June 28, 2012 – September 30, 2012
Join us for the closing reception of Group Dynamics and Improper Light on Thursday, 13 September 2012, 7-9PM. Visitors will have the opportunity to see the final photographs and videos which have resulted from Osterloh’s residency.??The exhibition has been extended through 30 September 2012.
LACE is proud to present Group Dynamics and Improper Light a new large-scale installation by artist Gina Osterloh, curated by Carol A. Stakenas and Robert Crouch. Osterloh constructs life-size room environments and activates them through still serial performances, paper-maché models, and cardboard cutouts. Group Dynamics and Improper Light will explore the relationships between abstraction and identity, the space between individuals, and what determines “a group” within a social context.
This commission marks a new arc in Osterloh’s career. Group Dynamics and Improper Light is the first time the artist’s process has been made public – her meticulous set construction, how each set is dependent upon her 4×5 large format camera, lighting decisions, and experimentation with materials.
For her residency at LACE, Osterloh moved her entire studio practice into the main gallery in June 2012 and has constructed a life-size room environment from start to finish. The gallery has been open to the public, allowing Osterloh to engage with visitors as part of her process. When a visitor enters the gallery, they will walk into a unique working stage set installed in the gallery. The set explores abstraction and identity through the lens of “improper light”, as each material and light both illuminates and obscures the subjects being photographed.
A monograph accompanying the exhibition will be forthcoming.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Gina Osterloh is an artist and educator based in Los Angeles, California. Currently she is working on a short film essay that addresses issues of perception and identity through the lens of blindness. Osterloh’s photographic works investigate operations of mimicry and perception within the photographic plane. Upcoming exhibitions include Silverlens Gallery, August 2011 and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, January 2012. This September 2011, she has been selected to attend the Woodstock Artist in Residency Program for Photograph in Woodstock, New York. In 2007-2008, Osterloh was a Fulbright Scholar recipient to the Philippines, during which she created a new body of photographs that depicted spaces made from everyday office paper used in Manila. During her Fulbright, Osterloh also researched conceptual artist practices in the Philippines; and at Monte Vista Projects LA, curated the exhibition Minimum Yields Maximum that presented conceptual and political works from the Philippines, Vietnam, and California. Other awards include a Durfee ARC Grant 2010 and a Completion Grant by Silverlens Foundation, Philippines 2008.
She has exhibited widely including Hong Kong, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City. Reviews of her work include Art in America, Hyphen Magazine, Art Asia Pacific, Asian Art News, Art Monthly Australia, Art on Paper, Giant Robot, the LA Times, and Art Forum Online. Osterloh received her BA in Media Studies from DePaul University and a MFA in Studio Art from University of California, Irvine. Gina Osterloh’s work is represented by Silverlens Gallery, Manila and François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles. View more of her work at ginaosterloh.com/work
ABOUT THE CURATORS
Carol A. Stakenas is the Executive Director of LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions). She was the lead curator for Los Angeles Goes Live: Performance Art in Southern California 1970-1983, an exhibition, performance series and publication project as part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative. The performance series featured re-inventions of historical performances and actions staged throughout the city. Most recently, she produced Suzanne Lacy’s public art work Three Weeks in January: End Rape in Los Angeles, a work that engaged activism, education, media, city politics and art with participants from all of these areas.
Since her arrival at LACE in 2005, Stakenas has worked with over 500 artists, more than 60 of which have developed unique and innovative projects that could only be realized through a residency at LACE. Previously, she was the Deputy Director/Curator of Creative Time, the leading public arts presenter based in New York City.
Stakenas has commissioned and produced multidisciplinary public art at remarkable sites such the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, Times Square and Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame. She has worked with a broad range of artists including Asymptote, Haluk Akakçe, Natalie Bookchin, Chris Doyle, Fallen Fruit, Simone Forti, Cai Guo-Qiang, Granular Synthesis, Shu Lea Cheang, Suzanne Lacy, Takashi Murakami, Marjetica Potrç, Toshi Reagon, Erwin Redl, Steve Roden and Lebbeus Woods.
Robert Crouch is the Associate Director/Curator at LACE, where he organized Resonant Forms, an electronic music festival exploring the relationship between sound, installation, and video, and curated exhibitions with artists Karen Lofgren, Sean Sullivan, and Margo Victor. In addition to Gina Osterloh: Group Dynamics and Improper Light, he is currently curating Shells, Bells, Steps and Silences, a new project with Los Angeles artist Steve Roden.
Crouch is also the co-founding Director of VOLUME, a curatorial project that functions as a catalyst for interdisciplinary new media work through exhibitions, performances, events, lectures, and publications, and has worked with a wide range of artists including William Basinski, Nate Boyce, Loren Chasse, Tim Hecker, France Jobin, Kadet Kuhne, Lucky Dragons, Carsten Nicolai, Steve Roden, and Christopher Willits. VOLUME has presented projects at venues including the Hammer Museum, the de Young Museum, the San Francisco Art Institute, and SF Camerawork.
SUPPORT
Group Dynamics and Improper Light is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Los Angeles Country Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and with the generous support of Sarah Conley Odenkirk, York Chang, Linus R. Osterloh, Elinor and Rubin Turner, Young Chung, Francois Ghebaly and Cultivate/Create individual donors.
Gina Osterloh Residency | Group Dynamics and Improper Light @ LACE from LACE on Vimeo.
