Lauren Carbone: Workin' it Out. May 19, 2008.

Jillian Baba, a traveling gallery revered by NY's hip and ava-g, selects Brooklyn for its celebratory, 100th exhibition featuring a local artist. Video candids of gallery goers reveal the true spirit of the event: Art for the spectator's ego. The art turns into a centerpiece for 8 viewers vying for camera time to discuss everything from the gallery's notorious founder, Jillian Baba, to the uber personal. Conflict arises when Jillian's arrival becomes the hot topic of camera conversation. Soon a debate emerges regarding the reason for her tardiness, revealing far too much about the personal motivations of these camera-crazed viewers. Will Jillian show or have the over zealous 8 been stood up?

Lauren Carbone, Facemask After a Breakup, 2008. Installation view.

Facemask after a Breakup

Editing Public Pain: A Formula for Determining the Number of Photographs allowed for Public Display by a Facemasker after a Breakup


Start with longest amount of time Facemasker has ever been in a relationship

EX: 730 days, 104 weeks, 24 months, 2 yrs.

Next determine most pragmatic unit for measuring a Heterosexual-love relationship - The week! (Remember to insert explanation of why a week is the most pragmatic unit for measuring a heterosexual-love relationship, as apposed to a day, month or year)

Establish first numbered unit using most pragmatic unit (wk) for measuring a heterosexual-love relationship and subtract from total number of days in 2 year period to get the new total of days in a two-year period

Ex: 1. 7 days/1 wk = 730 days - 7 days/1week = 723 days

Increase previous numbered unit (Ex: 1. 7 days/1wk) to create next numbered unit by 7 days/ 1 week

Ex: 2. 14 days/2 weeks

Subtract another 7 days/ 1 week from the new total of days in a two-year period

Ex: 2. 14 days/2 weeks = 723 days -7 days = 709 days

Repeat until total number of units in two-year period is 0


Reaching 0: Establishing Tiers

When increasing previous numbered unit by 7 day/ 1 week becomes greater than the new total of days in a two-year period

Ex: 13. 91 days/13 wks/ 3 months & 1wk) = 93 days.

The next numbered unit cannot be increases by 7 days/ 1 week because the new total of days will equal 98 days, which is greater than the last new total of days, 93.

When this occurs, begin with 1 week and add 1 day. Increase week by 1 day and subtract from the new total of days in a two-year period. Repeat.

All numbered units falling above the point when increasing previous numbered unit by 7 days/ 1 week becomes greater than the new total of days in a two-year period constitute Tier 1.

All numbered units falling bellow this point constitute Tier 2.


When increasing previous numbered unit by 1 day is greater then 2 weeks

EX: 20. 15 days (2wk & 1day) = 15

Since the most pragmatic unit for measuring a Heterosexual-love relationship is 7 days / 1 week, begin with 6 days and subtract from the new total number of days.

Repeat, decreasing the previous numbed unit by 1 and subtract from the new total of days in a two-year period.

All numbered units falling bellow the point when increasing previous numbered units by 1 day is greater then 2 weeks constitute Tier 3.

Applying the Formula:

Application A. (Note: Color coding applies to Application B.)


730 days/ 104 weeks/ 24 months/ 2 yrs.

Numbered Units New Total Number of Days
1. 7 days (1 wk) = 723 days
2. 14 days (2 wk) = 709
3. 21 days (3wks) = 688
4. 28 days (4wk – 1 month) = 660
5. 35 days (5 wk – 1 month & 1wk) = 625
6. 42 days (6wk – 1 month & 2wk) = 583
7. 49 days (7wk – 1 month & 3wk) = 534
8. 56 days (8wk – 2 month) = 478
9. 63 days (9wk – 2 month & 1 wk) = 415
10. 70 days (10 wk – 2 month & 2 wk) = 345
11. 77 days (11wk – 2 month & 3wk) = 268
12. 84 days (12wk – 3 month) = 184
13. 91 days (13wk – 3 month & 1wk) = 93
________________________________________Tier 1______
14. 8 days (1wk & 1day) = 85
15. 9 days (1wk & 2days) = 76
16. 10 days (1wk & 3days) = 66
17. 11days (1wk & 4days) = 55
18. 12 days (1wk & 5days) = 43
19. 13 days (1wk & 6 days) = 30
20. 15 days (2wk & 1day) = 15
_________________________________________Tier 2_____
21. 6 days = 9
22. 5 days = 4
23. 4 days = 0
_________________________________________Tier 3____





