Whitehot Magazine

Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery Opening



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Chris Beas, Aaron Garber-Maikovska, Luis Gispert, Allyson Spellacy and Eric Wesley: Milieu
30 June - 11 August 2007
Opening reception: Saturday, June 30th 6-8pm

Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery is pleased to present Milieu a group exhibition organized by Martha Otero featuring Chris Beas, Aaron Garber -Maikovska, Luis Gispert, Allyson Spellacy, and Eric Wesley. Milieu opens June 30th with a reception for the artists from 6-8 pm and will close on August 11th, 2007.

Milieu (m-l-yOO'): Social or cultural environment in which something occurs or develops.


CHRIS BEASThis is the One and Pitch Invasions, is an installation consisting of a dissected football ground, a painting, a bronze sculpture, a video (The Stone Roses live at Blackpool) and three sculptures on pedestals. For Beas, the football ground or stadium represents the ultimate point of convergence. It is the stage for all aspects of human behavior: beauty, skill, passion, assiduousness, deception, aggression and violence.  It is the theater of dreams and nightmares.

AARON GARBER-MAIKOVSKA’S Giant oakland hacky sack authentic movement toy paul simon in a small room butter middle filling is composed of a huge deflated hacky sack (12 ft.) with a butter aroma emanating from within and a movement performance video playing on a moniter inside. The overall effect is a space that appeals to the senses, an openness to chance and improvisation where the viewer is entangled in a multi-sensory experience–like being inside a work of art. At the center of the work is the idea that the space is closed on the outside and open on the inside.


LUIS GISPERT’S sculpture Pony Show consists of an African tribal limousine with a flat screen TV playing random images backed by the Miami based hip-hop group Jam Pony Express with speaker boxes propping up the entire contraption. It continues with his practice of “turning urban culture into iconography with a critical edge” and creating an entity that results when multiple populations clash. African ritual influenced by American bling, American urban music influenced by African rhythms.


Allyson Spellacy will create the title wall, Milieu, on the entrance to the exhibition space. She will freehand the text using the “Milieu” font as large as possible, in opposing, highly saturated colors, leaving the materials used to realize the piece - tape, paint cans, lights, etc. This act allows the exhibition itself to become not just the conceptual impetus for the artwork, but also the actual material for the installation blurring the lines between curatorial practices, installation i.e. prep work, and art production.


ERIC WESLEY produced an edition of three French fry bracelets and a line of t-shirts through his company Frit (French for fried, but pronounced like free, freed or freet). Frit is the idea to become a real jewelry company with monetary profits going to the cause of stopping gold and diamond slave labor in Africa...”no joke”. According to Wesley, “Frit refers to the current situation with jewelry, slavery, fashion. American consumerist culture vs. the Third world politics.”

 
lizabeth oliveria gallery
2712 s. la cienega blvd.
los angeles, ca 90034
(t) +1. 310.837.1073

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