HALF/DOZEN PRESENTS The Quadratic Logogram of Almost Everything
For Immediate Release
The Quadratic Logogram of Almost Everything: The Democracy of the Contemporary Art Object
David Corbett, Alex Felton, Kristan Kennedy, Sterling Lawrence
Curated by Derek Franklin
February 4 – March 20, 2010
Opening Reception February 4th, 6pm-9pm
Contact: Timothy Mahan, Director, 503-816-6963, tim@halfdozengallery.com
Portland, OR – Half/Dozen is pleased to present an exhibition looking into contemporary abstract works through a lens that gazes away from power, high status, and the sacred, which has demanded monumental and sublime expressions that elicit submission. It focuses instead on what Edmond Burke taught us long ago: overwhelming sublime spaces are best left obscure, and the intentionality of mere objects has no place in the transcendental as a call for exodus into a more democratic realm for artistic production. These artists find cultural contexts and language to animate objects into something more than items for financial speculation or mere amusement, embracing an ethos to not allow signs and images to vanish into an abyss of indifference or commercial oblivion. These artists have acknowledged the criticisms in the history of abstract art associated with spectacle and empirical structures, and used them as a foundation to work away from on a conceptual level.
The work borrows the aesthetics of past movements and co-opts it into iconic symbols of the everyday. They have not only defined borders within third-generation appropriation but have also reclaimed an aesthetic and transformed it into a discourse conducted and interpreted in everyday terms on content including the Internet, car culture, construction, burgers and refuse. Returning abstraction to iconic metaphorical meanings built using language rather than bewitching viewers with promises of the transportation of form into content, allegorizing power into little more than reduced subjectivity.
Half/Dozen is located in the Everett Station Galleries at 625 NW Everett St, #111, Portland, OR 97209.
David Corbett
The Path, 2009
metal leaf and paint on wood
10 x 10 x 9 inches
courtesy of Fourteen30 Contemporary
Alex Felton
Untitled Paper, 2009
collage, charcoal, graphite, acrylic
20 x 30 inches
Kristan Kennedy
D.N.L.D.S.L.N.D, 2010
walnut ink and pastel on paper
22 x 30 inches
courtesy of Elizabeth Leach Gallery
Sterling Lawrence
Untitled 1 of 5, 2008
mdf, formica, paper, urethane
25 x 25 x 45 inches
ARTIST’S BIOGRAPHIES
David Corbett
David Corbett received his MFA from Rutgers University and his BFA from San Francisco State University. He lives and works in Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared New American Paintings, Portland Modern, and White Columns online registry. He has exhibited his work at various galleries including Fourteen30 Contemporary in Portland, OR, 65GRAND in Chicago, IL, Contemporary Art Workshop in Chicago, IL, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL, and Disjecta, Portland, OR.
Alex Felton
Alex Felton lives and works in Portland, Oregon. He received his BFA for Pacific Northwest College of Art in Printmaking. He has shown at numerous galleries including Small A Projects. He was a finalist for the Henry Gallery’s Brink Award for Contemporary Art. He currently has multiples at Stand Up Comedy in Portland, Oregon.
Kristan Kennedy
Kennedy is an artist and curator, represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery. She is the co-founder of the hibernating artist collective Swallow Press (x2), along with artist Topher Sinkinson and their temporal public projects have been presented internationally. Their printed ephemera is held in several book collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, Dartmouth College and the New York Public Library. She received her BFA from the New York State College of Art and Design at Alfred University, Alfred NY, with a concentration on Printmaking and New Media.
Sterling Lawrence
Sterling Lawrence currently lives and works in Chicago, IL. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (SAIC) and is currently a 2010 MFA candidate also at SAIC. His work has been included in exhibitions at Pacific Northwest College of Arts in Portland, OR, Portland Community College in Portland, OR, Apartment Gallery in Portland, OR and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL.