Joshua Liner Gallery is very pleased to present the New York/Tokyo-based collective the Barnstormers in their first group exhibition at the gallery. With over thirty-five artists featured, this is the largest exhibition to date at Joshua Liner, which will double its gallery space temporarily to accommodate the special event. Expanding to host the collective’s full spectrum of art practices, the gallery will show individual works in painting, printmaking, photography, video, installation, and other mediums by the following Barnstormer artists:
Alex Lebedev, Alice Mazorra, Bluster One, Che Jen, Chris Mendoza, Chuck Webster, Cycle, Daikon, David Ellis, Dennis McNett, Doze Green, Ge-ology, GION, Guillermo Carrion, Joey Garfield, JPL (UFO), KAMI, Kenji Hirata, Kiku Yamaguchi, KR, MADSAKI, Manny Pangilinan (WELLO), Marlene Marino, Martin Mazorra, Maya Hayuk, Mikal Hameed, Mike Houston, Mike Ming, Miyuki (Pai) Hirai, Naomi Kazama, Pablo Power, Paul Coors, Pema Rinzin, ROSTARR, Ryan McGinness, SASU, Shie Moreno, SWOON, West One, Yuri Shibuya, and Yuri Shimojo.
Over the past decade, the Barnstormers have created large-scale collaborative paintings, films, and performances. The group formed in 1999 after a pilgrimage of twenty-five artists to the rural town of Cameron, North Carolina, where they painted barns, tractor-trailers, shacks, and farm equipment, and continue to return to paint new murals. The Barnstormers’ “motion paintings” best demonstrate the range and flexibility of their collaboration: each timelapse video depicts a mural in the making as members dart about, adding and effacing marks, evolving the image with each passing second. A 2005 project included the disassembly/relocation/reassembly of a barn captured on video in a time-lapse flurry of activity. Improvisation, in spirit and practice, is the Barnstormer ethos.
In this exhibition, the Barnstormers will present works by the group’s individual artists, all of whom have drawn acclaim in their own right and individual careers. As the unofficial founder of the Barnstormers (which rejects any form of organizational hierarchy), North Carolina native David Ellis is nonetheless the driving force who first drew this intrepid band of artists South. In his own practice, Ellis has received acclaim for freestylin’ installations inspired by popular music and DJ-ing, specifically the ways that image, sound, materials, and technology interconnect in contemporary culture. His installations have been featured at the Huntington Museum of Art, WV; Rice University Gallery, Houston, TX; Tidal, Osaka, Japan; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA; and Deitch Projects, New York. Other Southeasterners in the collective include Virginian Dennis McNett from Wolfbat Studio along with West Virginian Martin Mazorra, and North Carolinian Mike Houston, both master printers (in a cracked, R.Crumb vein) working with Cannonball Press.
Find out more about the artists here: http://joshualinergallery.com/exhibitions/barnstormers_march_18_2010/
