http://5begallery.com/ Oliver Kamm 5BE Gallery in New York's Chelsea art district runs a full program of contemporary painting, photography, video, sculpture and Installation. In addition the gallery has works available by Andy Warhol, Kiki Smith, Ross Bleckner, Takashi Murakami, Damien Hirst, Jennifer Bartlett, Karin Davie and Nan Goldin among others. en Copyright 2010, Oliver Kamm/5BE Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:31:01 -0500 <div class="exhibition-subtitle">&quot;Portraits of Family and Friends&quot;</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">May 15 - June 21, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, May 15, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1418"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/16/16187.jpeg" alt="" height="586" width="418" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release:</p> <p>May 15th - June 21st, 2008<br /> Opening Reception: Thursday, May 15th, 6:00 - 8:00 pm.</p> <p>We are pleased to announce Andrew Sexton&#39;s second solo show with Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery.</p> <p>In "Portraits of Family and Friends", Sexton focuses on new subjects - his mother, two brothers, and good friend Daryl. </p> <p>Sexton continues with his unique approach to portraiture. His usage of unconventional sculptural materials in his three-dimensional portraits, alongside his obsessively detailed cartoon-like drawings, together serve to explore the personae of his subjects.</p> <p>"I still believe that the best way to make work is to come straight from the heart and the one thing I know I can always stand behind <br /> is my love for the amazing, hilarious, and bizarre people around me.</p> <p>I try to use the positive emotions generated by my relationships with the subjects to not only fuel the creation of the work, but also to hopefully convey some of those feelings to the viewer."<br /> - Andrew Sexton, April 2008<br /> </p> <p>In 2005 Sexton received his <span class="caps">MFA </span>from Yale. Artforum called his first solo show at Oliver Kamm/5BE gallery in 2006 "a peculiar and appealing confection of mood, material and method whose brand of fond hyperbole is just over-the-top enough to charm."</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/1418 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">May 8 - June 1, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, May 8, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1413"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/15/15888.jpeg" alt="Seonna Hong &quot;I am not Permanent&quot;, 2007. Acrylic and paper on wood. 72 x 48 inches" height="752" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Seonna Hong "I am not Permanent", 2007. Acrylic and paper on wood. 72 &#215; 48 inches</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p><A HREF="http://english.kaikaikiki.co.jp/exhibition/ee_list/seona_hong_viscery_loves_company/">Kaikai Kiki Co. Ltd.</A></p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/1413 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">March 22 - March 22, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Saturday, March 22, 8:00 PM - 11:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1349"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/14/14907.jpeg" alt="" height="386" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>If I told you you were beautiful, would you date me on the regular? is a one-night-only group show featuring artists who have used media and its by-products to make objects. The title is a quote from Justin Timberlake&#39;s My Love, a song that asks how little Timberlake would have to do for you to devote yourself to him utterly. Artists included in the show invert this relationship: demanding culture yield its materials to them for reinvention or repurposing. </p> <p>This will be the last event at Oliver Kamm&#39;s current location--a final dance party designed to privilege interaction and social engagement. In the spirit of a dramatic rejection of systemized forms of cultural production, and as a reaction to the speed with which media is consumed today, the show was conceived, planned, and executed in only three weeks.</p> <p>Please email nicholasweist@gmail.com for more information.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/1349 <div class="exhibition-subtitle">LIVED LIVE EVIL DEVIL</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 11 - March 1, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, January 11, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1113"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/13/13814.jpeg" alt="Installation View of Diana Puntar's &quot;Lived Live Evil Devil&quot;" height="746" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Installation View of Diana Puntar&#39;s "Lived Live Evil Devil"</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release:</p> <p>Diana Puntar<br /> <span class="caps">LIVED LIVE EVIL DEVIL</span><br /> January 11 - <del>February 16</del> March 1, 2008<br /> Opening Reception: Friday, January 11, 6-8pm</p> <p>We are pleased to announce that artist Diana Puntar will exhibit a new body of work in an installation titled, <span class="caps">LIVED LIVE EVIL DEVIL, </span>at Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery. This will mark Puntar&#39;s first solo exhibition at the gallery.</p> <p><span class="caps">LIVED LIVE EVIL DEVIL </span>incorporates both hanging and free-form sculptures to create a crowded, cavernous environment that functions with the lights on and off. Utilizing synthetic and mass produced materials such as plywood, foam, phosphorescent paint, reflective glass beads, aluminum and lawn ornaments Puntar creates a natural if not, eerily futuristic world. </p> <p>In the artist&#39;s words: "From discreet sculptural works to full-scale modular installations, my work examines various imagined frontiers from the living room to outer space. Although I often borrow from a design aesthetic, a more personal vocabulary interjects to question individual and class identity. Combinations of real and fake wood demand a dismissal of high and low as categories of quality, while optical disturbances disrupt the familiar. In my sculptures and installations the `natural&#39; world exists only as a cleansed facsimile, vaguely approximating the real. This simulated `outside&#39; alludes to my fear that there is no longer an exteriority to pursue in American culture - we are trapped inside."</p> <p>Diana Puntar graduated from The School of The Museum of Fine Arts Boston with her <span class="caps">M.F.A </span>in 1996. Puntar&#39;s recent solo exhibitions include: Less Than Day, Or Night, Project Room at <span class="caps">P.S.1,</span> Long Island City, 2007; One Last Single Solitary Moment, Rowland Contemporary, Chicago, 2007; An Hour On The Sun, Small A Projects, Portland, 2006; and Burning For You, Participant Inc. New York, 2005. </p> <p><span class="caps">LIVED LIVE EVIL DEVIL </span>will be on view from January 11th through February 16th, 2008. Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11am - 6pm. For further information, please contact Liz Jonckheer at 212-255-0979 or visit: www.oliverkamm.com.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/1113 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">November 29, 2007 - January 5, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, November 29, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1112"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/10/10983.jpeg" alt="Aqsa Shakil Dunhill Lights, 2007 Water color and indigo pigment on paper 45 x 61.5 inches (Detail)" height="375" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Aqsa Shakil<br /> Dunhill Lights, 2007<br /> Water color and indigo pigment on paper<br /> 45 &#215; 61.5 inches<br /> (Detail)</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Traces<br /> November 29, 2007 - January 5, 2008<br /> Opening Reception: Thursday November 29, 2007 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to announce the debut solo exhibition of work by artist Aqsa Shakil. Dallas based Shakil will show a recent selection of paintings on paper, marking the artist&#39;s first show in New York City. </p> <p>In her paintings Shakil combines the natural elements of rain or snow fall with a meticulous rendering of human figures, Islamic geometric patterns and Indian miniature details. Shakil works with elements of nature, the movement of her own body and images of familial history to render and record memory.</p> <p>In the words of the artist: "My work is heavily influenced by travel. Having been rooted, un-rooted and re-rooted from Tanzania, to Pakistan, to Dallas, I have a constant inherent obsession of wanting to trace every slipping moment. My paintings have remnants of old photographs of people I have known, grown out of, or run into over the years. They are submerged in memory pockets: vast atmospheric spaces, which result after the paper endures a rain or snow storm. The random splatters of precipitation have a strange orderly pattern, and I intervene with my orderly splatters that have a strange randomness. The dichotomy of the two makes an exact visual depiction of what I think memory looks like."</p> <p>Aqsa Shakil was born in Tanzania and raised in Pakistan. She has been living and working in Dallas Texas since 2002 and received her <span class="caps">MFA </span>from Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in 2007.</p> <p>Traces will be on view from November 29, 2007 through January 5, 2008. Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11am - 6pm.