THE LAB: GALLERY Presents Mickett Stackhouse January 13- February 3, 2012

Posted on 10. Jan, 2012 by danikadruttman in Arts, Hotel, LAB Gallery, the LAB

By Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse
Curated by Creighton Michael
January 13 – February 3 2012

THE LAB: GALLERY is pleased to present Breath of Water, an installation by Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse.

Breath of Water is part of the artist’s on-going exploration into the representation of water both two-dimensionally and three-dimensionally. Their work is framed by the ideas of two Presocratic philosophers: Thales and Heraclitus. Thales discusses the omnipresence of water and it’s shape-shifting ability when he claimed that everything is water. Heraclitus, by asserting that one can not step in the same river twice, argues that identity is deeply rooted in change. Breath of Water looks at winter water as an almost secret environment not unlike the world inside a snow globe.

Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse have been collaborating since 1999. During this time, they have produced large-scale sculpture, painting, and prints. Mickett comes to the collaboration from a background in philosophy, film, radio, poetry, and theater. Stackhouse followed a traditional visual arts path, and his individual work can be found in museum collections around the world including the Museum of Modern Art, The National Gallery of Australia, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Both Mickett and Stackhouse hold Ph.Ds: Mickett in philosophy and Stackhouse has an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, the University of South Florida.

All works of art and performances in THE LAB: GALLERY are shown within the confines of the space, and are intended to be viewed by the audience from the sidewalk.  This event is free and viewable 24/7.

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THE LAB: 2011, A Year in Art (VIDEO)

Posted on 21. Dec, 2011 by danikadruttman in Arts, Hotel, LAB Gallery, the LAB

Thank you to John Birdsong, for summing up another SUPERB year for us here at THE LAB.

Warmest wishes from us on the corner of 47th and Lex,

Matt and Danika

THE LAB
[a roger smith  collaboration]
501 Lexington Ave NYC (map)
212.339.2092
email address
www.thelabgallery.com
www.rogersmithlife.com

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REVIEW: Art critic Jonathan Goodman on The LAB’s Summer 2011 Show ‘Projected Drawings’ by Helen Dennis

Posted on 30. Nov, 2011 by danikadruttman in Arts, Community, Hotel

Helen Dennis at The LAB

Educated both in England and America, Helen Dennis has decided to stay on the States, where she appreciates the openness of the art world she participates in. Part of this freedom has to do with the styles and themes the artist has chosen–Dennis works figuratively, primarily describing architecture and outdoor street life in white on black drawings; she takes numerous snapshot photos of her chosen site, then projecting them onto black paper and painting or drawing the images according to her photographic guide. For the current project at The LAB (on through September 2^nd), Dennis has used the corner gallery space as an ongoing experimental site, rendering the roads—47^th Street and Lexington Avenue—and their buildings, which have been projected from numerous photographic snapshots fitted together. As a result, her stay at the gallery means several things at once: a chance to see someone work on a big picture, the ability to see the work develop over time, and the opportunity to consider the relations between the rendered image and the actual visual cues that inspired it.

Dennis, who is at great pains to be precise and accurate in her vision, has been using markers filled with reflective silver paint, which is applied to black paper put up on the wall; the work’s presence at night is spectacular, animated by a spectral glow that is never diffuse because of the right-angled architectural features she is presenting to her audience. The results are wonderfully visual: the iridescence of the silver results nearly in an image that looks like it is electrically lit! Of course, that isn’t Dennis’s point, which is instead oriented toward a poetic re-presentation of the city, at a site whose coordinates match those of the streets immediate outside it. Dennis, whose activities and friendships are truly international in their implications, shows us just how urban—and urbane—we have become in New York, one of the great art capitals of the world. Although the blocks framing the gallery do not stand out to the casual passerby, it is clear that the artist is using them as a reference to the seen reality of a city street, whose rhythm and building supports both are captured by Dennis’s skillful renderings. And it is a wonderful thing to be able to track imagined realism with the actual objects themselves, however close or loose relations might be between the two.

