Curated by Nina Horisaki-Christians, Andrea Neustein, Victoria Rogers, and Jason Waite, Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellows of the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program
 
Maintenance Required examines the large-scale systems that construct our daily lives through an investigation of the diversity of maintenance tasks. Durational by nature, maintenance networks provide life-perpetuating mechanisms of care, yet these systems have the potential to invisibly direct or limit life’s possibilities, even manifesting as malevolent systems of control. By dismantling our collective blindness toward maintenance activities, we can begin to examine how they condition our lives. Bringing maintenance into view exposes a constantly shifting set of social, political, and affective relations. Acknowledging maintenance systems invites questions about what needs to be maintained and under what conditions that maintenance occurs. Taking as an entry point Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ “Manifesto for Maintenance Art” (1969), in which the artist redefines maintenance activities as art, Maintenance Required focuses on artistic practices that frame and critically engage these invisible systems of life support: practices that articulate the paradoxical tensions of large-scale systems of maintenance whose power to sustain life may run parallel to the power to constrain it.
 
With works by Michael Bramwell, Goldin+Senneby, Ashley Hunt, Masaru Iwai, Yve Laris Cohen, Sam Lewitt, Park McArthur, Salvage Art Institute, Karin Sander, Taryn Simon, Pilvi Takala, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles.
 
Public Performances
Integral to the exhibition, performances will be occurring over the duration of the exhibition in the gallery and “maintenance” spaces such as the back rooms of the Kitchen and at Regus offices on Wall Street. All events are free and open to the public; for seated events, seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
 
Masaru Iwai
 
Washing Stage
 
Thursday, May 30, 5:00pm
 
Saturday, June 1, time TBA
 
Saturday, June 22, time TBA
 
Further performances TBA, please check website for updated details.
Repurposing the act of cleaning, the Tokyo-based artist Masaru Iwai will focus on the ritualistic act of cleaning and its relationship to the body while foregrounding the aesthetic materiality of the purifying act.
 
Yve Laris Cohen
 
Seth
 
Saturday, June 1, 8:00pm
 
Thursday, June 20, 8:00pm
 
In a new site-specific performance, Yve Laris Cohen meditates on the unused and unseen spaces of The Kitchen, responding to the history of the institution, the neighborhood, and the medium of performance. Exploring duration, perception, and the limits of human movement, Laris Cohen considers how maintenance, as well as the lack thereof, reveals our predilections and desires. This program is free of charge and open to the public. Space for the event is extremely limited. Reservations required; please register at maintenance.required.2013@gmail.com.
 
Ashley Hunt
 
Corrections
 
Thursday, June 6, 7:00pm
 
In his ongoing interdisciplinary project The Corrections Documentary Project, artist and filmmaker Ashley Hunt investigates the institution of the prison: how it helps to structure and preserve racial and economic divisions within society. In Corrections (2001), Hunt specifically looks at the privatization of the prison system, exposing the conflict between for-profit corporations focused on pleasing investors and the communities which must deal with the consequences of high incarceration rates.

October 18, 1977 opens at Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert 524 West 19th St, New York, NY on Thursday, June 20, 2013- Friday, July 19, 2013. Summer hours start July 8: Mon-Fri 10 am – 6 pm
 
An exhibition organized by Birgit Rathsmann in collaboration with Michele Abeles, Erica Baum, Neil Bender, Becket Bowes, Tania Cross, Grayson Cox, Anthony Lepore, David Lukowski, Oliver Kossack, Jessica Mein, Filip Noterdaeme, Dominic Nurre, Paul Pfeiffer, Jochen Plogsties, Claudia Pena Salinas, Daniel Rich, Siebren Versteeg, Jenny Vogel, Kristof Wickman and Jeff Williams.
 