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/1112 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">October 11 - November 17, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, October 19, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1037"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/10/10151.jpeg" alt="Hedge, 2007 Acrylic, watercolor, and gel medium on wood panel 50 x 30 x 2 inches (3572) (Detail Image)" height="344" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Hedge, 2007<br /> Acrylic, watercolor, and gel medium on wood panel<br /> 50 &#215; 30 x 2 inches<br /> (3572)<br /> (Detail Image)</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release</p> <p>Sharon Louden<br /> Hedge<br /> October 11 - November 19, 2007<br /> Opening Reception: Friday, October 19, 6-8pm</p> <p>October 11, 2007, New York, NY - We are pleased to announce that artist Sharon Louden will be exhibiting Hedge, a series of paintings on wood panels at Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery. This is her first solo exhibition at Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery.</p> <p>Mostly known for her large scale installations and drawings, this exhibition will be the second time Louden will show paintings since she graduated with a <span class="caps">MFA </span>from Yale in 1991. Hedge is a series of paintings, inspired by her animation of the same name, that displays clusters of whimsical gestures in various colors against deep black, vast, stark, semi-gloss, beautiful surfaces. Although abstract and formal, Louden&#39;s language of characters have human-like aspects within their minimal state, made of simple line and gesture that are physical and yet transparent. Through the specific, awkward placement of these forms, they also evoke movement and character.</p> <p>Hedge is about Louden&#39;s signature gestures that quietly hide and evoke the illusion of movement within endless black spaces. They also provide a place for the artist to hide, behind and beyond the Hedge.</p> <p>"It is important for me to create the illusion of a three-dimensional form that, through its subtlety and beauty, elicits a presence in its own world," Louden says.</p> <p>Benjamin Genocchio of the New York Times wrote of Louden&#39;s work, "There is a sculptural quality to her drawings that is unusual; sitting on top of the paper the brushstrokes feel airborne, as if the artist blew them out of her hand."</p> <p>Sharon M. Louden graduated with a <span class="caps">B.F.A. </span>from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an <span class="caps">MFA </span>from Yale University, School of Art. Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues including the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, the Drawing Center, Carnegie Mellon University and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. You can find her work in the permanent collections of the Neuberger Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, Weatherspoon Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Recent exhibitions include a major survey at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York, and group exhibitions at the Jewish Museum and List Art Center at Brown University last year. Upcoming exhibitions include a group show at the Katonah Museum of Art this November as well as a solo exhibition of newly commissioned work at the Birmingham Museum of Art in September, 2008. </p> <p>Hedge will be on view from October 11th through November 19th, 2007. Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11am - 6pm.</p> <p>For further information, please contact Liz Jonckheer at 212-255-0979 or at liz@oliverkamm.com. Additionally, images of Louden&#39;s work can be found on our website or at www.sharonlouden.com</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/1037 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">September 6 - October 6, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, September 6, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1036"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/9/9771.jpeg" alt="Cheryl Donegan: Luxury Dust Installation Shot: South / West Walls" height="372" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Cheryl Donegan: Luxury Dust<br /> Installation Shot: South / West Walls</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release:</p> <p>Cheryl Donegan<br /> <span class="caps">LUXURY DUST</span></p> <p>September 6 - October 6, 2007<br /> Opening Reception: Thursday September 6, 6-8pm</p> <p>We are pleased to announce a show of new paintings by Cheryl Donegan. The exhibition, titled, Luxury Dust, will mark her third solo show at Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery.</p> <p><span class="caps">BOSTON BROWN BREAD</span></p> <p>I don&#39;t need to rehearse for this cultured audience the accomplishments of the Irish people and their descendents in the fields of literature, music, dance, and the performing arts and yet the accomplishments of Irish and Irish American visual artists are often overlooked.</p> <p><span class="caps">MEATS</span></p> <p>Next to your husband, your meat man should be your best friend. Cultivate him. Shop in slack hours, if possible. Ask him to show you cuts of meat. Learn what, where, why. Buy with his help and let him know you are following his advice.</p> <p>Art Award "Black Velvet" Paint-by-Number set in choice of 2 subjects. Two 12 &#215; 16" panels, 3 brushes and artist&#39;s oils.</p> <p><span class="caps">IDEA BOOK</span> OF <span class="caps">DISTINGUISHED MERCHANDISE</span></p> <p>Rugged yet beautiful, made of color protected "Dura-Vinyl" on sturdy aluminum frames. Keyless combination locks and chrome drawbolts. Styled with Faille linings, large vinyl lined accessory pockets. Color: Avocado.</p> <p>Polished fruits and vegetables are artistic for table decorations and may be eaten tomorrow. </p> <p>Elaborations are simply fundamentals with frills.</p> <p>Bowl-O-Beauty floral arrangement features decorator wheat, roses, dahlias, and columbine in footed pottery container. Thirty blooms and many buds may be bent into life-like positions and also removed for cleaning. </p> <p>TO <span class="caps">REMOVE SCORCH</span></p> <p>A scorch is different from a stain, in that something is actually taken from the goods. The effort is to remove the external signs of the damage, which may be great or little. </p> <p>Alexander Smith "Nylglow" Axminster rug. Beautiful assortment of Nylon pile area rug, each 27 &#215; 50." Available in red/gold Mediterranean pattern (as illustrated), also in a large selection of colorful florals, tweeds, and textured designs. </p> <p><span class="caps">BOILED SHRIMPS</span></p> <p>Plunge live shrimps into boiling salted water. Shell shrimps, and remove dark membrane, which is the intestinal tract circling the middle of each shrimp just below the surface of the outer flesh and sometimes concealed by a thin, transparent layer of flesh, which peels off with it. To remove this easily, insert the sharp point of a knife under the surface of the transparent layer and strip the two out together with a circling motion. </p> <p>There are so many fascinating things to do in this world; it seems a shame to spend any more time than necessary on the routine business of living.</p> <p><span class="caps">PRADA</span></p> <p>Kind of a take on the classic hairdo but using all bad techniques to achieve it--like overspray, bad teasing, dullness, so all the things we tell women not to do we&#39;ve done.</p> <p>Sumptuous Cashmere, fully lined, topped with lustrous mink! Snap-on leaf design tape for use without fur. Moth proof. Beige/natural Autumn Haze mink; white bleached white mink; black/bleached white mink/dyed black mink. Sizes 36-44.</p> <p>Hygiene Acetate Taffeta curtain with plastic liner. Shocking pink, Palace blue, or Venetian gold with white embroidered initial or white with gold initial.</p> <p>Kim Rosenfield is a New York based poet and psychotherapist and the author of, "Good Morning-Midnight-" and "Tr&agrave;ma".</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street, on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11am-6pm. For further information or images please contact the gallery at 212-255-0979 or visit our website at www.oliverkamm.com.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/1036 <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Jonathan Allen, David Brooks, Luke Butler, Rä di Martino, KB Jones</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">July 19 - August 17, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, July 19, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/901"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/9/9197.jpeg" alt="" height="330" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>The World Is Yours<br /> Curated by Liz Jonckheer</p> <p>July 19 - August 17, 2007<br /> Opening Reception: Thursday July 19, 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to present a group show featuring the work of five artists: Jonathan Allen, David Brooks, Luke Butler, R&auml; di Martino and KB Jones. The World Is Yours suggests that the world is what you make of it, and points to the artists&#39; creation of their own language. </p> <p>Jonathan Allen&#39;s paintings and works on paper recycle pop imagery, abstraction, political iconography, and the mundane to evoke his eccentric vision. His surreal dreamscapes often examine the bizarre contradiction, and absurdities, of today&#39;s cultural and political climate. Allen weaves together a variety of media and techniques; oil/acrylic paint, pen/ink rendering, pencil, pastel, and collage elements to create seamlessly relevant works of art.