Two of the four walls consist of glass windows, allowing a casual viewer passing by outside to gauge the two other walls, which Dennis has covered with black paper. She has complete command of perspective, given the sharp angles of the buildings and streets she presents by using the markers. Rows of windows are caught, and their angled parallelograms are filled in, leaving a very bright impression of a façade; other urban details are paid attention too: streetlamps, one-way traffic signs, and, a favorite object of Dennis’s, bicycles. In a way, it would be easy to view Dennis’s journey as an impressionistic attempt to give the city its due, but my feeling is that she is offering more than a map of New York. It has something to do with the ambience of the city, an unspoken presence that is captured by Dennis’s playing close attention to detail—for example, on the second wall, there is a door leading to the hotel space the gallery is part of; Dennis has accommodated its access by drawing carefully across, to the point where the outline of the door is difficult to see. Dennis, a gifted craftsperson, also knows how New Yorkers are often emotional, even triumphalist about the experience of their city. As someone coming from England, she keeps her affection for New York in practical restraint, even as she makes it clear that she too loves the everyday experience of America’s great metropolis.

By Jonathan Goodman

The LAB (for installation + performance art) is a New York based, converted storefront producing fast paced performance art and site-specific installations. Viewable exclusively from the sidewalk and aimed at the furious midtown foot traffic, The LAB’s exhibitions seek to throw a moment of uncertainty into the predictable monotony of the midtown shuffle, forcing an interaction between the high energy, “outrospective” work it produces and the nearly 25,000 daily passersby. The LAB is located on the North East corner of 47th and Lex and is a Roger Smith Collaboration

For more information about The LAB CLICK HERE

The Roger Smith is a hub for social media in #NYC. People. Art. Food. Wine. For 10% off our best available rooms rate: bit.ly/RSrooms

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September in The LAB Gallery: Jongil Ma 9.2.11-9.30.11

Posted on 25. Aug, 2011 by danikadruttman in Art at Roger Smith, Arts, Events, LAB Gallery, the LAB

In his second show at The LAB Gallery, Jongil Ma will be collaborating with Elizabeth Winton to create a forested enclave that will transform The LAB into a real life illustration as if `from a children’s book. The scene will include a troupe of elaborate, fantastical beetles and a wolf preying over them as they prepare for a feast. They will be surrounded by both urban and wild landscapes with flickering buildings, leafless dead trees, paper cutouts and bushes.

Jongil Ma, best known for creating large abstract installations of bound colorful wood strips, and Elizabeth Winton, who has been working with mixed media collage and painting for years, will come together to build a surreal picture of our time’s concerns. Steeped in both humor and a more serious social awareness, the installation will illuminate the unique fears of our current time. The piece will play off innate tensions between the playful and political, the individual and the social, the real and manipulated.

Interview with Jongil Ma and Elizabeth Winton

Studio visit with Jongil Ma

Jongil Ma received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2002. He has had a solo exhibition at The LAB Gallery in 2009 as well as participating in shows at in Jamaica Flux: Workspaces & Windows at Jamaica Center For Arts & Learning in Queens, LMCC Governors Island Project in 2010, as well as public art projects sponsored by the Ministry of Culture & Tourism of Korea in Kwangju and Damyang respectively. His work has been featured in international exhibitions including the 2009 International Incheon Women Artist’s Biennale in Korea and he participated in the Lodz Biennale 2010 in Poland. Jongil recently showed in the AIM Biennial Exhibition in the Bronx Museum in June and ‘Flow. 11 Art and Music at Randall’s Island, Islip Art Museum in May, 2011 and Space K Gallery at Kolon Building in Gwacheon Korea. His awards have included the INC Visual Arts Award from the AHL Foundation and a Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park, The artist of year from Hanyang. Jongil Ma website

Elizabeth Winton is a Brooklyn-based visual artist working primarily in painting, collage and printmaking. She received her BA with a focus in fine art from Connecticut College in 1991. During this period and continuing after graduation she studied independently in New York, working as an artist’s assistant to Elizabeth Murray and Mimi Gross. Elizabeth has had residencies in Johnson, VT and retreats in Provincetown, MA and East Hampton, NY. She has exhibited her work throughout the United States, including shows at Lower East Side Printshop, New York, NY; Kolok Gallery, North Adams, MA, Margaret Bodell Gallery, New York, NY; the Ruby Green Contemporary Art Center in Nashville, TN; and the Guadalupe Cultural Center, San Antonio, TX. Her most recent solo show, curated by Douglas Dunn, was at CUE Art Foundation in 2011. Elizabeth Winton website