Combining Numbered Units in Two Year Period to find the Number of Units that will equate the number of photographs for Facemask After a Breakup:

Finding combination of numbered units, physically faithful and combination of numbered units, psychologically faithful, will leave the Non-Combinable numbered units.
The Non- combinable numbered units are equal to the Actual Total Number of Days heterosexual-love relationship should have occurred and Jersey Number of Facemasker's ex.

The total of Numbered Units from each Combination of Numbered Units and Non-Combinable Numbered Units is the number of photographs for Facemask After a Breakup.


Directions:

1) Define and use the Total number of days Facemasker was physically faithful in heterosexual-love relationship. (Insert definition of faithful)

(Ex: Facemasker reports being physically faithful for 1 year = 365 days/ 52 wks/ 12 months).

Next, starting with bottom numbered unit of Tier 1 and moving upward, add numbered units to equate total number of days, weeks, months, years Facemasker was physically faithful in heterosexual-love relationship

(Ex: 1) Combine 13, 12, 11, 10, 5 & 14= 365 days/ 52 wks/ 12 months/ 1 year

When numbered units from Tier 1 can no longer be plugged in to equate total number of days Facemasker was physically faithful in heterosexual-love relationship, start with bottom numbered unit of Tier 2, moving upward. When numbered units from Tier 2 can no longer be plugged in to equate total number of days Facemasker was physically faithful in heterosexual-love relationship, start with bottom numbered unit of Tier 3, moving upward.

2) Find total days facemasker was psychologically faithful in Hetero-love relationship by applying the same formula as above, however, dividing the total number of weeks facemasker was physically faithful in heterosexual-love relationship in half.

(Ex: 1) Combine 13, 12, 11, 10, 5 & 14= 365 days/ 52 wks/ 12 months/ 1 year

To find next numbered unit, take 365 days divided by 2 = 182 days/ 26wks/ 6 months/ .5 year

(EX: 2) Combine 9, 8, 7 & 2 = 182 days/ 26 wks/ 6 months/ .5 year

Do this until the number of days Facemasker was psychologically faithful in heterosexual-love relationship no longer equals a whole day.

(EX: 5) Combine 20, 19 & 2 = 23 days/ .3.25 wks/ .75 months/ .0625 year
23 days divided by 2 = 11.5……STOP

The remaining days from numbered units in two-year period will equate the actual total number of days heterosexual-love relationship should have occurred, as well as the jersey number of facemasker's ex.


Applying the Formula:

Application B (Refer to Application A color-coding via Application B)

Actual number of units Facemasker was faithful in Hetero-love relationship = 52wks; 365 days:

Numbered Units
1) Combine 13, 12, 11, 10, 5 & 14= 365 days/ 52 wks/ 12 months/ 1 year
____________365 days/ 52 wks/ 12 months/ 1 year physically faithful.

2) Combine 9, 8, 7 & 2 = 182 days/ 26 wks/ 6 months/ .5 year
3) Combine 6, 4 & 3 = 91 days/ 13 wks/ 3 months/ .25 year
4) Combine 1, 20, 19, & 17= 46 days/ 6.5 wks/ 1.5 months/ .125 year
5) Combine 20, 19 & 2 = 23 days/ .3.25 wks/ .75 months/ .0625 year
____________346 days/ 49 wks/ 11 months/ 0.947316606 year psychologically faithful

Remaining days from numbered units in two-year period:

6) 10 days
7) 9 days
8) 6 days
9) 5 days
10) 4 days
___________34 days/ 4.85714286 wks/ 1.11706698 months/ 0.093088915 year


Actual Total Number of Days Heterosexual-Love Relationship should have Occurred and Jersey Number of Facemasker's Ex:

34 = 34 days/ 4.85714286 wks/ 1.11706698 months/ 0.093088915 year

Total Number of Photographs allowed for Public Display by Facemasker after a Breakup to Express Pain through Separation = Total Number of Numbered Units in Application B:

10

Lauren Carbone is from Southern California. She has been a competitive figure skater, a Sorority sister, an Art teacher, an NFL cheerleader, a wood shop technician, and an assistant to the director of Trade at the New York Mercantile Exchange. Lauren earned her M.F.A. in Sculpture and New Media at Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia, and also studied at the Rome campus. She has a B.A. in Art Studio from the University of California, Davis.