</p> <p>David Brooks&#39; work considers the relationship between the individual and the built and natural environment. The fact that the world is comprised of countless ecosystems and innumerable autonomous relationships within them inspires Brooks in his attempt to define and map the individual within the "seemingly endless environment of now". The whole is implied by the parts - and in Brooks&#39; case, the parts are the medium of his sculptures.</p> <p>Luke Butler toys with contemporary mythology. To him, "The End" is a classical figure that looms in our consciousness despite our ability to see right through it. As a static image floating in a frame it seems contradictory, absurd, and poignant - an anti-picture. He also suspects that ubiquitous, overpowering figures like the Presidents of the United States must also be little human men, vulnerable characters whose preoccupations could look a lot like his, and maybe even yours.</p> <p>R&auml; di Martino is interested in the relationship between our intimate sphere, memory, subconscious and the fictions we create around ourselves. Her most recent film, The Red Shoes, recalls a story and resembles something - a hazy memory or dream - from somewhere - d&eacute;j&agrave; vu, perhaps. The Red Shoes can be read as found footage and a sort of day dream, (the film was shot `day for night&#39;) and while the title and scene are familiar, the viewing experience is more than what it seems.</p> <p>KB Jones&#39; subject matter is drawn from images of her childhood in Africa, and her life today in Brooklyn, and speaks to the powers of association and suggestion. Her paintings manage to be both familiar and enigmatic at the same time. She has developed her own visual vocabulary which subtly communicates itself to the viewer - figures emerge from textures, only to dissolve into the surface of the picture plane, once again.</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Monday - Friday from 11am-6pm. For further information or images please contact the gallery at 212-255-0979 or visit our website at www.oliverkamm.com.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/901 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">May 31 - July 13, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, May 31, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/875"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/8/8080.jpeg" alt="" height="327" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Click on image to view entire exhibtion</p> <p>For Immediate Release:</p> <p>Tom Meacham<br /> the greater good<br /> <br /> May 31 - July 13, 2007<br /> Opening Reception: Thursday, May 31, 6-8pm</p> <p>We are pleased to announce Tom Meacham&#39;s second solo show with Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery. </p> <p>The title of the second solo exhibition of recent paintings and sculpture by Tom Meacham, "the greater good", suggests both the altruistic motto of a liberal democrat and the self-convincing rhetoric of a vigilante. Meacham offers an uneasy equation of extremes through a body of work that employs grid motifs on canvas, wood sculptures of "specific object" lineage, consumer objects and mundane materials.</p> <p>The piece that lends its name to the show is a large table constructed not as an homage to Juddian Modernism but as a deliberate misreading and displacement of those formal concerns. Laid out on its surface are dozens of knives of varying degrees of menace, from stiletto to machete. This unnerving collection, purchased in bulk through a late night home shopping network, seems designed to appeal not to the average consumer but to those who wish to amass private arsenals. What first appears to be a conventional display of weapons soon reveals a composition organized with the formal principles of a painting. The table&#39;s base, constructed in the form of an `X&#39;, reiterates crossed swords in piece that is a simple and sinister meditation on choice and freedom.</p> <p>The trihedral motif in the larger paintings, rendered in either electrical tape or ink jet on canvas, is an appropriation of the ceiling at the Yale Art Gallery, designed by Louis Kahn in 1951. Kahn&#39;s innovation, to expose the structure that housed the building&#39;s inner working systems in an elegant and elemental repeating form, was enabled by the Modernist ideology of his day. In Meacham&#39;s work, signs that historically generate ideas of strength and stability are pulled to the opposite pole. In his paintings, imperceptible flaws in measurement, proportion and scale are allowed to accumulate and accrue as the triangular module repeats, resulting in subtly disconcerting optics. The resulting images appear simultaneously relentless and unsustainable. The tape paintings in particular, either hung on or leaning against the wall, appear to be both bandage and scaffold. In Meacham&#39;s own words, `the system self-destructs&#39; with a confrontationally scaled `K&#39;, oscillating between polar readings- full (thousands) and empty (strike out). Viewed from another perspective, the symbol dissolves and the piece re-organizes as sculpture- 3 pieces of tape on a plinth. </p> <p>Mondrian once famously stated, "If we cannot free ourselves, we can free our vision". Early in the last century, in order to pursue a neo-plasticist ideal of balance and universal repose, Mondrian abandoned the modular grid because it implied the tragedy of a rigidly ordered vision. Tom Meacham relies upon this tragedy. Every fulcrum point becomes a chance to unbalance the load.<br /> <br /> - Cheryl Donegan</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday from 11am - 6pm. We will be closed July 1-4 and open after July 5, Monday - Friday from 11am-6pm.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/875 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">April 27 - May 26, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, April 27, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/868"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/6/6293.jpeg" alt="SOLD" height="626" width="500" /></a> <p>Seonna Hong, <em>Retreat</em>, 2006</p> <p> Acrylic, charcoal and thread on canvas, 60 x 48 inches </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>We are pleased to announce Seonna Hong&#39;s second solo show with Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery.</p> <p>"Our Endless Numbered Days" is a darker, more introspective step into the world of a girl where ominous black birds, bears and horses loom and languish as harbingers of some kind of doom. These silhouettes, outlines of our actual selves, cause tumult and discomposure in the mind of the protagonist. But it may be that this chaos is the appropriate provocation for change, forward momentum, and even hope.</p> <p>Working on canvas, Hong continues to use a flat painterly style. Large areas of negative space, left raw and unfinished, push up against smaller moments of obsession represented in the details of embroidery. Cut pieces of canvas add to the texture and feeling of these pieces, creating subtle dimension and depth.</p> <p>In a series of smaller untitled paintings, Hong uses more abstract imagery - a shadowy representation of transition and movement.</p> <p>Hong was a recipient of a 2006 Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, and opened her first solo museum show as a part of the "Suburban" series at the Knoxville Museum of Art.</p> <p>We are also pleased to announce that Seonna Hong will show with Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. in Japan in 2008. Founded by Takashi Murakami in 2001, Kaikai Kiki is a multilateral art enterprise. Its goals include the production and promotion of fine art, as well as the management and support of select young artists, and the organization of art-related events and projects. This will mark Kaikai Kiki&#39;s first exhibition with a US based artist in Japan.</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from11-6.<br /> For further information or images please contact the gallery at 212-255-0979 or visit our website at www.oliverkamm.com.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/868 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">March 23 - April 21, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, March 23, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/867"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/7/7182.jpeg" alt="" height="328" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release:</p> <h2>Michael Rodriguez</h2> <p>March 23 - April 21, 2007</p> <p>Opening Reception: Friday, March 23, 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to present a new series of paintings and drawings by Michael Rodriguez, marking his second solo show with the gallery.</p> <p>Rodriguez continues his signature use of repetitive, circular gestures, but seems to have `zoomed out&#39; from the earlier paintings to reveal more sprawling, intricate structures. Subtle geometric color fields divide the backgrounds of the paintings while colorful rayon fibers - pink, light blue, ochre, and purple - rise to the surface and emerge between the clusters of opalescent cells. At times, the bold, oil spill of rayon fibers is haphazard, more like a reckless stain than the calculated pour of earlier paintings. </p> <p>In describing Rodriguez&#39;s paintings and process, Barry Schwabsky writes: "It&#39;s as though a purely Cartesian spatial rationalism - the simple positing of the two axes and their arbitrary meeting at point 0 - had given rise to some far more vitalist sense of lived space, forms bubbling up into rudimentary existence out of some elemental breach in the unity of ether. Here, existence itself takes on a metaphorical image as a sort of vital process." (From "Process and Paradox" Catalog Essay, g-module Gallery, Paris, 2005)</p> <p>Like the paintings, the drawings employ the use of various materials, in this case ink and enamel - subtle and bold, respectively. The series of drawings take on another dimension as enamel is poured on top of the cellular structure, accenting and mimicking the circular forms. The enamel, similar to the final layer of rayon fibers used in the paintings, draws our attention to the multi-layered universe Rodriguez creates in his work.