The LAB (for installation + performance art) is a New York based, converted storefront turned fishbowl producing 20+ fast paced performance art and installation exhibitions annually. Aimed at the furious midtown foot traffic, The LAB’s programming is designed to confront modern relationships between art and audience and seeks to force an interaction between the high energy, “outrospective” exhibitions it produces and the nearly 25,000 daily passersby. The LAB is located on the North East corner of 47th and Lex and is a Roger Smith Collaboration. The LAB Gallery website

For further information contact Danika Druttman on 212.339.2092 or email rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com

Installation time lapse video

The Roger Smith is a hub for social media in #NYC. People. Art. Food. Wine. For 10% off our best available rooms rate: bit.ly/RSrooms

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Summer Show at The LAB Gallery: Projected Drawings by Helen Dennis July 8-Sep 2, 2011

Posted on 06. Jul, 2011 by danikadruttman in Art at Roger Smith, Arts, Hotel, LAB Gallery, the LAB

The show Projected Drawings, will unite the notions and essence of photography into a single large scale installation, filling the entire space of  The LAB Gallery.

Watch the Teaser

Dennis will be hand drawing a mirrored reflection of the intersection of 47^th and Lexington Avenue, creating a distilled inversion of the urban environment onto the gallery wall.

Helen Dennis’s process typically uses urban architectural photographs projected onto tracing paper to guide the hand drawn sketches of her subjects. In then laying the ink on tracing paper drawings down on top of photographic paper and exposing it to the light, she creates a negative positive line image of her original photograph.

For Projected Drawings the end result will remain the same with a white on black linear distillation of an urban landscape, but the process will be approached from the opposite angle, using light reflective pens on a solid black surface. The lines will no longer be a bi-product as they are in Helen’s typical process, but will become the primary source of the image.

Exhibiting concurrently in the Lobby of The Roger Smith Hotel is also a series of New York-based works by Dennis.

Helen Dennis is originally from the UK and now resides in Brooklyn. Her public art installations include projects with the Downtown Alliance of New York, and NoLongerEmpty. In 2007 Dennis was a Creative Capital Strategic Planning Fellow in the Emerge 9 program at Aljira Center for Contemporary Art. Dennis has participated in various exhibitions worldwide and in the US with the support of the Queens Museum, Queens Council of the Arts, QMAD, Kent County Council, New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and South East Arts UK. She has participated in international art residencies with organizations in Beijing, Cyprus and Iceland. Dennis earned her BA (Honors) at the University for the Creative Arts in the UK and received her MFA degree from Hunter College in 2005. http://helendennis.wordpress.com/

The LAB (for installation + performance art) is a New York based, converted storefront turned fishbowl producing 20+ fast paced performance art and installation exhibitions annually. Aimed at the furious midtown foot traffic, The LAB’s programming is designed to confront modern relationships between art and audience and seeks to force an interaction between the high energy, “outrospective” exhibitions it produces and the nearly 25,000 daily passersby. The LAB is located on the North East corner of 47th and Lex and is a Roger Smith Collaboration. www.thelabgallery.com

The Roger Smith is a hub for social media in #NYC. People. Art. Food. Wine. For 10% off our best available rooms rate: bit.ly/RSrooms

twitter: twitter.com/rshotel
fb: facebook.com/rogersmithhotel
blog: bit.ly/RSlife
web: rogersmith.com/

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New Show at The LAB: Billowing Beauty, by French Artist Anne Ferrer 05.13.11-06.03.11

Posted on 09. May, 2011 by danikadruttman in Art at Roger Smith, Arts, LAB Gallery, the LAB

The LAB (for installation + performance art) is pleased to present Paris based artist Anne Ferrer in her first exhibition in New York City. Rooted in the her experience of foreignness and the absence of an inherent sense of home, Anne’s nomadic, sensorial sculpture is an organically inspired installation that is transportable in a suitcase. Edward Rubin, the curator of Billowing Beauty, describes it as “a lush and sensuous, sensitive and bold, mysteriously animated, Parisian soufflé”. Comprised of five exuberantly colored, giant, hand-sewn modules; the installation, breathes, grows, and evolves in slow motion, to the ‘lighter than air’ music of Los Angeles based composer Carol Worthey. This ‘live ballet’ brings a continuous element of chaos, surprise and joy, like a floating bubble, or a shimmering shrine, to one of the busiest avenues in New York City.

