WRITING LETTERS
work by JOE AMRHEIN, TAUBA AUERBACH, STEVE POWERS
exploring the physicality, psychology,aesthetics, politics and sociology of letterforms, words and signs.
Opens OCTOBER 15, 2005
Reception: 6– 9pm
music by Tussle
EXTENDED–THRU NOVEMBER 26, 2005
Gallery Hours: Wed-Saturday: 12-5pm
- Tauba Auerbach R ink on paper 38" x 50" 2005
- Steve Powers' limo in Steve Powers' studio
- Steve Powers Money Painting NOT IN LUGGAGE STORE SHOW
- Joe Amrhein "Consciousness," Enamel and gold leaf on mylar 34" x 26" 2005 SOLD
- Joe Amrhein "Bottom Line" Enamel and gold leaf on mylar 42" x 120" 2004 NOT IN LUGGAGE STORE SHOW
- Joe Amhrein "Re-Site" enamel and gold leaf on glass 16' x 12 feet installation view NOt in luggage store exhibition
- Tauba Auerbach The Whole Alphabet, Digital I goache on paper 22" x 30" 2005 sold
- Steve Powers LB Saul Laughts it Off Installation view NOT IN LUGGAGE STORE SHOW
- Tauba Auerbach All the Insides, Lowercase gouache and pencil on paper 17" x 22" 2005
- Joe Amhrein 26 points detail 2005
- Joe Amhrein "...every aesthetic detail is considered determined, emphatic and at the same time oddly diffuse..." Art Forum 2005
- Tauba Auerbach Binary Uppercase/Lowercase ink, gouache, pencil on paper 23.5" x 22" 2005 SOLD
- Steve Powers untitled motorized cube enamel on metal 2005
- Steve Powers Despair and Donuts NOT IN LUGGAGE STORE SHOW
- Steve Powers Untitled enamel on metal 2005
- Joe Amhrein site specfic installation mixed media 2005 (SOLD)
- Steve Powers' Limo, rubber, 2005
- Tauba Auerbach Morse Alphabet, Red ink on paper 22.25" x 30" 2005 (also pictured above the typewriter/table/chairs) SOLD
- Steve Powers installation view enamel on Powder-coated 12" cube with mirror-ball motors enamel on metal 2005 from left to right first three SOLD
- Steve Powers custom raincoat
- Steve Powers Untitled enamel on metal 2005
- Steve Powers "Ricky's Not Happy When Ricky Can't Find Ricky's Limo", custom raincoat, 2005
- Steve Powers
- Steve Powers "Untitled" enamel on metal 2005
- Steve Powers Limo, in luggage store, 2005
- Steve Powers Untitled enamel on metal 2005
- STEVE POWERS Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday 12 x 12 x 12" cube enamel on powder coated steel, with motor ball 2005
- Tauba Auerbach Reflectera II altered Olivetti typewriter 2005
- Tauba Auerbach "G" ink on paper 38" x 50" 2005 (sold)
- Tauba Auerbach Shift One, I altered Remington typewriter 2005
- Tauba Auerbach installation view 2005
- Tauba Auerbach Yes and No wood, paint, three 12" x 12" x 12" cubes 2005 (sold)
- Tauba Auerbach "A" ink on paper 38" x 50" 2005 SOLD
- Tauba Auerbach video NOT IN LUGGAGE STORE SHOW
- from Tauba's typewriter
- Tauba Auerbach Morse Alphabet, With Spaces, Cream, Green ink, gouache, pencil on paper 30.25" x 44" 2005 (SOLD)
- Tauba Auerbach The Whole Alphabet, Frm the Center Out, Digital, III gouache and pencil on paper 22" x 30" 2005 (sold)
- Tauba Auerbach Punctuation, All of It typewriter on paper 5.75" x 7.25" 2005
- typewriter Herb Permillion of CAlifornia Office Machines, Oakland, CA did the welding for Auerbach's typewriters...
- Tauba Auerbach installation view 2005
- Tauba Auerbach The Whole Alphabet, Lowercase typewriter on paper 8.5" x 11" 2005
See Press:
NY Times
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Bay Guardian
SF Gate E Picks
SF Weekly
Shotgun Review
Art Business
See also: Tauba Auerbach review Art in America Paper Magazine December 2005/January 2006
New York artist Joe AMRHEIN’S work is a combination of disciplines. Physically it comes out of painting, but the context is conceptual. Using text and font icons as the primary subject, the source for most of the text in this work is appropriated from critical art writing. Amrehinn sifts through these texts (primarily monthly periodicals like Artforum, Art in America, Flash Art, et cetera.) and pull out the hyperbolae; key phrases that try to elaborate on the where, when and how aspect of the art they are describing. Caught in the parameters of language and writing, these key phrases sometimes seem ridiculous, especially when taken out of context, One of the main reasons for using this kind of text to bring it back into the art making processmaking art from critical prose by critical pros. This language replaces the art it describesand brings the abstract notion of language back into a visual.
Quoting Robert Smithson, One must remember that writing on art replaces presence by absence by substituting the abstraction of language for the real thing.
Some of the text Amrhein composes is not meant to be read but is used almost as an artifact, because it is so highly fragmented. The use of sign painting to give this language scale and vitality comes out of Amrheins background as a sign painter.
Amhrein has painted an interactive word piece on the gallery walls and ceiling and on the window moulding. There is also a broken glass piece, a layered mylar text piece; and a site specific work on the front door.
Amhrein is the founder/director of the groundbreaking Pierogi Gallery in Wiliamsburg/Brooklyn, NY.
TAUBA AUERBACH Auerbach explores human constructed systems, matrices and the functionality of malfunction Auerbach believes that the various languages we use to encode our world in order to systematize it and make it manageable, consistently take on a life of its own and we often end up at its mercy.. The result is a pervasive disillusionment with the simulacra that we have ourselves manufactured and are mistaking for the real. Using primarily the written English languageand numbers, Quoting from Leah Ollman, LA Times (4/29/05), Auerbachs focus is on the consonance andfriction between the letters dual roles as images andbuilding blocks of meaning. Auerbach is showing large scale drawings and altered typewriters.
STEVEN POWERS
New York artist Powers creates paintings based on the visual marginalia of the world; T-shirt graphics, cartoons, religious tracts, advertising illustration, and graffiti. He uses these base elements of visual communication to depict the issues at the core of the human experience; Love, hate, desire, insecurity, jealousy, frustration and revelation are all encapsulated in a direct mode of communication Powers calls Emotional Response Icons. Powers painted icons reflect the overload zeitgeist, his paintings are full to the frames with a wide range of concerns, from regret to the ridiculous. He likens what he does to emotional cave painting, visually summing up humanity and relaying the summation in easy-to-grasp, easy-to-recall pictures.
Powers work at the luggage store consists of an installation of motorized cube paintings,enamel on powder coated steel; and a blow up limo and jacket.Part figurative, part sign painting, his work is
intended to evoke emotional distress signals.