<br /> </p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street, on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11am - 6pm. For further information or images, please contact the gallery at 212-255-0979 or visit our website at www.oliverkamm.com.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/867 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">February 16 - March 17, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, February 16, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/823"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/6/6577.jpeg" alt="" height="332" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><h2>Kamrooz Aram<br /> Night Visions and Revolutionary Dreams</h2> <p>February 16 - March 17, 2007<br /> Opening Reception, Friday February 16, 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to announce Kamrooz Aram&#39;s second solo exhibition at the gallery, Night Visions and Revolutionary Dreams.</p> <p>The exhibition title evokes two themes that Aram has been exploring in recent work. Night Visions refers to military night vision - the grainy, high-contrast, green images of war found in the media; as well as biblical night visions - the hallucinatory dreams often involving some kind of revelation. Revolutionary Dreams is the title for a series of drawings that explore the romanticization of revolutionary ideologies. </p> <p>In the paintings, Aram continues his investigation of warfare and mysticism, violence and the sublime. Aram also explores the idea of nationalism and the way that icons and mythologies are used to romanticize politics and culture. He challenges the viewer with nationalistic symbols such as the hawk, a circle of stars, a flag, as well as religious symbols such as angels and mystical bursts of light, which double as explosions. Combined these images lose their meanings to a carnivalesque narrative where the viewer is left to sort through a hallucination somewhere between destruction and celebration.</p> <p>The drawings in the exhibition come from the series Revolutionary Dreams, which takes its title from a song by Reggae musician Pablo Moses. The Rastafarian singer recollects a dream of a romanticized revolutionary battle. Aram finds the song striking because, "it exemplifies the utter idealization of violence by someone who is not actively engaged with violence." This series includes drawings of mullah&#39;s facing black nationalists in which the afro comically mimics the turban, formally connecting the two while bringing together the two revolutionary ideals. Often fueled by very different understandings of Islamic ideology, both champion the cause of the marginalized and the oppressed. The drawings attempt to mimic the flawless craft of traditional art forms and always come short of perfection, but not without making a spectacle. Likewise, the figures depicted in the drawings often come short of achieving their revolutionary dreams.</p> <p>Kamrooz Aram was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1978 and received his <span class="caps">MFA </span>from Columbia University in 2003. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn. He has had past solo exhibitions at MassMoCA, North Adams, MA; Wilkinson Gallery, London; and Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery, New York. He has been included in various group exhibitions internationally including the Busan Biennale 2006, Greater New York 2005, and Prague Biennale I 2003. </p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street, on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11am - 6pm.</p> <p>For further information or images, please contact the gallery at 212-255-0979 or visit our website at www.oliverkamm.com.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/823 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 12 - February 10, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, January 12, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/760"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/6/6003.jpeg" alt="" height="686" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to announce Joe Ovelman&#39;s second solo show with the gallery. "For Whites Only" is an investigation into race and culture in America. Ovelman confronts racism and questions identity. </p> <p>"For Whites Only" will feature Ovelman&#39;s largest participatory project to date. </p> <p>"Rosa Parks 381" includes 381 Polaroids of the artist, taken and signed by 381 individuals who could self-identify as African-American. The number in the title commemorates the number of days of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and is inspired by the James Baldwin quote, "I&#39;ll be black for as long as you tell me that you are white".</p> <p>"Regi", 2005 is a video in which the paid subject, chosen for his African decent, stands naked and confined to one end of a room for 8 hours, the length of a typical work day. The video was shot in Porto Seguro, Brazil, a historic slave-trading port. </p> <p>Also on view: "7 Gold Lynchings," miniature, bound figures sculpted in wire; <br /> "Twelve Drawings," anecdotes of racism from the artist&#39;s life; and a compilation <span class="caps">CD, </span>"Nigga in the Title," featuring twenty-four songs whose titles include the word nigga. <br /> Ovelman asks, out of 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 12 months a year, when am I white?</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/760 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">November 30, 2006 - January 6, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, November 30, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/759"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/6/6957.jpeg" alt="" height="333" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Noah Fischer: Rhetoric Machine<br /> November 30, 2006 - January 6, 2007</p> <p>Opening Reception: Thursday, November 30, 2006 6 - 8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to announce Noah Fischer&#39;s first solo exhibition at the gallery.</p> <p>"...even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth." <br /> - John F. Kennedy</p> <p>Rhetoric Machine is a two-room kinetic installation that appropriates the language of movies, television, radio, and speechmaking. Presidential speeches and emotionally laced pop songs serve as the soundtrack for a sculptural light show that marches through the last sixty years, what many would call the golden age of American history. American icons such as an eagle, a tank, and a television set react variously to the soundtrack, creating what Sergei Eisenstein called an "intellectual montage" where jarring associations between light and sound lead to new meaning constructions, often charged with emotion.</p> <p>With this work Fischer asserts, "the ancient art of rhetoric has not been lost - it has been transformed. We may associate rhetoric with a politician standing at a podium, delivering a speech with which we either agree or disagree. But behind the podium there are the hissing speakers, the buzzing screens, and the rumbling engines of an expansive Rhetoric Machine. This machine has been built to mold around us a persuasive version of reality, one that we accept before we have the chance to examine it."</p> <p>Fischer received his <span class="caps">MFA </span>from Columbia in 2004.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/759 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">October 20 - November 25, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, October 20, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/758"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/5/5008.jpeg" alt="Jim Richard, Plaid, 2006, Oil on linen, 33 x 45 inches" height="365" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Jim Richard, Plaid, 2006, Oil on linen, 33 &#215; 45 inches</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release:</p> <p>Jim Richard<br /> October 20 - November 25, 2006<br /> Opening Reception: Friday, October 20, 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to announce Jim Richard&#39;s second solo show at the gallery which will include a selection of canvases, gouaches and collages.</p> <p>The day before Katrina hit, Jim Richard raised everything in his New Orleans home-studio five feet above ground, thinking high water levels would be the worst outcome of the hurricane. The van Jim used to evacuate filled quickly with pet carriers and other essentials - the only art item he took was a satchel full of cut-out images for collaging. The images, which he had been collecting, saving, and cutting for almost two years, pointed to a new body of work that, although still taken from the world of d&eacute;cor and domicile, would be a departure from his paintings of art-laden interiors.