Anne Ferrer who lives and works in Paris comes from a Catalan family and has grown up in small rural town in south France. She has studied in the US, receiving her BFA from Oklahoma University and her MFA from Yale (1988). Ferrer has shown at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2002), the Centre Pompidou (2005), France, the Blue Star, San Antonio Texas (2009), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1996), the Ho Ham Museum in Seoul, la Casa de Americas in Madrid, the French Institute in Rome and Naples, etc, and has recently built a monumental installation for the Dumbo Art Festival in Brooklyn. She has collaborated with Perfumers (International Flavors and Fragrances) as well as pastry chef Jean Paul Hevin, for her multi-sensorial sculptures. Ferrer is currently busy preparing a show for this summer at Chateau d’Avignon, France. www.anneferrer.com

Composer Carol Worthey combines elements of classical, jazz and world music into an expressive, playful mix that soars and breathes with life and color. Inspired by family friend Leonard Bernstein Carol began composing at three and a half and had a piano work performed in Carnegie Hall when she was ten. Mentored by the likes of Darius Milhaud, Vincent Persichetti, Walter Piston and Otto Luening, she won First Prize in Composition at Columbia and expanded her dimensions at a jazz/arranging school. Her award winning music has been heard in England, Italy, France, Germany, China, Japan, Mexico, Canada, and throughout the United States. She lives in Los Angeles where she is writing a book on the art of composing. www.carolworthey.com

Edward Rubin, writer, curator, and artists, lives in New York City. His writings on art, culture, and entertainment, appear regularly in such publications as ArtNexus, ArtUS, D’art International, Flash Art, Hispanic Outlook, NYArts and Sculpture Magazines, as well as online at Artes Magazine, Huma3, and NY Theatre Wire. His photographs and collages have been exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum in Baltimore, Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and at numerous New York City galleries. Currently, his work, part of a group exhibition titled NYC/International Perspectives, has been traveling throughout Germany, Hungary, France and Russia. It opens this June at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art under the title New York – Then and Now. Rubin is on the boards of the International Association of Art Critics, and the American Theatre Critics Association. He is also a member of the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and PEN America Center. erubin5000@aol.com

The LAB (for installation + performance art) is a New York based, converted storefront turned fishbowl producing 20+ fast paced performance art and installation exhibitions annually. Aimed at the furious midtown foot traffic, The LAB’s programming is designed to confront modern relationships between art and audience and seeks to force interactions between high energy, “outrospective” exhibitions and the nearly 25,000 daily passersby. The LAB is located on the North East corner of 47th and Lex and is a Roger Smith Collaboration. http://www.thelabgallery.com

For further information, images or to schedule an interview with the artist, contact Danika Druttman on 212.339.2092 or email rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com

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Chutes and Tears, an Installation by Rachel Hayes and Jiha Moon

Posted on 08. Apr, 2011 by danikadruttman in Art at Roger Smith, Arts, Events, Hotel, LAB Gallery, the LAB

15 APRIL-6 MAY  2011, The LAB (for installation + performance art) is thrilled to present Chutes and Tears, a sculpture and painting installation by Rachel Hayes and Jiha Moon. The artists have been collaborating since 2007 when they met at Art Omi International Artists Residency, and are taking this opportunity at The LAB to collaborate for the first time in New York City.

Jiha’s bold and delicate brushstrokes will be painted and embedded within Rachel’s sculptural fabric and hanji paper panels. The two artists collaboration will be seeking a balance within the graphic structures, sewn grids and gestural mark-makings. This fluid form will create an abstract sculptural landscape; a flowing waterfall of color and fabric pouring down from the gallery ceiling and meandering across the space towards the street.