Lauren will be in a group show at the Collision Machine in Brooklyn on April 26th. Recent solo exhibitions include Jillian Baba, Jillian Baba Gallery in Brooklyn, NY and Success, The Barber Shop Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. She currently lives at Envirolution headquarters on the Lower East Side and dreams of one day designing and producing her own lingerie line from recycled clothing.

The Laundromat is grateful to Alex Gamboa, of Envirolution for their support of this exhibition. To find out more about Envirolution's efforts to promote environmental sustainability visit: www.envirolution.org

Jonathan Allmaier & Maria Walker: March 15, 2008 at The Laundromat

Jonathan Allmaier & Maria Walker

View from gallery entrance.

Maria Walker

 First Things First. Acrylic on canvas, 2008.

Jonathan Allmaier

I Did Not Parade the "Colors". Oil on canvas, 2007.

Jonathan Allmaier & Maria Walker

Installation view

Jonathan Allmaier

You Can Try to Have a Nice House, But What Can You Do? Oil on canvas, 2007. 

Maria Walker

Untitled. Acrylic on canvas, 2008.

Jonathan Allmaier & Maria Walker

Installation view

Jonathan Allmaier

You Know There Are Two Distances in Your Distance. Oil on canvas, 2007.

Maria Walker

Untitled. Acrylic on canvas, 2008.

Jonathan Allmaier & Maria Walker

Installation view.

Jonathan Allmaier

AMERICAN: Address the Need For a Culture By Starting the Painting Earlier. Oil on canvas, 2008.

Jonathan Allmaier & Maria Walker

Installation view.

Maria Walker

Untitled. Acrylic on canvas, 2007.

Jonathan Allmaier

One Way is the Amazon River (Dangerous) Behind a Grate, the Other is the Pacific Ocean. Oil on canvas, 2007.

Maria Walker

Untitled. Acrylic on canvas, 2008.

Maria Walker

Sleepwalker. Acrylic on canvas, 2008.

Maria Walker

X. Acrylic on canvas, 2007.

Johnathan Allmaier

Banquet of the Starved. Oil on linen, 2008.

Jonathan  Allmaier

It's Time to Look Past Compositional Style as a Model of History. Oil on canvas, 2008.

Jonathan Allmaier

Be Specific About the Gap Between What and What in the Mind. Oil on canvas, 2008.

Maria Walker

Untitled. Acrylic on canvas, 2007.

Maria Walker

Slo Mo. Acrylic on canvas, 2007.

Jonathan Allmaier & Maria Walker

Installation view.

Jonathan  Allmaier & Maria Walker

Installation view.

Jonathan Allmaier

Vincent, You Stay Away From My Daughter. Oil on canvas, 2008.

Jonathan Allmaier

Round Plus Square (What is the Source of Ritual, What is the Nature of Community). Oil on canvas, 2008.

Maria Walker

Untitled. Acrylic on canvas, 2008.

Jonathan Allmaier

A Man Providing For The Family. Oil on linen, 2007.

At the reception for the artists, March 15, 2008.

Kevin A. Curran interviews Maria Walker and Jonathan Allmaier:

 
KAC: Maria, you did not title many of your pieces, what's up with that? What do you think is the function of the title? What happens when there is no title? I think I am harping on the title issue because that was one of the big contrasts I noticed as I entered the info on the blog. It is interesting to me how much Jon has going on with his titles and you seem reluctant to put words to your work. Can language introduce an artwork? Do you think it is better for the audience to bring their own words to your work? Like: Stretched, Poked, Stained, Drips, Dots, Raw canvas, etc.