</p> <p>Jim arrived in Austin and learned the next day that his studio had taken on nine feet of water, destroying almost forty years of artwork and career records, along with the new canvases and works on paper he had completed for his show at Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery scheduled for October 2006 (he and Oliver agreed the show should not be cancelled or postponed). It soon became clear that Jim would have to stay in Austin longer than anticipated, so he started to look for a way to make work. The University of Texas offered him a small studio and designated him as Visiting Faculty. Jim had visualized how his collection of cut-out images would come together, so he found it natural to assemble the first few collages and every day the project gained momentum. During the next four months he worked on the collages and they added up steadily. In fact, their numbers became a problem - Jim found himself unwilling to let this new work out of his sight (a Katrina residual). Parking near his studio was impossible, so Jim took the bus every day, carrying everything of importance in a portfolio and tote bag, which grew heavier and attracted interest from fellow passengers.</p> <p>While in Austin, Jim began shopping for a studio to rent in New Orleans and he found that there were few available spaces and that prices were high in the city. Ultimately he found a space in a strip mall in the suburbs near the airport. His eerie daily drive to the studio took him through large empty neighborhoods into the teeming suburbs, and the return trip reversed the experience. His teaching job was secure at the University of New Orleans, which gave him the designation of Research Professor, allowing ample time to paint.</p> <p>On the task of getting to work under the new conditions, he says: "My old studio had become fine-tuned over the years to suit me in all ways. I was a hoarder of art supplies and had multiples of everything. Furnishing an empty studio with all-new items seemed unnatural and daunting, but the place became downright familiar as new works developed and the show for New York started to take shape. Now it&#39;s done and it has done wonders toward helping me maintain my identity in an environment that is identified now primarily by Katrina." He will demolish and rebuild his studio/home in Gentilly.</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11-6. For further information or images please contact the gallery at 212-255-0979 or visit, www.oliverkamm.com.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/758 <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Selections from the UbuWeb Collection</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">September 7 - October 14, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, September 7, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/649"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/4/4107.jpeg" alt="" height="447" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release:</p> <p>Street Poets &amp; Visionaries: Selections from the UbuWeb Collection<br /> September 7 - October 14, 2006</p> <p>Opening Reception: Thursday, September 7, 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to announce <span class="caps">STREET POETS </span>&amp; <span class="caps">VISIONARIES</span>: <span class="caps">SELECTIONS FROM THE UBUWEB COLLECTION, </span>an exhibition of posters and ephemeral writings from the streets of New York City.</p> <p>In the tradition of Jim Shaw&#39;s "Thrift Shop Paintings," this collection of street posters, mad scribblings, political screeds, religious rants, and paranoid raves expands our notion of the Outsider arts to include the written word.</p> <p>Formally striking, emotionally charged, and bizarre beyond belief, these graphical works dovetail with the historic traditions of concrete poetry and art brut. Seamlessly melding text and image, their obsessive quality evokes Adolf W&ouml;lfli and Henry Darger&#39;s visionary works.</p> <p>Featured in the exhibition will be the work of David Daniels, a 73 year-old Bay Area artist, who has been creating insanely complex visual poems using only Microsoft Word. Works from two of his epic series, "The Gates of Paradise" and "Years" will be featured.</p> <p>Coinciding with the exhibition will be three public events. On Saturday, September 23rd at 2 p.m., author Irwin Chusid will deliver a lecture on Outsider Music called, "Songs in the Key of Z." On Saturday, September 30th, renowned poets and performers Eileen Myles, Edwin Torres, Vijay Seshadri, Kenneth Goldsmith and Shelley Hirsch will stage a reading of Outsider writings. On Saturday, October 7th, a panel, "Outside In" will explore the transmigration of Outsider aesthetics and practices influencing and entering into the mainstream. Panelists include Wayne Koestenbaum, Alissa Quart and David Grubbs. All events are free and open to the public.</p> <p>UbuWeb (ubu.com) is the Internet&#39;s largest resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts, featuring thousands of <span class="caps">MP3</span>s, films, books, scholarly papers, and poems.</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street, on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11-6.</p> <p>For further information or images, please contact the gallery at 212-255-0979 or visit our website at www.oliverkamm.com.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/649 <div class="exhibition-subtitle">HELTER SWELTER</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">June 1 - July 28, 2006</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/540"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3415.jpeg" alt="Bodega/Entrance, View 1" height="753" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Bodega/Entrance, View 1</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release:</p> <p>Justin Lowe<br /> <span class="caps">HELTER SWELTER</span><br /> June 1 - July 28, 2006</p> <p>Opening Reception: June 1, 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to announce Justin Lowe&#39;s New York solo debut exhibition. For this summer long exhibition, Lowe has reconstructed the architecture and environment of the gallery to bring the city indoors. </p> <p>The exhibition consists of three site specific installations which recreate popular metropolitan, summer-time places of refuge, icons of annoyance, and backdrops for those heady moments that occur with more consistency as the city&#39;s temperature rises.</p> <p>The gallery&#39;s entrance is transformed into a bodega-front, with its extreme color overload, blaring imported music and questionable refrigerators - a classic drug front. At this point the gallery becomes a fa&ccedil;ade, and marks the beginning of more moments of disorientation and surprise as things aren&#39;t quite what they seem.</p> <p>A revolving door leads into a temporary sidewalk construction site, with its shoddy, warped wood and posters advertising concerts, festivals and movies that you would only pay to see in order to spend two hours in an air conditioned theatre.</p> <p>Once outside the construction site an 18 Foot Kool Man Ice Cream Truck is revealed, a sweet haven on wheels, and another classic drug front, this time accompanied by a collaborative soundtrack.</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 621 West 27th Street, on the ground floor. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11-6. After July 4th we will be open Monday through Friday from 11-6.</p> <p>For further information or images, please contact the gallery at 212-255-0979.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/540 <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Tom Meacham, Gary Stephan, Cheryl Donegan, Stephanie Campos</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">April 20 - May 20, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, April 20, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/529"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/2/2567.jpeg" alt="TM/GS:CD/SC Invitation Image" height="206" width="288" /></a> <p><p>TM/GS:CD/SC Invitation Image</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>TM/GS: Tom Meacham/Gary Stephan</p> <p>"NO <span class="caps">TRACE ANYWHERE</span> OF <span class="caps">LIFE, </span>you say, pah, no difficulty there, imagination not dead yet, yes, dead, good, imagination dead imagine." - Samuel Beckett</p> <p>"The house, the street, the town, are points to which human energy is directed: they should be ordered, otherwise they counteract the fundamental principles round which they revolve; if they are not ordered, they oppose themselves to us, they thwart us, as the nature all around us thwarts us, though we have striven with it, and with it begin each day a new struggle" - Le Corbusier, 1978</p> <p> When I view Gary&#39;s work, both painting and sculpture, I find myself in a reconstructed world. I am struck with the precision by which chaos is ordered and allowed its freedom simultaneously. The illusionistic space, of the paintings, the fictive space, cannot be pinned down, shifting between vantage point, shifting scale relationships between objects, micro and macro. The sculpture absurdly taunts, " I am a mountain, a satellite tower, an iceberg, made of fiction, of nothing, of the detritus of daily life." <br /> Where have we arrived? The unnamable and the named unnamable? We are allowed to swim in the ripple between language and the two and three dimensional lies, comfortably uncomfortable in the metaphysical stew. <br /> -Tom Meacham</p> <p>CD/SC: Cheryl Donegan/Stephanie Campos</p> <p>"There are so many people here to compete with, that changing your tastes to what other people don&#39;t want, is your only hope of getting anything." - Andy Warhol</p> <p>"We are sending our works on Sunday morning as fourth class luggage." <br /> - Kasimir Malevich excerpted from a letter to Josif Shkolnik, 2 November 1913</p> <p> I first saw a painting by Stephanie Campos 3 years ago in a group show at Bronwyn Keenan&#39;s gallery curated by the artist Katherine Bernhardt. It attracted me with its odd, compelling physical presence and (given the ubiquity of figurative painting) its obstinate imagery: a grid of roughly painted squares in whites and beiges. Painted on a thin Masonite board that warped under the heaving surface of thick paint it seemed to me kind of a garage constructivism.