Rachel Hayes earned a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has had solo exhibitions and projects with BravinLee Programs/NYC Downtown Alliance – New York, Dolphin Gallery – Kansas City, MO, Shaw Center for the Arts – Baton Rouge, LA, Solvent Space – Richmond, VA, LAB Gallery – New York, and Roswell Museum and Art Center – Roswell, NM. Group exhibitions include the Sculpture Center, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapois Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Grand Arts, and Fakespace LA. Awards and Residencies include Sculpture Space Residency, Art Omi International Residency, Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship in Sculpture. Most recently she was awarded the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship in Sculpture, which concluded with a solo show in Cornish, NH. Rachel Hayes currently lives and works in Kansas City, MO. Most recently Hayes was awarded a Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Residency in NYC, which begins in September. www.rachelbhayes.com

Jiha Moon received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa in 2002. Her work has been showcased at premier New York venues including Asia Society and Museum, The Drawing Center, and White Columns. Her work has featured in Vantage Point VII: Turbulent Utopia, Jiha Moon at Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC 2008), and has been showcased in recent exhibitions at Mary Ryan Gallery , Moti Hasson Gallery and Miki Wik Kim Contemporary. She has been selected for international residencies at Art Omi, Acadia Summer Art Program, MacDowell colony and Singapore Tyler Print Institute through the Asia Society. Moon finished her one year residency project with the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philladelphia recently. Her works are on view at the museum’s show New American Voice II. Moon’s work is in the collections at Smithsonian Institute, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Asia Society and Museum, New York; Mint Museum, North Carolina; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Virginia. Jiha Moon currently lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. www.jihamoon.com

The LAB (for installation + performance art) is a New York based, converted storefront turned fishbowl producing 20+ fast paced performance art and installation exhibitions annually. Aimed at the furious midtown foot traffic, The LAB’s programming is designed to confront modern relationships between art and audience and seeks to force an interaction between the high energy, “outrospective” exhibitions it produces and the nearly 25,000 daily passersby. The LAB is located on the North East corner of 47th and Lex and is a Roger Smith Collaboration. www.thelabgallery.com

***

QUICK INFO
Chutes and Tears
An Installation and Painting by Rachel Hayes and Jiha Moon
The LAB (for installation + performance art)
501 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017, 47th and Lexington (map)
Subway: E, 6, V to 53rd and Lexington or 4, 5, 6, 7 to Grand Central
April 15-May 6th 2011
All works of art and performances in The LAB are shown within the confines of the space, and are intended to be viewed by the audience from the sidewalk.
This event is free and viewable 24/7

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The LAB: Introducing our 2011 Schedule

Posted on 11. Mar, 2011 by danikadruttman in Art at Roger Smith, Arts, Hotel, LAB Gallery

The LAB (for installation + performance art) is a New York based, converted storefront turned fishbowl producing 20+ fast paced performance art and installation exhibitions annually. Aimed at the furious midtown foot traffic, The LAB’s programming is designed to confront modern relationships between art and audience and seeks to force an interaction between the high energy, “outrospective” exhibitions it produces and the nearly 25,000 daily passersby. The LAB is located on the North East corner of 47th and Lex and is a Roger Smith Collaboration. www.thelabgallery.com

For all inquiries contact Danika Druttman at 212.339.2092 or email rogersmitharts@rogersmith.com

Mark Dean Veca
Impulse
March 18th-April 8th 2011

From March 14th-18^th, armed with few supplies and no preconceived design, Veca will enter the enclosed gallery, and in full view of the street, will riff spontaneously and directly onto the walls.using nothing more than simple black paint. It is an approach atypical of his oeuvre. Virtually the only wall drawing in his body of work that’s not premeditated, the piece will also be uniquely devoid of color, a pure monochromatic improvisation.The piece will remain on view through April 8th.

Mark Dean Veca attended Otis Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design). Veca is the recipient of New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in painting three times and has done residencies for institutions such as the Bronx Museum, the MacDowell Colony, and Villa Montalvo. Veca has exhibited throughout the United states, Europe, and Japan at institutions such as The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Bronx Muesum of The Arts, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. www.markdeanveca.com/

Rachel Hayes and Jiha Moon
Chutes and Tears
April 15th-May 6th 2011

Sculptor Rachel Hayes and Painter Jiha Moon have been collaborating since 2007 when they met at Art Omi International Artists Residency. There are many dualities within their collaboration; Jiha’s bold and delicate brushstrokes are painted and embedded within Rachel’s sculptural panels sewn out of fabrics and hanji paper. There is balance found in the graphic structures, sewn grids, gestural mark-making and fluid form. Chutes and Tears is a landscape unfolding and revealing itself as one walks past the windows of The LAB Gallery.