New York, NY April 18, 2013 — On a single night, three terrorists in a high-security prison die, allegedly by their own hands; a fourth is hospitalized with allegedly self-inflicted stab wounds to the chest. Ever since, the events of the “Death Night” of the members of the Baader-Meinhof group have reverberated through German society and culture. But what might those events mean to artists in another country gripped by fear of radical terrorists, albeit a generation removed and an ocean away? How might today’s artists respond to iconic pieces that addressed the events in their immediate aftermath? Those are the questions that guided Brooklyn artist Birgit Rathsmann as she worked with 19 other artists from the U.S. and Europe to develop October 18, 1977. The exhibition is a meditation on that infamous night when Andreas Baader and three others were found dead or wounded in their prison cells — as well as on the images that earlier artists created in response to the events of that night. Rathsmann “commissioned” new pieces and collaborated to varying degrees with the participants in the exhibition. This created a dialog among artists who share Rathsmann’s interest in the questions raised by the events of October 18, 1977 and those raised by earlier artworks that address those events. In other words, Rathsmann didn’t curate this show; she served as its catalyst. Many of the questions she and the exhibition’s other artists examine have lingered for 36 years: Did the terrorists have a suicide pact? Was it set into motion when they learned that a hijacking intended to win their freedom had failed? If so, how did Andreas Baader and another terrorist manage to get guns into the isolated, high-security cells where they were held in solitary confinement? How did Baader manage to shoot himself in the back of his head? Why were there no fingerprints on either of the guns? How was the sole survivor of that night able to stab herself in the chest four times? Is there evidence to support her allegation that the deaths were summary executions rather than suicides? Those and other questions about that night encapsulate the dramatic relationship between the state and violent non-conformists — a relationship that becomes more relevant with each new act of mass violence. A number of works in October 18, 1977 respond directly to the eponymous cycle of 15 paintings by Gerhard Richter which depict the dead terrorists and the prison where they died. The paintings are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (169.1995), far from the location of their creation and the events that inspired them. Other works in this exhibition directly address specific aspects of the deaths and their cultural setting: the psychological effects of prolonged solitary confinement, the aesthetics of mid-twentieth century German institutional architecture, and the era’s proliferation of ‘zine-like publications that openly expressed sympathy for terrorist organizations. Some works even go so far as to imagine alternative histories. Taken together, the works in the exhibition present a multifaceted examination of that confounding historical moment in the Germany of 1977 and its lingering cultural influence — an examination that’s especially relevant in New York City of 2013.
 
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For more information please contact: HYPERLINK “mailto:gassergrunertsummer@gmail.com” gassergrunert@gmail.com 646.944.6197 For press inquiries and images contact: Margaret Fasel HYPERLINK “mailto:margaret@gassergrunert.net” margaret@gassergrunert.net 816.289.2693

Sheryo and YOK created a body of work that portays the modern world using an ancient technique – painting on porcelain vases. They combined eastern & western elements to portray the values of ideology, devotion, relationships, dharma and karma, depicting a narrative from the rich tales of their journey in SEAsia. They re-interpret the traditional folklore and fables of old Chinese times by injecting their own personal stories with their iconic styles. They use a variety of media to bring these stories to life including the treasured fine art of porcelain vase making. Working in the very factories that have produced these exquisite vases for centuries they paint their warped characters and modern stories using the same age old techniques that produce a bold and unique body of work.

Launch F18 is delighted to present 1XX, a group exhibition curated by Sam Trioli. The exhibition opens Saturday, June 1st from 6:00 - 8:00 PM and will remain on view until Saturday, July 27, 2013.
 
In the May 2011 issue of Frieze magazine, Ronald Jones wrote an article titled Whatever Works, a discussion on design methods and the integration of systems thinking in the 1950s. In the article Ronald quotes Jack Burnham from a 1968 issue of Art Forum, in which he writes: “In the past our technologically conceived artifacts structured living patterns. We are now in transition from an object-oriented to a systems-oriented culture. Here change emanates, not from things, but from the way things are done.”
 
1XX discusses this very concept within the parameters of the artist book and the forum in which this medium has been used on the contemporary art stage. Collectively, the work within the exhibition addresses the diversity of design and social structure that has reshaped the cultural standard of the medium, allowing for it to become more than only a product of simply purpose. As a result, many believe that the medium will slowly vanish as technology advances and the idea that printed matter could become obsolete to functional form. However, is this very idea merely a shift in design, as Burnham discusses, rather than being a truly undesirable product?
 
Within 1XX this thought is explored as it traces through a range of styles, printings, functions and techniques. Each of the works examines the function and identity of the art publication by delving further into its text, at a page, its binding and the cover. The books are experienced, not just through sight, but with the rare pleasure of tactile stimulation that is often missing from fine art exhibitions. At their roots, these works are relatives to a medium that traces back to the 27th and 26thcentury BC, which through its history has been continuously redefined and re-designed.
 
