From Freeman & Lowe's "The Pale Hotel." Click to enlarge.
Louisville’s largest private art gallery/work space is presenting another multi-exhibition show, heavy with artists from New York and Los Angeles.
Land of Tomorrow will present five new exhibitions opening simultaneously on May 3.
The opening reception at LOT, 233 W. Broadway, is scheduled for 6 p.m. on May 3, with the exhibitions running through July 3.
These exhibitions will include:
- “Pollinator Series,” by E.V. Day
- “The Pale Hotel,” by Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe
- “Patriotic Practices,” by John Knuth, Communitarian Impulses by Dmitry “Dima” Strakovsky
- “Master and Servant,” by Jason Yates.
Here’s the synopsis for each show courtesy of LOT:
- E.V. Day’s “Pollinator Series” consists of sculptures that replicate the reproductive organs of flowers from Claude Monet’s garden and lily pond in Giverny, France. In the Summer of 2010, as the Munn Artist-in-Residence of the Versailles Foundation, Day had access to these living treasures, grown from the same seed-strains that Monet propagated when he was living there. Day followed the gardeners at Giverny in their rounds at daybreak, as they clipped the fleurs fanées (fading flowers) and also the blooms that were at their most colorful, vigorous peak but wouldn’t survive the heat of the morning sun. She sifted through the gardeners’ wheelbarrows for these latter blooms and preserved those specimens by means of a microwave flower-press. She scanned the best of each flower variety into a two-dimensional image, creating a memorial of sorts to the flowers’ life-giving role. From these scans, Day then used digital-processing and three-dimensional modeling to reconstitute each flower, reconstructing them into sculptural forms with weight and mass. The ephemeral, fleeting quality of the flowers Monet planted has been transformed into a monumental and rigid tribute. Fixed, everlasting, and transportable, these massive flowers transcend geographical specificity; they’ve flown beyond the garden walls at Giverny, but remain symbols of the powerful environment of fecundity and fertility Monet created more than a hundred years ago. With their polished, metallic surfaces, these sculptures become, both literally and figuratively, places for reflection about reproduction and replication, about endurance and timelessness, and about using technology to give an evanescent life form a futuristic, alternate existence.
- Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe present new work from their evolving constellation of narratives surrounding The San San Metroplex and its hypertrophic urban conditions. Cactus/crystal assemblages, mirror paintings of smashed sheetrock walls, custom cactus/crystal wallpaper designs, and collages from the counterculture periodical Artichoke Underground illustrate a fragmented view of 20th century technocratic civilization. “The Pale Hotel ”will focus on three specific and tangentially connected historical events:
1966: Neuroscientist Louisa Cohen and biochemist Herbert Boyer successfully create the first Plant/Mineral hybrid. This now legendary event yields thousands of genetically engineered biological and non-biological hybrids that are used in lithium batteries, microchips, breakfast cereals, and organic wine to name a few examples.
2004: The Pale Hotel takes formation in a warren of derelict Victorian high-rises. It is to be another fashionable renovation of urban decay that aims to attract the youth migrating to urban centers in hopes of joining the burgeoning creative class. In the summer of 2008, as the project is partially through construction, the subprime mortgage crisis hits North America, stalling the real estate market. Construction on The Pale Hotel halts, and the building sits empty, waiting for an injection of capital to continue. Within six months, squatters and transients reclaim the building. The would-be luxury dwellings are carved up and reconfigured into mazes of interconnected cells and corridors.
1923: The Artichoke Underground forms as a nonsensical periodical aimed at, in the words of co-founders Raoul Arcade and Amanda Winter, “destroying the techno-structure.” The first issues of the magazine are literally a random selection of images, which is said to be an articulation of the collapse of the narrative universe into an endless, monotonous media stream. The onset of World War 2 dissipates the group, and all activities are suspended. AU resurfaces in the mid-1950’s. This time around, the group advocates an odd mix of technologically augmented mind exploration that involves a drug-computer synthesis known as “The Octopus.” In the 1960’s, AU becomes the center of the counterculture rebellion on college campuses and urban centers. It hosts a series of now famous media pranks during the 1968 democratic convention that are considered the birth of modern political theater. The Artichoke Underground fades into obscurity in late 1970’s.
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"Pledge of Allegiance" from "Patriotic Practices."
“Patriotic Practices” by Los Angeles-based artist John Knuth is an exhibition of two series of paintings. In the first, emergency smoke flares mark a black gesso covered canvas, turning an act of distress into a creative action. The flare reacts with the gesso, creating an opalescent effect that confuses the image. Like Jasper Johns’s paintings in which stenciled numbers are layered one upon the other, Knuth layers patriotic language such as “God Bless America” and “I Pledge Allegiance” to build abstraction into the work.
The second series of paintings in “Patriotic Practices” was created by thousands of flies regurgitating watercolor paint onto the canvas. Knuth raises and feeds the flies in his studio, using them as his work force. He limits the surface area where the flies can land, causing the build up of hundreds of thousands of small dots of watercolor paint that the flies have deposited onto the canvas. Knuth is drawn to the control and lack of control in this process, a process that mirrors a city structure or contemporary society. He is restricting a non-social insect to a small area, amplifying the effect of the group.
- In “Communitarian Impulses,” Dmitry “Dima” Strakovsky takes up a pseudo-ecclesiastical angle. The artist recorded himself singing a variety of chant-like vocal parts and invites the audience members to trigger the samples using a Guitar Hero video-game controller in the space of the installation. Sacred and profane is mixed in equal doses and delivered to the fingertips of the visitors for interaction, consumption, and, perhaps, contemplation.