Rachel Hayes earned a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has had solo exhibitions and projects with BravinLee Programs/NYC Downtown Alliance – New York, Dolphin Gallery – Kansas City, MO, Shaw Center for the Arts – Baton Rouge, LA, Solvent Space – Richmond, VA, LAB Gallery – New York, and Roswell Museum and Art Center – Roswell, NM. Group exhibitions include the Sculpture Center, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapois Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Grand Arts, and Fakespace LA. Awards and Residencies include Sculpture Space Residency, Art Omi International Residency, Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship in Sculpture. Most recently she was awarded the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship in Sculpture, which concluded with a solo show in Cornish, NH. Rachel Hayes currently lives and works in Kansas City, MO. www.rachelbhayes.com

Jiha Moon received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa in 2002. Her work has been showcased at premier New York venues including Asia Society and Museum, The Drawing Center, and White Columns. Her work has featured in Vantage Point VII: Turbulent Utopia, Jiha Moon at Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC 2008), and has been showcased in recent exhibitions at Mary Ryan Gallery , Moti Hasson Gallery and Miki Wik Kim Contemporary. She has been selected for international residencies at Art Omi, Acadia Summer Art Program, MacDowell colony, Singapore Tyler Print Institute through the Asia Society, Moon’s work is in the collections at Smithsonian Institute, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Asia Society and Museum, New York; Mint Museum, North Carolina; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Virginia. Jiha Moon currently lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. www.jihamoon.com/

Anne Ferrer
Curator: Edward Rubin
Billowing Beauty
May 13th-June 3rd 2011

For her first exhibition in New York City, Paris based artist Anne Ferrer brings her nomadic sensorial sculptures to The LAB. The artist’s feeling of being foreign and never home, anywhere, inspired her to create an organically inspired installation that would be transportable in a suitcase. The result, Billowing Beauty, is a lush and sensuous, sensitive and bold, mysteriously animated, Parisian soufflé. Comprised of five exuberantly colored, giant, hand-sewn modules; the installation, breathes, grows, and evolves in slow motion, to the ‘lighter than air’ music of Los Angeles based composer Carol Worthey. This ‘live ballet’ brings a continuous element of chaos, surprise and joy, like a floating bubble, or a shimmering shrine, to one of the busiest avenues in New York City.

Anne Ferrer who lives and works in Paris comes from a Catalan family and has grown up in small rural town in south France. She has studied in the US, receiving her BFA from Oklahoma University and her MFA from Yale (1988). Ferrer has shown at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2002), the Centre Pompidou (2005), France, the Blue Star, San Antonio Texas (2009), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1996), the Ho Ham Museum in Seoul, la Casa de Americas in Madrid, the French Institute in Rome and Naples, etc, and has recently built a monumental installation for the Dumbo Art Festival in Brooklyn. She has collaborated with Perfumers (International Flavors and Fragrances) as well as pastry chef Jean Paul Hevin, for her multi-sensorial sculptures. www.anneferrer.com

Composer Carol Worthey combines elements of classical, jazz and world music into an expressive, playful mix that soars and breathes with life and color. Inspired by family friend Leonard Bernstein Carol began composing at three and a half and had a piano work performed in Carnegie Hall when she was ten. Mentored by the likes of Darius Milhaud, Vincent Persichetti, Walter Piston and Otto Luening, she won First Prize in Composition at Columbia and expanded her dimensions at a jazz/arranging school. Her award-winning music has been heard in England, Italy, France, Germany, China, Japan, Mexico, Canada, and throughout the United States. She lives in Los Angeles where she is writing a book on the art of composing. www.carolworthey.com

Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya
Uncovering
June 10-24th 2011

Uncovering is a two-part performance-installation that explores human fear, how it affects our humanity, defines personality and constructs society.

