand dollar racks, engraved with the logos of all of the failed banks of the Great Recession.

Along the left side is a piece called “Before and After.” I wanted to call it “Before and After President Reagan Lost His Memory” but that seemed a little overdetermined. So I just write it here. It is books from an 1982 and 1992 World Book enscribed with things that were (Free Love, Analog, Prisoner of War) and things that are (HIV/AIDS, Digital, Enemy Combatant.)

Sprinkled throughout are altered reference books. I like taking Dictionaries and turning them into memorials. It is kind of like putting an ironic inscription on a tombstone…

Along the right side of the wall are laser cut drawings of security patterns from the inside of security envelopes.

Eyebeam is currently closed to the public, but if you would like to see this installation you have two options. Contact me (myfirstname@mylastname.com) to set up a time to meet, or come by the Eyebeam Open Studios, which will be October 23rd and 24th from 3-6PM.

Black Market Type and Print Shop

July 9 – August 14, 2009
Opening July 9, 6-8pm

This installation is guest curated by Joseph del Pesco. He has created font alphabets based on the handwriting of famous contemporary artists, which are available for use by visitors.

Image is from Black Market Type and Print Shop Installation

The Black Market Type & Print Shop starts with a collection of 30+ type-fonts extracted from the artwork of an international array of artists. Scanned and converted into working computer fonts, these letterforms are available for use by visitors to the exhibition via a free print shop.To take advantage of the free printing services visitors are obliged to use the types in at least part of their design. Through this process the visual language of contemporary art is subtly distributed beyond the gallery through street-level ephemera such as rock-show flyers and for-sale notices. Other material produced in previous iterations of the exhibition include personal letters, out-of-order signs, and ‘free kittens to a good home’ posters.

Utilizing the Black Market Type, a group of 15 artists have been invited to make a text-only poster, to be posted in the public area surrounding the gallery. These include a small line of text at the bottom that quietly points back to the gallery. In the gallery these posters serve to incite the imagination of the visitor, offering possible formats and outcomes for their own ideas to take shape in the print shop.

Artist types included in the project: John Baldessari, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mel Bochner, R. Crumb, John Cage, Henry Darger, Julie Doucet, Jimmie Durham, Marcel Dzama, Tracey Emin, Howard Finster, General Idea, Thomas Hirschhorn, Chris Johanson, Jasper Johns, Ray Johnson, Mike Kelley, Margaret Kilgallen, Duane Michals, Chris Ofili, Laura Owens, Gary Panter, Raymond Pettibon, Adrian Piper, William Pope.L, Richard Prince, Ad Reinhardt, Dieter Roth, David Shrigley

And the artists making posters using the type:

Mike Arcega – SF
Anne Walsh – Berkeley
Gareth Spor – SF
Aurelien Froment – Paris/Dublin
Stanislao Di Giugno – Rome
Chris Sollars – SF
Dan Seiple – Berlin
Germaine Koh – Vancouver
Arnold Kemp – NY/SF
Jan Estep – Minneapolis
Marisa Olson – NY
Michael Mandiberg – NY
Amanda Ross Ho – LA
Matt Keegan – NY/SF
Lee Walton – North Carolina

Richard L. Nelson Gallery: Black Market Type and Print Shop.

Drawing Contemporaries at Eyebeam