MW: I am not reluctant to title my paintings. I am just very careful in deciding on what the title for a painting is, and deciding on a title often takes time for me. Some titles are very clear, and I know what they will be even before the painting is made. Some paintings I know may have a title, but I need to work and wait at figuring out what that title is. And then some paintings just do not have titles.

When I title a painting, I’m looking for a title that engages, but doesn’t impede the experience of looking. I think of the titles like puzzles, and I’m working on solving the right balance between the title and the painting, in which the painting is brought forward as clearly and luminously as possible. There’s a dance and resonance between the two. The titles usually come from the process (rules, logic, order, and surprises in the work), personal associations, or source material. They may come from the experience of what it was like to make the piece.

Titles are tricky, though, and a bad title can shut down a painting. I would rather leave a painting untitled and let it come forward as its own, clear self, than muffle it up with a rushed, bad title. There were some very recent paintings in this show for which I simply still don’t know what the titles are. When I decide to leave a painting untitled, it’s because I feel like it comes forward most clearly without any words in conjunction with it. For these paintings I feel like I can’t think of a title that wouldn’t start to shut down the painting in some way.


KAC: Your pieces point out their structure and their process. So the language I come up with looking at your work is about these actions that distort the canvas and its skeleton. It is physical work.

MW: The making of the paintings works as a series of rules that combine with intuition, creating a puzzle-like process full of risk, instinct, distance, parameters, and analysis. The paintings are not all process, though. The process is a way to get to/ access something a kind of thinking I could not arrive at otherwise. When I paint, I am pushing to arrive at a different kind of relationship to myself and to the painting; this is a point where each opens up in new, unexpected ways.

KAC: How do you select color? How do colors relate to one another and to the canvas? What is color doing in your paintings?

MW: I work from a similar balance between rules/parameters and intuition when thinking about color. With color, I am interested in both how I can mentally work my way through a painting by subjectively making choices about color, and also what happens when I displace where the choices about color are coming from (for example, by setting up some kind of rule system). I find that color works best when it is essentially part of the painting just like any other element of the work—the canvas, the stretcher, the physical substance of the paint. The same goes for the stretchers. I want the paintings to work as singular objects, with each separate element combining to create something at which point the stretcher on its own or the color on its own isn’t more interesting on removable that the whole, singular thing.

KAC: What is boring about a regular stretcher? How do you go about crafting your stretchers?

MW: I have nothing against a traditional rectangular stretcher, and actually the subtleties of the nuances of a “regular stretcher” are profound. I began painting on these “shaped” kinds of stretchers because their change of structure helped me start painting more freely. Their very physical nature, combined with the kind of rule-based method I had started working with allow me to enter a painting more clearly, and access the kind of displaced thinking I addressed earlier.

When building the stretchers, I focus on thinking about what kind of surface and structure I want to work with. What kind of surface do I want to touch? What kind of questions about materials and painting do I have right now, and what kind of structure/frame/stretcher will best help me explore that? I get very involved in building the stretchers. I have been using scraps from old stretchers, leftover pieces of wood from the saw, etc, etc. This wood has been important to me, since it creates a limitation in and of itself to work with. How the stretchers change and develop often leads one to the next, and I’ll make several at one time. Other times, the idea for the stretcher comes with lots of thinking about a particular painting.

KAC: How do you and Jon decide how to arrange your work together in the same space?

MW: Jon, Amy, and I decided how to hang our work by thinking about what would make the best show. We considered each piece and what it needed, and went from there.

KAC: Jon, how do the titles of your work relate to the image?
JA: There is not generally much of an image, or that’s not how I think of the paintings.
KAC: What do you think is the function of the title? Does the title add something to the image?
JA: The title doesn’t add anything per se, as far as I know, either to the painting or to its image. The title exists parallel to the painting – it is the result of a parallel process to the process of making a painting. Like having a show, the title is an important part of the life of the painting, but it is not made of the same stuff as the painting. Still, not unimportant.
KAC: Can language introduce an artwork?
JA: In the case of painting, I don’t think so. Language and painting are such fundamentally different things, language being so necessarily abstract. Painting can’t be abstract in the same way. It has to have particular physical properties. You could talk about images in terms of language, but not paintings. The one way that painting can be abstract is in the really traditional sense – in the regularity and predictability of the more or less flat thing on the wall. But that is a different type of abstraction that what you get in language. It’s not as purely abstract, but enough to develop a history and a community. Maybe better for developing those things, in some ways, because it’s not as purely abstract.