During the first two weeks of the show a group of butoh dancers will fill The LAB with 365 umbrellas collected from New Yorker’s during an online campaign titled “Uncovered: surrendering your protection umbrella”. Through a series of performances, the gallery will be transformed from an empty white box to a mass of umbrellas, mirroring a fear-based society of irrational individuals. Throughout the final week of the show the space will once again be transformed by a daily four-hour performance of Garnica. The performer battles between the creation of protective mechanisms and the surrendering of it. The body is then expose and vulnerable. It emerges present in the space as it sheds away its fears.

Over two weeks, Uncovering progresses from the construction of a frantic society to the reconciliation of personal fear as an act of revitalization of humanity.

Ximena Garnica is a Colombian-born interdisciplinary choreographer and artist. She received a B.A. in theater arts with a minor in multimedia studies from the City College of New York. In 2006 she graduated from Akira Kasai’s Tenshikan Dance Institute in Tokyo. Ms. Garnica is active as a curator and producer. She has been awarded with the 2010 Bessie Schonberg Individual Choreographers Residency at the Yard and has been recognized with the prestigious Van Lier Fellowship for young Hispanic directors in New York. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally in Japan, Spain, France, The Netherlands, Mexico and Colombia. She is Co Director of the Brooklyn base art space CAVE and of The New York Butoh Festival. Garnica lives in Brooklyn and leads ongoing training in dance and performance at CAVE. www.ximenagarnica.net

Shige Moriya is a Japanese born video and installation artist. He studied architecture at Kinki University in Osaka. He has been awarded with the 2009 Armani Design Award of the Robert Wilson Watermill Center. In 1996 he co-founded CAVE as a space for the development of experimental and interdisciplinary art in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For ten years he was curator of CAVE gallery program (1996-2006). Much of Moriya’s work is performed live in interdisciplinary environments, in collaboration with musicians, dancers and other visual artists. His work has been presented in galleries and theaters in Japan, Finland, Vietnam, Germany, France, Amsterdam, Spain, Colombia, Mexico and the United States. www.leimay.org

Helen Dennis
Projected Drawings
July 8th-September 2nd 2011

Helen’s work is rooted in the built world of the urban environment. She uses architecture to develop her layered drawings, which are entwined into the photographic process and directly used as negatives to create photographic drawings.

Using the space at The LAB Gallery, Helen will push the concept of her process further. Through manipulation of the space, she will project the outside environment directly into the exhibition space, turning it into a camera obscura. From within, her drawings will unfold to engulf the space and thus, magnify the nuances of urban life. The passage of time and movement on the streets outside will be depicted as Helen’s drawings grow over the duration of the project.

Helen Dennis was born in the UK and now resides in Brooklyn, NY. She studied her BA (Honors) at the University of the Creative Arts in Canterbury and achieved her MFA at Hunter College in 2005. Dennis has been awarded a fellowship from Aljira Center for Contemporary Art as well as a photographic fellowship from The International House, NYC. Dennis has attended art residencies in Beijing, Cyprus and most recently Iceland. She has participated in various exhibitions worldwide and in the US with the support of Queens Council of the Arts, Kent County Council, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, South East Arts UK and the National Lottery Arts Fund for the UK. Dennis’ public art installations have been commissioned by the Downtown Alliance of New York, and NoLongerEmpty. www.helendennis.com

Jongil Ma
Passing by a Bunch of Beetles Preparing Their Gracious Dinner Party
September 9-30th 2011

This installation is a three dimensional translation of a real life vision, like an illustration from a children’s book. Jongil Ma will create a forest -like enclave, inhabited by a troupe of enlarged and fantastical beetles. A wolf will be watching the beetles as they prepare for their large dinner party.

Jongil Ma received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2002. He has participated in public art projects sponsored by the Ministry of Culture & Tourism of Korea in Kwangju and Damyang respectively. He has had a solo exhibition at The LAB Gallery in Manhattan and participated in Jamaica Flux: Workspaces & Windows at Jamaica Center For Arts & Learning in Queens, LMCC Governors Island Project in 2010. His work has been featured in international exhibitions including the 2009 International Incheon Women Artist’s Biennale in Korea and he participated in the Lodz Biennale 2010 in Poland. He will be participating in the AIM Bienial Exhibition in the Bronx Museum in June and a Group show in the Islip Art Museum in May, 2011. His awards have included the INC Visual Arts Award from the AHL Foundation and a Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park. www.majongil.com

Kata Mejía
Untitled
October 7-28th 2011

Kata will be returning for her 5th performance at The LAB this October. Her previous interactions with the LAB were Romper Room, Homage to a Hero, Healing,40 Weeks.