Participating artists and works by or on them include: Joshua Abelow, Ross Bleckner, Joy Drury Cox, f.ART magazine, Dianna Frid, Gypse Eyes, Johanna Heldebro, Sean Lamoureux, McDermott & McGough, Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Adam Stennett and Peter Young. A selection of books will be traveling to the Sharon Art Center in September for the exhibition con(TEXT) which is being curated by Tim Donovan.
 
Sam Trioli is a artist, curator and musician based in New York City.

The sculptures, drawings, photographs, mixed media works, and films in Ana Mendieta: Late Works 1981-1985 at Galerie Lelong reveal Mendieta’s translation of her ephemeral practices in the landscape to independent art objects. Beginning in 1980, Mendieta took several trips to her birth country of Cuba. These visits brought a resolution that allowed the completion of her identity-oriented works and the seeking of an aspect of universality. In 1983, Mendieta left New York to begin a fellowship and residency at the American Academy in Rome, a period that redefined her creative process. Her time in Rome influenced the organization of the current retrospective at the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Turin and inspired a documentary film currently in post-production, Itali-Ana, Mendieta in Rome, directed by Raquel Cecilia. The exhibition at Galerie Lelong opens during Frieze New York, with a public reception on May 10th from 6-8pm. The artist’s sister, Raquelin Mendieta, will be present.
 
In the 1980s, Mendieta began to shift away from performative, documented work as exemplified in two of her last films, Ochún and Birth from 1981. These films depict siluetas, potent traces of the artist’s body in the landscape, transformed by the ocean tide or ignited gunpowder. In 1982, she began creating numerous drawings directly onto fresh leaves she found in the landscape, using a variety of tools such as nails, needles, and pencils. Like her outdoor site-specific works, she embraced the natural effects of time on objects, such as the shifting color and texture of the leaves as they dried. Mendieta sought to fuse earth and form in her drawings, photographs, and sculptures. She created several sculptures that year including Fernwoman (1982), a unique sculpture standing close to five feet tall. Carved in an anthropomorphic shape from an Osmunda fern root, this work recalls primitive art. Mendieta often repeated imagery in different media, such as the “labyrinth” figure seen in La Concha de Venus (1981-82), a drawing on amate (bark) paper, and in outdoor sculptures molded in mud which she then photographed. Works like these not only show Mendieta’s continued interest in imagery of the female body, but also show her attempt to make her work more accessible to art audiences and collectors in the 1980s.
 
Mendieta’s late sculptures translate her familiar silueta-like forms into more tangible objects that became less specific to her own body and not tied to an exact location. This development can be seen in the floor sculptures Figure with Nganga (1984) and Untitled (1983-84), which show an affinity to works she made in the landscapes of places like Cuba, Iowa, and Mexico. A breakthrough in her practice at this time was combining imported sand and soil – from different locations significant to her including Cuba, the Nile in Egypt, and the Red Sea – with different binding materials to create indoor floor sculptures that carried the energy of these places. She also began making free-standing sculptures from hollowed tree trunks and wooden slabs that could rest against gallery walls. Ranging from five to seven feet tall, the wood pieces required physical rigor to transport from the forest to the studio, where she carved and burned organic patterns onto the surface. Mendieta’s archives from this period reveal that she had a strong interest in creating permanent works like these sculptures on a larger scale for public art projects. Unfortunately, some of these projects, such as her plan for an installation in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, were never realized due to her untimely death.
 
Ana Mendieta: Late Works 1981-1985 is the ninth solo exhibition of Mendieta’s work at Galerie Lelong, which has represented her Estate since 1991. Mendieta has had over 30 solo exhibitions worldwide, at museums including the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Kunstmuseum Luzern; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. This January, the Castello di Rivoli began the second wave of large-scale retrospectives with the exhibition Ana Mendieta. She Got Love, which closes on June 16, 2013. The Hayward Gallery in London will open a retrospective curated by Stephanie Rosenthal on September 24 this year. In 2015, the Katherine E. Nash Gallery of the University of Minnesota will present an exhibition devoted to Mendieta’s films curated by Howard Oransky.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Frank Nitsche | General Inn
May 31 – July 20, 2013
Opening Reception: Friday, May 31, 6-8 PM
 
PLEASE NOTE NEW LOCATION: 459 WEST 19TH STREET
 
Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to present “General Inn”, Frank Nitsche’s third solo exhibition with the Gallery. “General Inn” centers on new paintings and a corresponding column of empty beverage cans that are wrapped and covered with commercial stickers collected throughout Nitsche’s world travels. The exhibition extends Nitsche’s considerations of the ubiquitous lines that permeate urban landscapes. The juxtaposition of the paintings and commodified pillar hints at the artist’s source material and reveals a formal consolidation of circulated signs into large-scale geometries.
 