<br /> It is where the dead end reveals a secret passage to pleasure, where something impossible and neglected becomes rewarding, where something at first glance un-ingratiating lodges itself in your memory and won&#39;t let go.<br /> -Cheryl Donnegan</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/529 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">March 17 - April 15, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, March 17, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/489"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3019.jpeg" alt="Self-Portrait" height="340" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Self-Portrait</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Andrew Sexton&#39;s work is comprised entirely of portraits, both complex sculptural pieces and witty and wry drawings. Portraiture has a long history in art, yet Sexton manages to look at portraiture in a new way - incorporating kinetic sculpture, interactive pieces, performance and relics as broad ranging as car doors, tequila and blocks of cheese. In addition -- his works on paper bring together cartoons, narrative storytelling and obsessive detail.</p> <blockquote><p>When I began doing portraits it just started pouring out of me. I realized that I have all kinds of stories, experiences, and emotions tied to my relationships with my family and friends that can be used as sources of imagery, material and inspiration. And if nothing else, I&#39;m happy to use my artistic voice to celebrate the quirks, talents, and eccentricities of all these people. The portraits are a way to direct all my notions about art-making into something tangible</p></blockquote> <blockquote><p>-- Andrew Sexton, February 2006</p></blockquote> <p><br/></p> <p>Andrew Sexton received his <span class="caps">MFA </span>in Sculpture from Yale University in 2005. This is his first solo exhibition in New York.</p> <p>Additionally - on the night of the opening there will be performances to accompany several of the portraits.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/489 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">February 9 - March 11, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, February 9, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/530"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3016.jpeg" alt="" height="402" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>These films are movies made after the destruction of the film itself... films made from the attack and scratch of their own emulsion. In nature we see it all around us...at the same time something is being created, something is being destroyed.</p> <p>Georgia O&#39;Keefe picking up bones and holding them up to the sun - I don&#39;t see death, I see beauty. I see black and white light/shadow. Movies. New York City as nature. Landscape as metaphor - these films were made in the desert. Up to Utah. Promontory. Golden Spike. Lucin - a town that wasn&#39;t, then was, then wasn&#39;t again.</p> <p>These films&#39; beginnings are taped to their ends. "Death can really make you look like a star" ( Andy Warhol ) `Stars Way Out&#39; was a closed down diner outside 29 Palms.</p> <p>To all the guys I&#39;ve loved before...<br /> Amy Granat<br /> 1/2006</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/530 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 12 - February 4, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, January 12, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/531"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3008.jpeg" alt="Entrance: Seonna Hong and Andrew Sexton" height="375" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Entrance: Seonna Hong and Andrew Sexton</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/531 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">November 18 - December 22, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, November 18, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/583"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3006.jpeg" alt="Installation View" height="375" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Installation View</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Jen DeNike: Seasons in the Sun<br /> November 18 - December 22, 2005<br /> Opening Reception: Friday November 18, 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to announce the New York solo debut of Jen DeNike&#39;s exhibition, Seasons in the Sun. This seven channel video installation represents DeNike&#39;s most recent body of work and marks the final exhibition in the gallery&#39;s current location. </p> <p>DeNike uses the 1970&#39;s song "Seasons in the Sun" as a vernacular to tap into the viewer&#39;s subconscious. The song works as a vehicle to trigger the cognitive memory, thus subjecting the viewer to a type of `laboratory experiment&#39;. Each video follows a set of rules and employs the same formal composition, the only variable being each individual performance, making one video slightly longer or shorter than the next. The videos work together to expose the raw quality of the performance and a sense of the subject&#39;s vulnerability, creating a sense of chaos and claustrophobia.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/583 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">October 14 - November 12, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, October 14, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/584"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3015.jpeg" alt="" height="375" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/584 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">September 9 - October 8, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, September 9, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/585"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3035.jpeg" alt="New York, New York, LV" height="378" width="500" /></a> <p><p>New York, New York, LV</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Steven Walls<br /> September 9 - October 8, 2005</p> <p>Opening Reception Friday, September 9, 6 - 8 Pm</p> <p>"My current investigation deals with artifice and the American landscape. The reasons a culture wholeheartedly embraces the artifice and simulation embedded within it are rarely as obvious as the artifice itself. My interest lies in a populations ability to overlook a cellphone tower camouflaged as a palm tree, while simultaneously celebrating the ham-fisted fiction of Hollywood and Las Vegas."</p> <p> -- Steven Walls</p> <p>For Steven Walls second solo show at Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery the artist presents three bodies of work, once again using Baudriallard&#39;s simulacra as a point of departure to investigate both the nature of entertainment and art.</p> <p>Three paintings portray Las Vegas hotels - The Venetian, New York, New York and Paris, <span class="caps">LV. </span>each borrowing culture and appropriating history from their namesakes. Planted in the Nevada desert, an inhospitable climate becomes host to gamblers -- inciting suspension of disbelief.</p> <p>Walls and collaborator John Brinton Hogan combed Southern California photographing the ubiquitous cell phone towers disguised as Palm and Evergreen trees. Posing the question what is more visually disruptive, a cellphone tower or a cellphone tower disguised as a tree?</p> <p>A three channel video installation, realized with Ian Williams portrays an imagined drive through the deserts of Southern California. The desert provides the viewer with a suitable blank screen upon which to project his or her own saga.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/585 <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Curated by Kamrooz Aram and Jessica Lin Cox</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">June 10 - July 29, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, June 10, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/587"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3041.jpeg" alt="Van Hanos, Paula Kane" height="280" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Van Hanos, Paula Kane</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Delicate Demons and Heavenly Delights<br /> Curated by Kamrooz Aram and Jessica Lin Cox</p> <p>June 10 - July 29, 2005<br /> Reception: Friday, June 10, 6 - 8 pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to present Delicate Demons and Heavenly Delights, an exhibition featuring the work of nine artists: Van Hanos, Adam Helms, Min Kim, Paula Kane, Charlene Liu, Tim Lokiec, Ted Mineo, Dane Nester, and William Villalongo.</p> <p>According to the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, there is a cosmic struggle between a positive and negative force in the universe. The positive force, Ahura Mazda, is the all-powerful, good God as seen in other monotheistic religions. The negative force, Ahriman, is an evil spirit of violence and death, somewhat like Satan, but also responsible for natural disasters, disease and other negative phenomena that are not so easily categorized as "evil". One can conveniently recall similar themes in pop epics like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, however, Zoroastrian beliefs are much more sophisticated than the binaries found in these fantastic tales, as well as in today&#39;s "evil-doers" and "axis-of-evil" White House rhetoric. The artists in this exhibition demonstrate an awareness of such a conflict without reducing it to simple dualisms. Each in their own way, the works display fantastic worlds ranging from artificially idealistic landscapes to invented faux-historical military portraits.