For immediate release:
PS122 GALLERY PRESENTS STOP MOTION VIDEOS BY ALEX NATHANSON AND RECENT WORK FROM HER “CONTORTIONS” SERIES BY KRIS SCHEIFELE
Dates: May 8 – 30, 2010
Reception: May 8, 5 – 7pm
Gallery hours: Thursday through Sunday, 12 – 6pm
Location: 9th Street, east of First Avenue
PS122 Gallery is pleased to present four stop motion videos by Alex Nathanson and recent works from the “Contortions” series by Kris Scheifele, opening on May 8th and remaining on view through May 30th 2010.
Alex Nathanson’s stop-motion animation videos investigate the ways in which people navigate cultural artifacts such as architecture, media, or sounds, and their social or political environment. Additionally, he explores the nature of the photographic image and the relationship between still images and moving ones.
The videos are created out of hundreds of single still photographs that Alex Nathanson edits together. One minute of stop-motion animation is composed of as many as 600 still images. A short stop-motion animation, including set design typically takes three to five months to complete. The materials Nathanson uses to create the sets and characters come directly from the environment and are constructed out of found materials, basic arts and crafts, and discarded media such as old newspapers or archival video footage. The audio is also drawn from the environment and includes street noises, radio and television clips.
Alex Nathanson was born in New Jersey in 1988. He received his BA from Bard College at Simon’s Rock with concentrations in photography and politics and graduated from the International Center of Photography’s General Studies Program in 2009. He is currently working on curating his first DIY exhibition of video art for summer 2010. Presently, he splits his time between Western Massachusetts and Brooklyn, New York.
Kris Scheifele will be exhibiting recent pieces from her “Contortions” series. These works inhabit a middle ground somewhere between painting and sculpture. Each Contortion is made entirely of layers of acrylic paint which are applied methodically to a wooden panel support until it reaches a thickness of up to a half-inch. Scheifele pulls the paint up from the support and cuts it with a box cutter and attaches this directly to the wall with nails. Gravity pulls on the paint attenuating connections and continuing to change each piece. Not only is a temporal record created by the buildup of layers, but also by the paint sagging, stretching and bending over time. Through its own elasticity and impermanence, Scheifele feels the “Contortions” series can point to the cycles in life as well as cycles in art. Additionally she views these works as “comic and sexy performers” relating to twisting bodies in dances or circus performances.
Kris Scheifele was born in Venezuela and lives in New York City. While working on her BFA and BA at Cornell University, she attended Skowhegan on a full fellowship. Her MFA is in painting from Pratt Institute. She is also a Joan Mitchell Foundation 2009 MFA grant recipient. Her work has been exhibited at New York area galleries including Janet Kurnatowski and LMAK Projects/Brooklyn. (For additional information please see www.krisscheifele.com)>;
The hallway project, “Screentests,” is by Joshua Sanchez. It is an ongoing project of short film portraits of men who share a short story about a pivotal moment in his boyhood or adolescence. A native of Houston, Texas, Joshua Sanchez graduated from Columbia University’s MFA Film Program in 2004. He won the HBO Films Young Producer’s Development Award, participated in Tribeca All Access at the Tribeca Film Festival, and in the IFC – New York’s No Borders program during Independent Film Week."
For further information or reproductions please contact:
Susan Schreiber, Gallery Director, 212,228.4249; ps122gallery@gmail.com
This exhibition has been made possible through support from the New York State Council on the Arts, Painting Space 122, Inc. and the Friends of PS122 Gallery
Transportation:
M15 bus to St Marks Place, walk one block north to 9th street
- subway to Astor Place, walk two blocks east to First Avenue and one block north to 9th Street.