In Frank Nitsche’s most recent work one encounters a filtering of process that traces the artist’s painterly trajectory towards elemental components. Working from his extensive archive of collected media clippings that range from images of catastrophe to financial graphs, Nitsche mentally and physically catalogues these materials to develop a contemporary and comparative ideation of form. These forms do not necessarily represent a static sum, but instead illustrate an evolving typology of images that shape and inform social codes.
 
Nitsche’s visually restrained paintings emerge from an intricate progression of previous experiments that belie the elegant simplicity of the final image. The artist sands, corrects, rebalances and overpaints, creating an opaque palimpsest that translates his cataloging process to the canvas. The result is deceptively minimal paintings. Nitsche completes the clearly defined shapes with hooks, ties and lines, as if transposing the ligatures of an unidentified calligraphy. The architectural compositions are familiar but impenetrable; the smooth and slick surfaces, along with the serial titles, intentionally obscure their varied referents.
 
Nitsche’s methods neither articulate nor influence; rather they elicit the potentiality for experience. For this reason, Nitsche’s work concentrates on form rather than language; materials are already fraught with meaning. To this end, Nitsche has narrowed his color palette to blacks, greys and whites. This tonal restraint isolates and intensifies an examination of structure, vertices, lines and how they intersect. While this may be initially interpreted as an ascetic reduction, the gradual physical changes and layered history of the paintings unveil the hidden opulence of the color white. Rather than presenting his paintings and sculpture as a fixed or complete language, Nitsche offers the viewer an atlas.
 
Frank Nitsche’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Musee d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg, France; Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany; Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin; Art & Public, Geneva; and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris. Recent group exhibitions include I am a Berliner, Tel Aviv Museum of Art; HELLO CHINA, Brandenburgerischer Kunstverein, Potsdam, Germany; Abstract Confusion – Malerei, Skulptur, Video, Kunsthalle Erfurt, Germany; and the Prague Biennale 5. His work is featured in the collections of: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Museum Ludwig, Köln, Germany. Frank Nitsche lives and works in Berlin.
 
Gallery hours of operation are Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6 pm. For further information, please contact the gallery at +1 (212) 334-9255 or info@leokoenig.com

A selection of Frank Gehry process models will be on display at Leslie Feely Fine Art from April 11 to June 29, 2013. Drawn from significant constructions and concepts of the architect’s prolific career, these organic forms stand as testament to Gehry’s tactile approach, enhancing our perception of this sculptural architect and his work. Projects on view include the California Aerospace Museum and Theater (1984), the Winton Guest House (1987), the Chiat/Day Building (1991), the Barcelona Fish or Peix completed for the 1992 Summer Olympics, and the Beekman Tower/New York by Gehry at 8 Spruce Street (2011).
 
This exhibition presents over 30 diverse process models from 1985-2012, comprising a wide array of materials and approaches that begin to illuminate the subtleties of Gehry’s thought—and working—process. Several renditions of Gehry’s concept for Sonderborg Kunsthalle, for instance, experiment with varying shapes and degrees of fluidity embodied in the structure’s metallic skin. Studies pertaining to an unrealized tower for the Brooklyn Arena utilize materials ranging from basswood, vinyl, and plexiglass to gatorboard and paper. Each successive stage of a given model’s development illustrates the exploratory nature of Gehry’s practice, and the playfulness and originality inherent to his work.
 
Distinguishing his methods from conventional, precision-based modes of development, Frank Gehry’s process is similar to that of artists, sculptors, and scientists. In a 1980 interview he explained, “It’s kind of like throwing things out and then following the ideas, rather than predicting what you’re going to do.” His models can therefore be understood as conceptual drafts, or three-dimensional sketches, integral to project development and design. Moreover, the structures are admirable in themselves as aesthetically beautiful sculpture.
 
This show provides insight into Gehry’s indelible mind, one of the most brilliant—and provocative—of contemporary architecture and design. Photographic reproductions of his studio, the architect at work, and certain realized projects accompany the models on display. This exhibition reveals otherwise concealed aspects of Gehry’s process and practice, while simultaneously inspiring an array of new questions. Ultimately, these architectural studies culminate in a perceptive study of the architect himself.
 
