International and National Projects Fall 2008: Robert Boyd, Ana Horvat, Minus Space, and Patrick O'Hare at PS 1

On view October 19, 2008 - January 26, 2009

Robert Boyd

Conspiracy Theory

2008

Dual projection video installation

Color and B+W video, sound

10 min. 25 sec.

Courtesy the artist
Photo: Matthew Septimus. Courtesy P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents the work of three artists and a collective as part of the Fall 2008 cycle of the International and National Projects program. Featuring new and recent works by a diverse group of artists, these solo exhibitions showcase a range of media including film, photography, sculpture, paintings and installation. The International and National Projects will be on view from October 19, 2008 through January 26, 2009.

P.S.1 has invited Minus Space, a collective based in Brooklyn, New York, to present an exhibition of Reductive art: art characterized by minimalism and abstraction in its use of monochromatic color, geometry, and pattern. As a movement concentrating on abstraction, Minus Space bucks the trend toward figuration that took hold in the 1990s. For P.S.1, Minus Space has brought together 54 artists working internationally, ranging from Australia to Brazil to New York City, for a dense and playful show in the Café and Basement Boiler Room, two of the museum's most unique and intriguing exhibition spaces.

Artists include Soledad Arias, Shinsuke Aso, Marcus Bering, Hartmut Böhm, Richard Bottwin, Sharon Brant, Michael Brennan, Henry Brown, Vicente Butron, Bibi Calderaro, Melanie Crader, Mark Dagley, Julian Dashper, Christopher Dean, Matthew Deleget, Lynne Eastaway, Gabriele Evertz, Daniel Feingold, Kevin Finklea, Linda Francis, Zipora Fried, Daniel Göttin, Julio Grinblatt, Billy Gruner, Terry Haggerty, Lynne Harlow, Gilbert Hsiao, Andrew Huston, Simon Ingram, Inverted Topology, Kyle Jenkins, Mick Johnson, Steve Karlik, Sarah Keighery, Andrew Leslie, Daniel Levine, Sylvan Lionni, Lotte Lyon, Gerhard Mantz, Rossana Martinez, Juan Matos Capote, Douglas Melini, Manfred Mohr, Salvatore Panatteri, Dirk Rathke, Karen Schifano, Analia Segal, Edward Shalala, Tilman, Li-Trincere, Jan van der Ploeg, Don Voisine, Douglas Witmer, and Michael Zahn.

Organized by P.S.1 Curatorial Advisor Phong Bui

Robert Boyd presents Conspiracy Theory, the first part of his forthcoming project TOMORROW PEOPLE. A synchronized two-channel video installation, Conspiracy Theory addresses issues of social paranoia and civil distrust in an era of questionable politics. The video covers topics from government involvement in the September 11 attacks to government cover-up of aliens at Area 5l, world domination by the "high priests of globalization" known as the Bilderberg, human invention of the HIV/AIDS virus, and the bizarre "reptilian agenda" that reveals reptilians as rulers of humanity. Incorporating audio and video excerpts from syndicated radio talk show hosts, international conspiracists, amateur documentary filmmakers, and the mysterious Commander X, Conspiracy Theory addresses some of today's leading conspiracies relayed by their most evocative proponents. Set to a fast-paced dance track, the work functions as both a critique and parody while raising the question-what if all is not as it seems?

Robert Boyd (b. 1969) is an interdisciplinary artist working in the areas of video, installation, photography and sculpture. His work has been widely exhibited at venues such as the Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah; The Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis; 303 Gallery, New York; Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut; Artsonje Center, Seoul; Context Galleries, Derry; The Hospital, London; PKM Gallery, Beijing; Kunst-Werke, Berlin; Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; Participant Inc, New York; Centre de Cultura Contemporània, Barcelona; White Box, New York; Galerie Chez Valentin, Paris; Smart Project Space, Amsterdam; The Islip Art Museum, Islip, New York; and Momenta Art, Brooklyn, New York. His work is included in numerous private and public collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Organized by P.S.1 Curatorial Advisor Lia Gangitano

New York based photographer Patrick O'Hare presents thirty intimate color prints in the third floor hallway. Working within the medium of photography, O'Hare documents the contrast between man-made environment and nature through landscape shots in which people have largely vanished. He searches in overlooked places like highway overpasses, construction sites, parking lots and trailer parks with the intent of creating order out of chaos and upheaval without losing subtlety and mystery. Influenced by the New Topographic photographers of the 1970s who cast a critical eye on suburban sprawl, landscape painting, and the novels of Don DeLillo, O'Hare finds the modern landscape as it is: shards of architecture in a state of entropic transition and decay.

Patrick O'Hare (b. 1958) has been exhibiting his photographs since 1987, when he was featured in the P.S.1 group show Portrait of Long Island City. O'Hare has participated in exhibitions in such galleries and institutions as Kirkland Art Center, Ronald Feldman Gallery, Parsons School of Design, Rotunda Gallery, Sideshow Gallery, and Black and White Gallery, all in New York. He has had solo exhibitions at The Camera Club of New York and O.K. Harris Works of Art, New York. His photographs are in the collections of the New York Public Library and the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, New York. O'Hare is based in New York.

Organized by P.S.1 Curatorial Advisor Phong Bui

Croatian artist Ana Horvat makes her U.S. debut in the 3^rd floor Corner gallery with a 3-channel video installation entitled Before and after. In these video works the artist performs three different plastic surgery procedures - a nose correction, liposuction and breast enlargement - on rag dolls. Using these dolls instead of actual human bodies, Horvat compares aesthetic interventions with an innocent childhood game taken too far: adults unhappy with their appearance, a society obsessed with the ideal of beauty, and patients undergoing physical aggression and pain to achieve acceptance not only from others, but from themselves. Also presented in the gallery are jars with tissue samples and patient statements, all of which add to the subtle and ironic questioning of the modern phenomenon of plastic surgery.

Ana Horvat (b. 1977, Zagreb, Croatia) has had solo exhibitions in Karas Gallery, Zagreb (2005 and 2008); Vladimir Nazor Gallery, Zagreb (2004) and Studentski Centar Gallery, Zagreb (1999, 2004 and 2008). She has been included in group exhibitions including Youth Salon, Zagreb (1996, 2001, 2004 and 2006); the Zagreb Salon (1998) and the Croatian Sculpture Triennial, Zagreb (1997 and 2000). Horvat is a member of the Croatian Association of Visual Artists.

Source