</p> <p>References to reality are direct, yet manipulated. The realities apparent in these works are purely invented or derived from resources as diverse as video games, heavy metal t-shirts and posters, traditional art, as well as the endless bank of "Google Images". <br /> Most of these artists work slowly; the works are often meticulous and detailed. There is a focus on drawing rather than painting. The intuitive process of drawing lends itself to improvisational image-making, resulting in such fantastic imagery. Many of these artists "discover" the image after they begin the work. The works in the exhibition range from personal to social, flirting with politics, ethics, sex, the Sublime, mythology and the traditional genres of landscape, portraiture and figuration.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/587 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">May 6 - June 4, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, May 6, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/588"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3050.jpeg" alt="Old, Temporary" height="333" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Old, Temporary</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release:</p> <p>Cheryl Donegan: "Old, Temporary"<br /> May 6 - June 4, 2005<br /> Opening Reception: Friday May 6, 2005, 6 - 8pm</p> <p>I love being Cheryl. I am a winner. I am excited about the business. I am fired up. I love talking to people. I always know what to say. I am confident in what I do. I am following God&#39;s principles of success. I am persistent. I am consistent. God is no respecter of persons. People like being around me because I&#39;m always positive. I like people. I always feel great. I enjoy solving challenges. I am a winner. I am persistent. I am the best at what I do. There is no one better. I get the job done. I enjoy showing the plan. All my in-home shopping service customers are diamonds. People want to be my customers. I love to teach others. I am persistent. I am consistent. I do things now. I am a winner. No doubt about it, I am a winner. I help others grow spiritually. I help others grow in the business. I set my goals and I reach my goals. I have 100 diamond customers. I have sponsored 35 distributorships. I have an excellent memory. I always know what to say. I am always positive. I am an achiever. I find solutions. I do things now. I sponsor people. Everyone I show the plan to signs up. I am fired up. I succeed in all I do. I am an achiever. I follow goals. I follow God&#39;s success plan. God is no respecter of persons. I am a winner. I am an achiever. I find solutions. I am a diamond. God is no respecter of persons. I follow God&#39;s principles of success. I enjoy showing the artistry cosmetics. I love to read. I love to read positive books. I graduate from college with honors. I have boundless energy. I love being Cheryl. I am a winner. I am excited about the business. I am fired up. I love talking with people. I always know what to say. I am confident in what I do. I am following God&#39;s principles of success. I am persistent. I am consistent. God is no respecter of persons. People like being around me because I&#39;m always positive and I like people. I always feel great. I enjoy solving challenges. I am a winner. I am persistent. I am the best at what I do. There is no one better. I get the job done. I enjoy showing the plan. All my in-home shopping service customers are diamonds. People want to be my customers. I love to teach others. I am persistent. I am consistent. I do things now. I am a winner. No doubt about it, I am a winner. I help others grow spiritually and I help others grow in the business. I set my goals and I reach my goals. I have 100 diamond customers. I have sponsored 35 distributorships. I have an excellent memory. I always know what to say. I am always positive. I am an achiever. I find solutions. I do things now. I sponsor people. Everyone I show the plan to signs up. I am fired up. I succeed in all I do.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/588 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">April 1 - April 30, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, April 1, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/589"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3068.jpeg" alt="Untitled, 2005 Oil on canvas 48 x 60 inches" height="628" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Untitled, 2005 <br /> Oil on canvas 48 &#215; 60 inches</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Colin McLain</p> <p>April 1 - April 30, 2005<br /> Opening Reception: Friday April 1, 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to present a series of new paintings by Colin McLain. This exhibition will be McLain&#39;s second solo show with Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery. He made his New York solo debut with the gallery in 2003. </p> <p>"Like the psycho killer in the rote horror film, whether slashed, burned, or hacked to bits, painting constantly self-resuscitates. This group of paintings puns the medium&#39;s continual death and resurrection.</p> <p>Veritable Frankensteins, these pieces are stitched together composites of old school skateboard logos and details culled from my earlier work. The skulls and guts of skateboard graphics are fused with neon explorations of human physiognomy.</p> <p>Like any good reanimater, I pick through the best body parts of history to invest these creations with life: The vibrant color of neo-geo, the drippy gesture of ab-ex, the sexy gloss of silkscreen, the beautiful matte of minimalism. From the confines of flatness these pictures twist, squirm, and bulge. They stare back from their entombment in abstraction.</p> <p>Painting is dead, appropriation likewise. The only thing to do is anxiously hold your breath, waiting for them to leap from the lake. Or have lighting strike and throw the switch."</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/589 <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Richard Aldrich, Kamrooz Aram, Amy Granat, Van Hanos</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">February 25 - March 26, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, February 25, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/586"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3069.jpeg" alt="RA/AG : Richard Aldrich, Amy Granat" height="280" width="432" /></a> <p><p>RA/AG : Richard Aldrich, Amy Granat</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>KA/VH : RA/AG<br /> Richard Aldrich, Kamrooz Aram, Amy Granat, Van Hanos</p> <p>February 25 - March 26, 2005<br /> Opening Reception: Friday February 25, 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition in which gallery artists Richard Aldrich and Kamrooz Aram selected an artist, Amy Granat and Van Hanos respectively, with which to colloborate on an installation.</p> <p>KA/VH:<br /> Van Hanos and I met in college and spent a good deal of time getting through college together. I suppose getting through meant trying to make something meaningful while being bombarded with new ideas and at the same time dealing with adulthood as the pieces were introduced to us in bites at harsh yet healthy reality sandwiches. We struggled to make art that was meaningful, relevant and important. We helped and guided each other through the process, but our work had as little in common as we did as individuals, which we later came to realize was quite a bit. Perhaps the work we have chosen for this show has something to do with those reality sandwiches, the realities of our personal histories, the positive and negative forces that have made us who we are and continue to do so. Zoroastrians believe in a cosmic conflict in the universe, a struggle between an all-powerful God, Ahura Mazda and an evil spirit of violence and death, Ahriman. Allen Ginsberg, in a poem called "Psalm <span class="caps">III</span>" in his book "Reality Sandwiches" pleas to God, filled with a socialist idealism to, "illuminate all men," from the crane operator to college students. He ends the poem unromantically, "I feed on your Name like a cockroach on a crumb--this cockroach is holy." This work is about reality sandwiches, idealism, romanticism, Ahura Mazda&#39;s struggle against Ahriman, and a couple of holy cockroaches.</p> <p>-Kamrooz Aram </p> <p>RA/AG:<br /> I first saw Amy Granat&#39;s scratched film projections in a group show at Champion Fine Art, curated by Steven Parrino, and was immediately taken with the simplicity of the film and the emotional urgency of the moving image and sound. The projectors are installed in a way that their physical and spatial existence render them sculptural as they demand a sort of attention that the default TV and a <span class="caps">VCR </span>do not. Also, the film projections have a modularity and mutability in the context of an art exhibition (rather then say a film screening) in that every film becomes site-specific concerning the relationship between the film, the space, the lighting, the volume of the sound and any other artwork in the exhibition. There is also an interestingly incongruous relationship between the small gesture of scratching the minute film frames paired with the larger, immediate and in your face projection that results. Additionally the scratch is made with a physical linearity, from frame to frame, that contrasts with the projection of the film which possesses a time-based linearity (i.e. one film contains one long scratch that runs the length of the film, from top to bottom, projected, however, this translates to a line that floats from the left side to the right and back again). Furthermore, the slow meditative rotation of the reels and the accompanying consistent click click inherent to the projector contrast sharply with the dynamic and sometimes chaotic experience of the film and soundtrack. Beyond all this, and more importantly, the films possess an amazingly poetic quality in the sometimes frenetic, sometimes somber movement of the black and white image and the corresponding hum, pop and screech of the sound (when the film is scratched the actual sound track that exists along the edge of the image area of the film is scratched as well, creating a sound that literally reflects/describes the image). These combinations reference the works of painters such as Franz Kline or Cy Twombly and also the early scratched film work of Len Lye. The sound exists in a sort of noise tradition that comes out of the La Monte Young/Velvet Underground and still exists today.