This is Frank Gehry’s second exhibition at Leslie Feely Fine Art, which also held his first ever gallery show in 2007 and featured his models at Art Basel Miami Beach 2011. Solo exhibitions including his process models have been presented by ArtisTree, Taikoo Place, Hong Kong, 2011; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2008; New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2001; the Triennale Design Museum, Milan, 1997; and the Walker Center, Minneapolis, which organized a major retrospective of Gehry’s work in 1986.
 
Gehry is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, Americans for the Arts (2000), the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal (1999), the National Medal of Arts, National Endowment for the Arts (1998), and the Pritzker Architecture Prize (1989). The architect graduated from the University of Southern California in 1954 and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1956. Frank Gehry lives and works in Santa Monica, California.
 
For more information please visit www.lesliefeely.com, email gallery@lesliefeely.com, or call 212-988-0040.

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate release:
Contact: James Levis
Levis Fine Art
514 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011
(646) 620-5000
Email: jim@levisfineart.com
 
BEAUFORD DELANEY: INTERNAL LIGHT
 
New York, April 24 —Levis Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of Beauford Delaney: Internal Light, an exhibition of the extraordinary artistic legacy from the Paris period (1953-1972) of this modern master, who exhibited in museums throughout Europe and the United States. Many of these historically significant paintings have not been viewed since the artist’s landmark 1978 exhibition, Beauford Delaney: A Retrospective was held at the Studio Museum in Harlem. The solo exhibition will run from May 9 through June 15, 2013.
 
It is broadly recognized that Delaney’s Paris works are among the most significant of his body of work. A number of these Paris-period works to be shown were rescued from Delaney’s apartment shortly before his death. About to be seized by the French Government and auctioned to satisfy delinquent accounts, the paintings were shipped to New York through the efforts of a coterie of the artist’s devoted friends including James Baldwin, Henry Miller, Richard Powell and Richard Long. These paintings would form the core of the 1978 retrospective.
 
After thirty-five years of uncertain fate, and the enormous efforts over the past seven years by the estate’s court-appointed Administrator, Derek Spratley, many of these estate paintings have been recovered and are now being presented for the first time in this exhibition, opening to the public on May 9th. A fully illustrated color catalog with essay by Lily Wei, New York-based independent curator and art critic, will be available. Levis Fine Art is proud to represent the estate of Beauford Delaney.
 
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm or by appointment.

By adopting 17th- and 18th- century American folk motifs, Seattle-based Anne Siems’ portraits and still life paintings emit a haunting awkwardness. With rosy cheeks, haunted gaze and flattened features, Siems’ highly stylized figures inhabit a dreamy colonial landscape. As the world itself seems frozen in time, the transparent figures float in the foreground, forever youthful and mysterious. The delicate patterning found in traditional embroidery is the main element used to define their clothing. A thick application of paint, at times intentionally crackled to create the effect of an aged surface, emphasizes folk painting and faux antiquity. Siems' paintings ‘borrow backwards’ with a refreshing whimsy and off kilter grace, participating in the current revival of ‘old, weird America.’ ARTDAILY.ORG March 2011

Siems, who is German-born and now living in the northwestern United States, has drawn inspiration from the Guide on Wildlife in Europe, featuring unforgettable animal portraits. These, along with her youthful cast of human characters, celebrate the joys and mysteries of life. Distinct identities emerge in each portrait with fable-like stories becoming the narrative. Ritual elements from Native American medicine and culture, rabbits, deer, owls and mythological animals, their pelts and feathers, are prominent subjects in Siems’ menagerie. The muse of the artist is both real and imaginary.
 
ARTIST’S STATEMENT: In 2001 it seemed like I never recovered fully from a flu, I constantly felt fatigued and achy. Several years later I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Ever since, I have been on a path to find healing. My work in psychotherapy has helped me to shift my nervous system to a calmer, less exhausting “gear” (in Fibromyalgia the nervous system is in a constant fight or flight pattern). This work has also gotten me more deeply in touch with the earth as a sacred being.
For a while now I have longed for more ritual and ceremony in my life. I was raised with little religion, but connected to Christianity through my time as a child in South America and my upbringing in Germany.
Lately, I have found my yearning for spiritual practice in the Native American traditions of shamanic medicine making. I believe in all of us is the genuine desire to connect first and foremost with that which sustains us. All of our ancestors were originally oriented toward ritual and ceremony that honored and celebrated the earth, the sky and all that exists in between.
I believe we can attain healing for the body, soul and planet by rediscovering our relationship to these roots of worship. Consciously thanking that which sustains us –the air we breathe, the earth that holds us to her and everything that surrounds us- allows for just that. — Anne Siems, 2013
 
Siems, a Fulbright Scholar, has exhibited in Canada and in Europe and widely throughout the United States.
Her work is included in such collections as the Arkansas Art Centre, Boise Art Museum, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and the Tacoma Art Museum.