KAC: How does scale function in your paintings? I mean the scale of the canvas but also that of the color forms and fields and the marks in the image.
JA: I had been doing small paintings for a while because, when you think of a small painting, the space of a small painting is a mental space. The idea of a small painting is a mental idea. That was the kind of idea I was interested in at that point. But the physical properties of the small stretchers I built, and the paint I used, and the fact that the canvas itself stayed pretty present on the small size, meant that the scale of the canvas, forms, and paint was a pretty physical scale. It goes to show that the body is not reducible to gesture, but shapes our thoughts too.
I’m doing big paintings now, trying to think about color very directly, in a very mental or imaginative way, and apply that large physical space to the mind, having learned something from the smaller paintings.
KAC: How do you select color?
JA: In terms of scale. It’s interesting to really try to make color the primary thing, to make the color generate the scale and the drawing. The main things in terms of selection, or a way of starting, are the size and shape of the canvas, and the color. I’m interested in painting where the color is indistinguishable from the scale and the drawing.
KAC: How do colors relate to one another and to the canvas? What is color doing in your paintings?
JA: Not for me to say.
KAC: How do you and Maria decide how to arrange your work together in the same space?
JA: My approach is to pick the painting I want to hang, and then see where that painting ought to go.
KAC: What is boring about using manufactured paint?
JA: Nothing is categorically boring about it. I prefer making my own paint because that way I know what the paint is, in terms of the pigment it comes from and the way that pigment took the oil to become paint. There will always be some kind of mystery waiting for you about your pigment, even if you made it yourself by grinding up tree-bark or bugs, or used dirt. But making the paint makes the mystery a less arbitrary mystery, because the process of making it has to do with how you are going to use it.
KAC: What qualities are you trying to produce in the paints that you craft?
JA: You can’t try to produce any qualities, just try to make the best paint you can (I define that as using as little oil as possible). The pigment is not up to you, it’s a physical object. Of course, my paint would be different from yours, but only because painting is not that purely abstract.
KAC: What is the significance of intimacy with your raw materials?
JA: See above.
KAC: Why do you reveal the stretcher below the surface by letting it become part of the image?
JA: This is mostly because I like thin stretchers. When I make my own stretcher, the most straightforward way to make a good thin stretcher is to leave off the lip. But fancier stretchers will also show themselves sometimes if they are thin. I like a thin stretcher because it is all you need to stretch a canvas, and because it affects the scale of the canvas (and then the paint) in relation to the stretcher, and to the wall. This is a type of scale that tends to keep the painting unified as (necessarily) that particular thing. You could say that canvas itself is thin, and so is paint, and so a stretcher that stays closer to that level of thickness creates a complexity of scale.

Many thanks to Maria and Jon, and to Amy Lincoln for an excellent show.

Kevin A. Curran

March 2008.

Upcoming Exhibition March 15th 2008: Maria Walker and Jonathan Allmaier

The Laundromat will feature paintings by Maria Walker and Jonathan Allmaier on March 15, 2008. Each artist explores and expands upon at least one aspect of the craft of painting. 

Walker builds complex stretchers that involve irregular pieces of wood poking out against the canvas. The canvas forms a topography of peaks and valleys which the artist reacts and responds to with acrylic paint in varied hues both bright and subtle. The stretcher dictates the flow of water and acrylic paint across the surface to create the image.

Allmaier also works in the abstract mien, though his painterly inquiry involves color and the substance of paint itself. Allmaier mixes many of his own paints from dry pigments. The result is intense, saturated hues of red, pink, green, yellow, and blue which Allmaier contrasts against one another in abstract shapes. The paintings allow us to see pigment as a physical object, each color distinct in texture and behavior, some cracking, others separating, an experiment unfolding before our eyes.