</p> <p>-Richard Aldrich</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/586 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 21 - February 19, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, January 21, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/590"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/3/3076.jpeg" alt="" height="253" width="388" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Don Doe: The Sea is Deep</p> <p>January 21 - February 19, 2005<br /> Opening Reception: Friday January 21, 6 - 8 pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to present a series of new works by New York based artist Don Doe. This exhibition will be Doe&#39;s second solo exhibition with the gallery.</p> <p>"My subject is a fantasy of a sexual identity in the make-believe life of a pirate. The theme came to me as a contradiction while reading bedtime stories to my son. Pirates represent freedom, the power to act out our impulses, and serve as a pervasive icon in our culture. However, the image my son carries of the pirate&#39;s life is empowering. In marrying this ideal with a burlesque humor and Disney-like fantasy, the combination is alternately teasing, provocative, tender, and inviting. </p> <p>Swiping images from Fragonard, fashion, comic strips, history books, pornography and illustration genres these images attempt to create a flawed world where women are dominatrix "Pirate Gals" and men are as ships in a bottle. These phallically potent "Pirate Gals" celebrate pinup representations and wear their sexuality as an identity.</p> <p>I also draw ideas from my youth, where some of my friend&#39;s parents decorated their homes in a faux Mediterranean fisherman, or Mexican adobe style that spoke of adventures they would never have. I thought about the idea that a person could live a fantasy of adventure and conquest while doing everyday household chores. </p> <p>Aware of the influences of Pulp Fiction novels, erotic aura is built up by the stressing of luminous color display. I explore the limits of rendering, and use seductive color to intensify the imagery. Alluding sometimes to runway fashion as role-playing, my characters are treated with psychological complexity while remaining candid. The "Pirate Gal" is a phallic goddess and a rite de passage turning toward a new identity." </p> <p> - Don Doe</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/590 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">December 10, 2004 - January 15, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, December 10, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Michael Rodriguez</p> <p>December 10 - January 15, 2005<br /> Opening Reception Friday, December 10, 6 - 8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to present recent works by New York based artist Michael Rodriguez. </p> <p>In his first solo exhibition with Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery, Rodriguez expands upon his earlier work to create a series of abstract paintings and drawings that explore space, depth and texture through the use of various media. In his own words;</p> <p>"I am compressing together multiple modes of representation, from gestural abstraction to color field to pictorial spatial representation. The works are a distillation of my influences and desires, from my childhood craving for pop psychedelia and kitsch (black velvet and glitter) to the influence of Warhol, Reinhardt and Smithson and lately the figure ground equations of Pollock. The question for me is, What kind of experience does one desire from art? Both the meaning and the process are open ended."</p> <p>Michael Rodriguez received his <span class="caps">MFA </span>from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture at Brooklyn College in 1992. He was awarded a grant for painting from the Pollock-Krasner foundation in 2000 and received a fellowship for painting from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2002.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/591 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">October 22 - December 3, 2004</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, October 22, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/592"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/4/4056.jpeg" alt="" height="349" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Seonna Hong<br /> Animus<br /> October 22 - December 3, 2004<br /> Opening reception Friday, Oct 22, 6-8pm</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is pleased to present the New York solo debut of Seonna Hong. Hong has exhibited extensively in Los Angeles, and won an emmy award this year for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for an episode of the series "My Life as a Teenage Robot." The paintings in "Animus" will form the basis for a future book by Hong.</p> <p>"Continuing to work in the narrative, "Animus" is a collection of images depicting a journey toward emotional resilience. The young girl appears again as the protagonist, while a black dog represents the antagonist. I choose children to be my storytellers because of their innocence and innate honesty.</p> <p>The purity of a child&#39;s character, before it is shaped by social propriety and shaded by self-doubt, inspires me. Although "Animus" illustrates a story of growth, it is not a morality tale. Rather, it is about the response to aggression; initially a reactive one, stemming from fear and discomfort, maturing to a more hopeful and compassionate resolve."</p> <p>--Seonna Hong</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/592 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">April 2 - May 1, 2004</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, April 2, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/650"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/4/4065.jpeg" alt="The Rambles" height="338" width="500" /></a> <p><p>The Rambles</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Named after Madonna&#39;s 2nd <span class="caps">LP,</span> Ovelman shows new photographs, drawings, and a recreation of the Rambles in the back room.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/650 <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">February 20 - March 27, 2004</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, February 20, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/648"><img border="0" src="http://5begallery.com/static/dyn-images/4/4054.jpeg" alt="" height="259" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Kamrooz Aram&#39;s first solo exhibition in New York is comprised of what the artist terms &#39;tree paintings,&#39; derived from the patterns of Persian carpets. In this exhibition, Aram follows on his previous work, drawing from traditions of Islamic art and Western painting to chart an unstable center somewhere between reverence and disturbance regarding the conflicted status of his source materials. The work engages with the manner in which Persian carpet designs display various stages of a spiritual journey toward the ultimate garden of Paradise or Divine Unification, while remaining objects of consumption and a product of specific materials and economies. </p> <p>Aram&#39;s work begins from the details of Persian carpets, photographed by the artist in the New York City carpet district. These patterns are then rendered onto canvases and from thin glazes to brushes thrown at the canvases from a distance, the painting process takes on an improvised and ritualistic matter with roots at once in the traditions of American abstract painting, while at the same time referencing Iranian and Arabic musical traditions in which distinct motifs form patterns and are improvised upon. Through this process, the carpet pattern heeds to a broader vocabulary of images ranging from miniaturesque clouds to military camouflage patterns. The final image is an accumulation of layers implying abstractions that de-center the carpets&#39; intended narratives, losing them within a war-like landscape in which the original carpet patterns struggle with the process of the act of painting.</p> <p>Reflecting this, the paintings are organic landscapes that cover an unstable line between abstraction and mimetic representation, seduction and repulsion, Eastern and Western representations of space, and at once an embrace of and disregard for traditions.</p> <p>For further information or images please contact Oliver Kamm at 212-255-0979 or okamm@mac.com.</p> <p>Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery is located at 504 West 22nd Street, 2nd Floor. We are open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 - 6.</p></div> http://5begallery.com/exhibition/view/648