LMAKprojects is pleased to announce Claudia Joskowicz’s solo exhibit Intersections. The exhibit consists of a large video installation and photographs of her project Every Building on Avenida Alfonso Ugarte - After Ruscha. The work is an exploration of the urban landscape of the city of El Alto in her home country of Bolivia through a look at the intersections between everyday life and historical events that resonate in the collective memory of that city and, the country at large.
 
The photographic series and two-channel video installation Every Building on Avenida Alfonso Ugarte - After Ruscha takes as its inspiration Edward Ruscha’s photo book Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966). A selection of photographs from the series ponders the juxtaposition of the continuum of time and a still reenactment of an affecting moment in Bolivian history.
 
The video is installed in the back section of the gallery with two projections on opposite walls, with a true to life ration. As the viewer stands in between the two projections, one is taken along a continuous tracking shot on the major thoroughfare in El Alto. The video takes inventory of a quotidian Bolivian scene reflecting a contemporary developing city. El Alto is one of the largest urban centers and one of the fastest growing cities in Bolivia as well as one of the sites where violent protests related to the Bolivian gas conflict in October 2003 took place. In a continuous take, the mundane is juxtaposed with ritual and social conflict inserting one single still scene of violence into the register of the typical scenery of daily Bolivian life thus capturing the variegated reality of El Alto, and, by extension, also that of all developing countries.

“I was born to a father who wore an airline uniform. For most of my childhood, he lived and worked in another country. Each summer I would be flown from Beirut to Dhahran as an unaccompanied minor, but he always made sure he booked me on a flight where he knew at least one, if not all, of the Flight Attendants, or rather stewardesses as they were then known.
 
I always flew First Class, looking like Lily Tomlin’s Edith Ann, a tiny kid in a huge chair. I was totally coddled, fed, and entertained by the stewardesses who took personal care of me until I was delivered either to my dad or to my aunt, when returning to Lebanon. Flight Attendants epitomized international glamour and adventure to me. Growing up, I often dreamed of becoming one, until I took my first class in photography as a junior in high school in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC.
 
Like most Lebanese parents, mine would have greatly preferred my becoming a doctor, a lawyer, or an architect. Although I did have an interest in medicine, I had been passionate about photography ever since I developed my first print—an abstract array of shopping carts—in a tray of Dektol. As my eighteenth birthday approached, I also realized that my airline benefits would soon come to an end. I wouldn’t be able to jaunt around the world at will, for free—something I had been used to all my life.
 
My only solution was to follow my childhood dream and become a Flight Attendant. A few months before turning twenty, I started sending applications to Pan Am and TWA, two of the major international airlines at the time. I was hired by¬ Trans World Airlines on my twentieth birthday, and on February 26, 1978, I reported to Breech Training Academy, the most renowned and modern flight attendant school in the industry.”
-Lucien Samaha, April 2013
 
Lombard Freid Gallery is pleased to present New York-based photographer Lucien Samaha’s The Flight Attendant Years: 1978-1986, the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery. Samaha has been a photographer since high school and has obsessively documented his personal and professional life for over 40 years, producing a rich, highly autobiographical body of work. This show will debut vintage color and black-and-white photographs from his time as a Flight Attendant for Trans World Airlines, giving a behind-the-scenes look at a bygone era. These striking, intimate images will be exhibited with a variety of archival objects, including Samaha’s golden flight wings, personal correspondence, and TWA memos.
 
Samaha’s photographs from the late 1970s and early ‘80s record a particular intimacy between Flight Attendants, pilots, and passengers that was rarely revealed at the time—and is certainly not seen in today’s climate of heightened airline security. The Flight Attendant Years covers all aspects of daily life: training sessions, uniform fittings, in-flight fraternization, and layover breaks. Samaha’s eye for detail and composition, matched with his direct access to his subject matter, allows for his documentary photography to exist within an extremely personal and aesthetic milieu. His images—Polaroid snapshots, elegant candid portraits, and group photographs—emphasize the spirit of adventure and conviviality integral to his surroundings.
 
