September 7 - October 7, 2006
Just Off
Focus is an exhibition of works that communicate not by presenting their
subjects in the foreground, but whose content becomes apparent through investigation
and interpretation. The artists included create works that indirectly address
political, conceptual, and perceptual issues, encouraging the viewer to seek
their own reading of the work.
In Fia Backstrom's installation, the artist cut advertisements from the Summer
2006 issue of Artforum magazine and placed them side by side, under
glass, on a shelf hung near ceiling-height. In doing so, Backstrom creates
an artwork out of the filler that serves as backdrop to the editorial content
of the magazine. The advertisements are the financial identity of the magazine
(and thereby its lifeline), expected to stand on the sideline to what is understood
to be the content. By re-arranging, or re-listing what is already a list,
according to form and theme, background and foreground start to shift.
The meandering logic used to arrange Backstrom's Artforum ads relates
to many of the artists' use of chance, formlessness, and abstraction. Anne
Collier's photo of unwound tape from a cassette is an abstraction made from
an archaic recording format, while Eileen Quinlan's black and white photos
utilize darkroom mishaps to reflect on the medium of photography. In a very
different contemplation of photography, Padraig Timoney's Asadins
(2006) is a geometric abstraction whose design is taken from the graphic code
printed on every roll of film.
Peter Piller's Girls Shooting (2000-2006) is a startling arrangement
of reproduced photos of girls holding guns. The images were gleaned from the
vast press photo archives that Piller sifts through at his newspaper desk
job. Jamie Isenstein's Smoking Pipe (2006) is a side table with a
pipe placed on it, smoke endlessly drifting from its end. The pipe rests on
the table without support as if it has just been set down by a now absent
smoker. As in much of Isenstein's work, the human body is modified, invisible,
or implied, suggesting loss and illusion.
Just Off Focus also includes works by Alice Creischer, Stefan Thater,
Klaus Weber, and Clemens von Wedermeyer.
The exhibition will be on view from September 7th to October 7th, 2006. A reception will be held for the artists at the gallery on September 7th from 6 - 8 PM at 525 West 22nd Street, New York City. For information call 212-741-8849