Allmaier has shown his work in Philadelphia, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Berlin; Providence, RI; and Lincoln, United Kingdom. Walker has exhibited in Philadelphia, Berlin, and Providence, RI. Both artists graduated from Brown University and earned MFAs in painting at Tyler School of Art. They live and work together in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, where they frequently discuss one another's paintings. 

Jonathan Allmaier "Round Plus Square (What is the Source of Ritual/ What is the Nature of Community)" 2008.

Maria Walker "Untitled" 2008.

This will be the second exhibition to be presented by the Laundromat. The gallery will be open by appointment March 15th, with a reception from 6-9 pm.

For additional images of Maria Walker's art work:

http://mariawalker.wordpress.com

Inaugural Exhibition at the Laundromat: Christopher Deo & Sarah McDougald Kohn

The Laundromat is pleased to announce a one-day exhibition of new work by Brooklyn-based artists Christopher Deo and Sarah McDougald Kohn. Although these two artists each studied painting, their individual practices have strayed from the two-dimensional image into sculpture and installation.

Christopher Deo 

Two Untitled Paintings. Oil on drafting film, 2008.

Christopher Deo 

Untitled Wall Piece. Ink on matte board, 2008.

detail

Sarah McDougald Kohn 

Untitled (Hang Tight). Acrylic paint, ink, wood, clay, nails and cotton jersey, 2008.

detail

detail

Sarah McDougald Kohn

Valentine. Wood, clay, acrylic, ink and cotton jersey, 2008.

detail

detail

detail

Sarah McDougald Kohn

Everything Has a Name (Floor Piece) II. Wood, clay, acrylic medium, paint and screws. 2008.

detail

Sarah McDougald Kohn, Kevin Curran, and Christopher Deo.

This show happened in my space in Bushwick last weekend. I decided to invite Sarah and Chris to do a show together because I know they both studied painting, and I noticed that they are also both really into materials and process. The other reason is that they don't know each other. I wanted them to meet each other, and I wanted her people to meet his people.


I have known Sarah for a few years. I met her in school and so the lines were drawn, she was in Painting and I was in Sculpture. Her work has blurred the sculptural and the pictorial for the entire time I've known her and much of the conversation that happened around her work was with people who make two- dimensional images. Does this make a difference?

Sarah says:

"I believe the way in which something is made plays a vital role in what it ends up being. Although sculptural in nature, my work is primarily about drawing. I use constructed objects, often made from recognizable materials, as marks, gestures, and lines in wall based compositions that have a frontal vantage point."


Chris Deo moved to NYC from Minneapolis last Summer and we work together for an art service in the city. Everyone I work with is also an artist, which makes for good conversation as we all studied various things in various places; different axes to grind. I visited Chris's studio and was struck by the care with which he crafted the panels he painted on and how he used unexpected materials in their construction. But when I looked at the abstract ink blot image on the panel I wasn't sure which was more important, the panel or the image?

Chris says:

" I like the suggestion that we can distinguish between feeling and memory...that somehow a thing, a representation can become the residue of another, first. Current and recent projects have resulted in a developing polarity of materiality and imagery. The point that mediates and distinguishes the two as being opposed is the manipulation and use of expectation, specifically the expectation of an established hierarchy. Through suggestive layers of imagery and a seductive use of materiality, our resulting expectations and interpretations are challenged. Through this use, and specifically a manipulation of the various armatures upon which imagery is hung, these images and their potential for concrete resolve become mutable. It is precisely this characteristic that serves as both a catalyst for and the content of this work. These images are also the result of a cognitive investment in the notion of tedium that is driven both by and to sub-conscious and intuited layers of mark, imagery, and evaluation. These layers, often being of personal/idiosyncratic nature, in conjunction with the overt abundance of time invested, are intended to pre-establish a mode of belief or validation in viewing. It is through this guise of validity that I hope to further question the notion of meaning; this is not an attempt to abolish meaning, but rather an attempt to unravel the boundaries of critique. I see this as being very closely linked to ideas/ideals of presentation and materiality."


Many thanks to Sarah and Chris for their careful and thoughtful installation, and to Amy Lincoln for editing the exhibition materials and photographing the show.

Kevin A. Curran