Samaha has continued to be in touch with many of his former colleagues, and the gallery will serve as a portrait studio for current and former flight attendants who are being invited (through postings at airlines and hotels) to visit the gallery on Saturdays, June 8, 15, and 22, from 12:00 to 5:00 PM. The portraits will be on view in the gallery and posted to lombardfreid.com and luciensamaha.net.
 
Lucien Samaha (b. 1958, Beirut) is a New York-based photographer whose work has been shown internationally, including in exhibitions at the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt and at the Cooley Gallery, Reed College, Portland. He was a finalist for the 2004 Nam June Paik Award. After his time at TWA, Samaha worked for Eastman Kodak Company and then as a DJ on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center, continuing to document his hours at work and his personal life.

John Opera, a priori
Opening Reception: May 30th, 2013, 6–8pm
Exhibition Dates: May 30th-July 3rd, 2013
 
Longhouse Projects is very pleased to present a priori, by John Opera. This is his first solo exhibition with the gallery.
 
John Opera’s recent introduction of the cyanotype into his repertoire of photographic approaches symbolically reflects his gradual evolution from empirical research to a more clinical, methodical study. His trajectory began with carefully honed and cropped landscape photographs, moving to abstract anthotypes—a photosensitive process of bleaching out images created from a fruit or vegetable based emulsion. His latest body of work centers around a focused meditation on seemingly everyday objects translated in a very specific Prussian Blue on a residue-washed linen surface. The process of the cyanotype is a now almost obsolete technique that is not too far removed from the anthotype, using liquid chemicals and ultraviolet rays to develop the images. It was originally conceived to reproduce notes and diagrams, and later blueprints. Opera’s photographic paintings curiously address this explicit objective by making notes out of rock collections and label-free bottles and diagrams out of ropes, chains, and posed hands.
 
There is a linearity that is often avoided within today’s art trends, given the progressive shift toward interdisciplinary activities and confluence of media, but part of the power in Opera’s work comes from his voracious consumption of his own personal previous bodies of works and the accumulated integration directed back into new projects. a priori literally means “from the earlier” and Opera willfully chooses to pull from the earlier and push forward. His landscape photography came from his interest in better understanding the world around him, the anthotypes came from an interest in scrutinizing and creating directly from the same locations (the fruits and vegetables used to create the photographic emulsions are sourced from the same places), and the cyanotypes come from an interest to further understand his own investigation into the history and process of photography. From one project to the next, one can trace the complicated contrapositions inherent in each of the works—particularly the heightening of contrasts between formal techniques and conceptual concerns specifically tied to photography and painting, as his work has always been mutually comprised of these two mediums. The cyanotype represents for the artist a refreshing return to an earlier mode in order to look at things anew.
 
John Opera (American, b. 1975) lives and works in Chicago. He received his MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005. He is currently represented by Andrew Rafacz Gallery in Chicago, where he has had four solo exhibitions. Other recent exhibitions include a two-person show with Matt Sheridan-Smith at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO and group shows at Carter and Citizen and Country Club in Los Angeles, Monya Rowe in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.
 
For further information, please contact Keith J. Varadi at keith@longhouseprojects.com

James Weingrod: Hush Open Window Project
April 11 - July 27, 2013
 
Lori Bookstein Fine Art is please to announce a new installation by James Weingrod. This will serve as the inaugural exhibition of The Open Window Project and the artist‘s first solo-exhibition with Lori Bookstein Fine Art and his first solo-exhibition in New York.
 
The Open Window Project was conceived as a project space by which to showcase the work of emerging artists and those artists who may not necessarily fit into the gallery’s program. While the gallery has always maintained the tradition of representing a focused group of core artists, it is excited about the ways in which working with other artists through the Open Window Project will enhance the dialogue surrounding the gallery's primary agenda. The Open Window Project will occupy the street front window on Tenth Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets.
 
