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July 29, 2021—Valencia, CA—After almost two years apart, Art MFAs at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) present the postgraduate exhibition, re:connections, opening in Tin Flats Los Angeles. The show is peer-organized and curated by Audrey Min of the Koreatown, Los Angeles gallery, Commonwealth and Council.
re:connections features work by 17 artists, all graduates of the CalArts programs in Art, Art and Technology, and Photography and Media. Participating artists include: Kendra Le Bault de la Moriniere, Amanda Bauer, Fía Benitez, Juan Herrera, Eleanor Francis, Jing Dong, Aimée Dopa, Benjamin S. Gordon, Danielle Trent, Lois Bielefeld, Richard Nam, Ruoyi Shi, Yaozhi Liu, Caleb Craig, Dongpu Ling, Seongeun Kim, and Dana Carly Eitches.
“It’s exciting to bring together for the first time a cohort whose practices were thus far physically separated by necessity of the pandemic,” shared Min. “As members of the next generation of practicing artists, the 17 participants identify and follow to their source the fault lines in an increasingly unstable present, clearing space for equitable futures. They span critical meditations on site and inherited legacies—from Caleb Craig’s prints and sculptures of post-binary environments informed by the separation of syncretized Celtic symbols; Fía Benitez’s archive-based drawings, collage, sculpture, and online index investigating Southern California’s colonial histories; to Juan Herrera’s interventions onto the Venezuelan currency.”
The MFA cohort also produced a limited edition book which shares its name with the exhibition. The prompt to reflect on their artistic practice in the past two years—before and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic—elicited 19 responses from participants. Introduced by Tatum Howey (MFA 21, Writing), the artist book re:connections offers unique insights into process: from research materials and correspondence, to in-progress and finished works. The publication is made in collaboration with Courtney Loi (MA 21, Aesthetics and Politics) and CalArts Visiting Faculty Zoe Strauss, who crucially helped bring it to fruition. re:connections will be released in September and is available for sale.
In their introduction, Howey offers theoretical propositions as well as analyses of select works. Using somatechnics, political flesh: its mechanics of porosity and resistance, they describe material and affective entanglements in re:connections:
That the World is covered in [flesh] was something that only occurred to me as I drove through the Foothills outside of Los Angeles. Everything exists on the surface here, like a splayed-out ephemeral skin, all the synapses, points of entry, every surface trembling. This illustration of the contemporary political flesh is the nominal thread throughout the works featured in re:connections. Whatever we touch is in turn in command of our touch. This entanglement with material form, or perhaps re-entanglement with material form, is the basis for the exhibition, more a dialogue (perhaps ongoing), the ‘re:’ signaling a response.
Tin Flats will host several public programs for re:connections including on-site screenings of time-based works. The gallery, housed in the artist-run space in the Frogtown neighborhood of Los Angeles, was founded in 2017 by Stephen Neideich (MFA 13, Art). Programs will also take place on Zoom every weekend throughout the run of the show in August, including guest-moderated panels with the exhibiting artists. Moderators include CalArts faculty Ashley Hunt, and visiting faculty Kandis Williams and Zoe Strauss.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog featuring essays by Min and Loi.
“This show is a testament to the collaborative nature of our CalArts graduates,” shared School of Art Dean Thomas Lawson. “Despite not being together they are courageously putting their artwork forward in this highly ambitious project spanning an exhibition, artist book and catalog, programming, and more.”
Several of the aforementioned CalArtians exhibited thesis works at 7313 Melrose Avenue, and contributed to the digital Art School Project Archive and internationally-organized online platform MFA Index.
Audrey Min is a Los Angeles-based arts worker and curator. From 2015-17 she was an Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellow at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She currently works at Commonwealth and Council.
re:connections is co-organized by Audrey Min, Aimée Dopa, Amanda Bauer, Juan Herrera, Lois Bielefeld, Kendra de la Moriniere, Yaozhi Liu, Caleb Craig, Ruoyi Shi, and Fía Benitez.
Website design and graphic identity by Amy Fang, development by Jing Dong. Coordination by Ruoyi Shi.
Calendar Editor Please Note:
re:connections—CalArts Art MFA Postgraduate Exhibition:
Aug. 5-31, 2021
Tin Flats
1989 Blake Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90039
re:connections Opening Reception:
Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021, 5-8 pm PST
Tin Flats
1989 Blake Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90039
Guest-Moderated Artists Panel:
Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021
(Zoom)
Guest-Moderated Artists Panel:
Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021
(Zoom)
Screening
Including works by Dana Carly Eitches, Juan Herrera, Jing Dong, Kendra de la Moriniere, Lois Bielefeld, Ruoyi Shi, Seongeun Kim, and Yaozhi Liu:
Friday, Aug. 20, 2021, 7:30 pm PST
Tin Flats
1989 Blake Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90039
RSVP: re.connections2021@gmail.com
Guest-Moderated Artists Panel:
Sunday, Aug. 22, 2021
(Zoom)
re:connections Closing Reception:
Monday, Aug. 30, 2021, 5-8 pm PST
Tin Flats
1989 Blake Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90039
Gallery Hours:
Thursdays–Sundays, 12-6 pm PST
Free Admission (schedule appointment to visit)
Street parking available. To ensure the safety of gallery visitors, the number of visitors in the exhibition space at any one time will be limited. We will observe State guidelines for COVID-19. Masks and social distancing are strongly encouraged.
Please address inquiries to re.connections2021@gmail.com.
re:connections press kit: https://bit.ly/3iXZp0r
#CalArtsMFA #CalArts2021 #reconnections2021
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