- Jason Yates completes this grouping of amazing exhibitions with “Master and Servant,” an exquisite product of obsessive performative actions. For this exhibition, Yates will reveal one of his meticulously worked crosshatched murals in conjunction with a new series of Monk Tables. The tables channel the meditative qualities of Yates’s work, directing them into new the realm of graceful, minimal production.
Also on View:
After Market Value Appreciation, LLC will present VICTORY!, a parlor game in honor of the Run for the Roses. VICTORY! is an encounter with chance and changing fortunes; a dice derby where each horse is a vehicle of fate.
Foundation will be brought to LOT by Volume Gallery, an event-based gallery with a specific focus on American design. In the past two years, Volume has released editions, publications, and exhibits that showcase the work of American designers to a larger audience. For this exhibition, Volume is bringing together their released editions alongside new artists to showcase contemporary environments and create discourse on the current state of design and studio practice. The designers and artists will include: Felicia Ferrone, Jonathan Muecke, Jonathan Nesci, Wendy White, Rich Brilliant Willing, and Thaddeus Wolfe.
About Land of Tomorrow:
Land of Tomorrow (LOT) Gallery at 233 W. Broadway is a tw0-year-old project space created to facilitate the making and showing of experimental work in the fields of art, design, and music in Kentucky. LOT operates galleries in both Lexington and Louisville, supported by a core group of amazing and talented individuals. Through exhibitions, performances, artist talks, work documentation, and other activities, LOT fosters an open dialogue with the regional and international creative communities.
Land of Tomorrow presenting multiple-artist show with E.V. Day, Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, John Knuth, Dima Strakovsky and Jason Yates
From Freeman & Lowe's "The Pale Hotel." Click to enlarge.
Louisville’s largest private art gallery/work space is presenting another multi-exhibition show, heavy with artists from New York and Los Angeles.
Land of Tomorrow will present five new exhibitions opening simultaneously on May 3.
The opening reception at LOT, 233 W. Broadway, is scheduled for 6 p.m. on May 3, with the exhibitions running through July 3.
These exhibitions will include:
1966: Neuroscientist Louisa Cohen and biochemist Herbert Boyer successfully create the first Plant/Mineral hybrid. This now legendary event yields thousands of genetically engineered biological and non-biological hybrids that are used in lithium batteries, microchips, breakfast cereals, and organic wine to name a few examples.
2004: The Pale Hotel takes formation in a warren of derelict Victorian high-rises. It is to be another fashionable renovation of urban decay that aims to attract the youth migrating to urban centers in hopes of joining the burgeoning creative class. In the summer of 2008, as the project is partially through construction, the subprime mortgage crisis hits North America, stalling the real estate market. Construction on The Pale Hotel halts, and the building sits empty, waiting for an injection of capital to continue. Within six months, squatters and transients reclaim the building. The would-be luxury dwellings are carved up and reconfigured into mazes of interconnected cells and corridors.
1923: The Artichoke Underground forms as a nonsensical periodical aimed at, in the words of co-founders Raoul Arcade and Amanda Winter, “destroying the techno-structure.” The first issues of the magazine are literally a random selection of images, which is said to be an articulation of the collapse of the narrative universe into an endless, monotonous media stream. The onset of World War 2 dissipates the group, and all activities are suspended. AU resurfaces in the mid-1950’s. This time around, the group advocates an odd mix of technologically augmented mind exploration that involves a drug-computer synthesis known as “The Octopus.” In the 1960’s, AU becomes the center of the counterculture rebellion on college campuses and urban centers. It hosts a series of now famous media pranks during the 1968 democratic convention that are considered the birth of modern political theater. The Artichoke Underground fades into obscurity in late 1970’s.
"Pledge of Allegiance" from "Patriotic Practices."
“Patriotic Practices” by Los Angeles-based artist John Knuth is an exhibition of two series of paintings. In the first, emergency smoke flares mark a black gesso covered canvas, turning an act of distress into a creative action. The flare reacts with the gesso, creating an opalescent effect that confuses the image. Like Jasper Johns’s paintings in which stenciled numbers are layered one upon the other, Knuth layers patriotic language such as “God Bless America” and “I Pledge Allegiance” to build abstraction into the work.
The second series of paintings in “Patriotic Practices” was created by thousands of flies regurgitating watercolor paint onto the canvas. Knuth raises and feeds the flies in his studio, using them as his work force. He limits the surface area where the flies can land, causing the build up of hundreds of thousands of small dots of watercolor paint that the flies have deposited onto the canvas. Knuth is drawn to the control and lack of control in this process, a process that mirrors a city structure or contemporary society. He is restricting a non-social insect to a small area, amplifying the effect of the group.
Also on View:
After Market Value Appreciation, LLC will present VICTORY!, a parlor game in honor of the Run for the Roses. VICTORY! is an encounter with chance and changing fortunes; a dice derby where each horse is a vehicle of fate.
Foundation will be brought to LOT by Volume Gallery, an event-based gallery with a specific focus on American design. In the past two years, Volume has released editions, publications, and exhibits that showcase the work of American designers to a larger audience. For this exhibition, Volume is bringing together their released editions alongside new artists to showcase contemporary environments and create discourse on the current state of design and studio practice. The designers and artists will include: Felicia Ferrone, Jonathan Muecke, Jonathan Nesci, Wendy White, Rich Brilliant Willing, and Thaddeus Wolfe.
About Land of Tomorrow: Land of Tomorrow (LOT) Gallery at 233 W. Broadway is a tw0-year-old project space created to facilitate the making and showing of experimental work in the fields of art, design, and music in Kentucky. LOT operates galleries in both Lexington and Louisville, supported by a core group of amazing and talented individuals. Through exhibitions, performances, artist talks, work documentation, and other activities, LOT fosters an open dialogue with the regional and international creative communities.