James Weingrod: Hush will feature a singular, kinetic installation that actively engages street viewers. Comprised of a twirling birdcage and a series of two-way mirrors, the installation becomes an other-worldly environment where images are repeated ad infinitum within the eerie enclosure. Fascinated by the complex scientific and mathematical principles by which we have come to understand the expanses of the universe and infinity, Weingrod attempts to visually depict the ways we have come to understand the universe through theory instead of observation. Admitting the inevitable failure of such lofty ideals, he has developed an artistic practice more akin to experimentation, whereby, through trial-and-error, he hopes to develop a larger dialogue around the ways we have come to understand the incomprehensible.
 
James Weingrod received his BA in visual arts from Brown University (2004) where he was the recipient of the Roberta Jocelyn Award for Excellence in Art. He received his MFA from Hunter College (2009). Weingrod has been exhibited in several group shows in New York, including “Big Drawing” in 2008 at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, and in his hometown of Providence, RI. Weingrod was an artist in residence at The Wassaic Project in 2010 and 2011. Upcoming exhibitions include his first Philadelphia Solo Exhibition, which is scheduled for September 2013. Weingrod lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
 
James Weingrod will be on view from April 11 - July 27, 2013. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 11th from 6:00 - 9:00 pm. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:30 am to 6:00 pm. Summer hours begin Monday July 8th and will be Monday - Friday, 10:30 - 6:00. For additional information and/or visual materials, please contact the gallery at (212) 750-0949 or by email at info@loribooksteinfineart.com.¬

Margaret Thatcher Projects is pleased to present Disco Lemonade, a solo exhibition of new paintings and sculptures by Canadian artist, Heidi Spector. This is the artist's first solo exhibition in New York and follows a small installation of her works last year at the gallery in the project room. Her paintings, composed of liquitex acrylic painted as bands of color on Russian birch, are topped with resin, creating a surface where candy-like colors pulse and dance together, alluding to the impact of popular music on her work.
 
Referred to by the artist as “geometric minimalism,” Spector purposefully avoids injecting specific emotional content to her paintings, instead opting for bold color choices that quickly establish an upbeat and lively mood. Her shining repetitive pattern of vertical or horizontal stripes project a natural sense of optimism and joy informed by the techno beats and self-absorption of club life.
 
Many of the paintings on view are influenced by popular music, taking on titles based on song lyrics by artists as varied as Duke Ellington, Roxy Music, Amy Winehouse and DJ Tiesto. The color palette of each painting is in part a response to each song, infusing the group of works with the sensation of being an audio/visual playlist.
 
The geometric opticality and slick surfaces of Spector’s paintings connect her works with a tradition of hard–edge painters, such as Bridget Riley and Frank Stella. Her vision of the paintings as objects of desire and joy, however, also place Spector’s work alongside contemporary pop artists embracing kitsch as profound.
 
Heidi Spector lives and works in Montreal, Canada. She has shown in galleries nationally and internationally, including exhibitions in Montreal, Los Angeles, and New York.

Marianne Boesky Gallery is pleased to present Sunsets and Pussy. This exhibition brings together two classic themes of summer wonder – so saccharine and ubiquitous we forget their awesome power. Spanning three generations, artists Ed Ruscha, Lucien Smith, Betty Tompkins, and Piotr Uklański each engage in the delight of exposing the clichéd beauty and banality inherent in these timeless images.
 
For further information regarding Sunsets and Pussy or images of the works, please contact Veronica Levitt at 212.680.9889 or veronica@marianneboeskygallery.com.

The Italian Antonio Marzi was positioned in Udine between 1944 and 1945 where he wrote a diary including observations of the events important to the war. This information was transferred to a contact person encrypted. Later, he forgot his own system of encoding, so that nobody including himself was able to read the notes. Marzi recalled, that the encryption was based on the line Un giovinetto pallido e bello of the poem Corradino di Svevia by Aleardo Aleardi. The code was cracked on February 23rd 2013.
 
Agnes Lux is an artist living and working in New York City. A catalog available at Martos Gallery will be published on the ocassion of the exhibition.
 
For further information please contact Mary Grace Wright at gracie@martosgallery.com or 212-560-0670

Featuring a selection of major Seymour Lipton sculptures in context with
Charles Alston • Norman Bluhm • Beauford Delaney • Willem de Kooning
Jay DeFeo • Michael Goldberg • Adolph Gottlieb • Hans Hofmann
Lee Krasner • Norman Lewis • Conrad Marca-Relli • Boris Margo
Alfonso Ossorio • Richard Pousette-Dart • Milton Resnick • Charles Seliger
Alma Thomas • Mark Tobey • Jack Tworkov and Hale Woodruff