Kata Mejia is a performance artist with a background in painting and dance who lives and works in Philadelphia. She graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a Masters degree in Performance in 2004. She received her BFA from Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Medellin. She has been awarded several grants and scholarships, including the James Nelson Raymond Fellowship in 2004, the Trustee Scholarship from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, a Colombian Government Scholarship for Graduate Studies abroad, and a Graduate Studies Scholarship from Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 2002. Kata Mejía received a 2009 Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. www.katamejia.com

AMBruno
101
November 4-25^th 2011

A London based group of artists will present an installation consisting of 101 individual screen works by 42 artists. Each of the works is silent and of 101 seconds (1′ 41″) duration; they include animation, live action, sequential stills, written text and computer-generated image. Each of these will be screened on one of numerous monitors positioned throughout the gallery to be viewed from the street.

Initiated and overseen by London based artists Sophie Loss and Joanna Hill, The 101NY project began with 23 screen pieces shown at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds in March 2010. The success of this encouraged the group to expand the project by inviting an open submission for new works, with the same time specification as the only constraint.

Working in various disciplines but sharing a common intention to experiment, and to extend their usual practice, a group of artists came together as AMBruno. Initially this exploration focussed on the medium of artists’ books; of which a number are in private and major public collections, including those of the Tate and the Victoria & Albert Museum. www.am-bruno.blogspot.com

Hyong Nam Ahn
Curator: SooJung Hyun
Fantastic Lonely-Heart
December 2nd 2011-January 6th 2012

In “The Dehumanization of Art (1925)” Spanish philosopher, Ortega y Gasset looks at the intrinsic conflicts of modernity. He discusses the rapid spread of civilized life, industrialization and mass production with an emphasis on maintaining an equal balance between the spiritual and societies material realities.

The work of Hyong Nam Ahn confronts similar concerns, as well as ones like those explored in T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Dry Salvages” Through the use of fluorescent tube lighting, Ahn’s work functions as a symbol of the intense, arduous struggle that is the human condition. His work gives us a message of healing, “The River is within us.”

The Dry Salvages (No. 3 of ‘Four Quartets’)

The river is within us, the sea is all about us;
The sea is the land’s edge also, the granite
Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses
Its hints of earlier and other creation:
The starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale’s backbone;
The pools where it offers to our curiosity
The more delicate algae and the sea anemone.
It tosses up our losses, the torn seine,
The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar
And the gear of foreign dead men.
The sea has many voices,
Many gods and many voices.
The salt is on the briar rose,
The fog is in the fir trees.

T.S Eliot
1888-1965

Hyong Nam Ahn has lived and worked in the United States since 1973. He holds an MFA (1980) in Sculpture with Kinetics and a BFA (1978) in Painting & Experimental Art from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has worked in the fields of sculpture, installation, and public art installation.He earned Illinois Project Completion Grant (1982), Wiebolt Artist Contest, Gold Key Award Scholastic National Drawing Contest, First Prize Award (1974). He has shown in many solo and group exhibitions in Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Tweed Museum; MN, Jamaica Cultural Center in New York, and IHN Gallery (Korea). www.hyongnamahn.com

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A Message From The LAB: 2010 Retrospective

Posted on 07. Jan, 2011 by danikadruttman in Art at Roger Smith, Arts, LAB Gallery

Dear Friends,

Thank you all for another exceptional year. From start to finish the artists we showed continued to challenge the space, the neighborhood, and themselves to create bold, engaging work. From Grimanesa Amoros’s “La Incubadora” at the beginning of the year, exploring the subjects of gender and science with her pregnant male sculptures, to Veronica Pena’s performance installation “Without Name”, confronting concepts of absence and death. The year delved into subjects from mathematical poetry to meteorological phenomenons, from movement mapping to the economic collapse.

Also included were shows dealing with abstract representation of musical scores, our never ending search for intimacy, the problem of materialism and the subconscious.

We could not be more pleased or prouder of the work our artists achieved this year.

2011 begins tomorrow, we begin the year with a brief period of renovation and then launch back into a full schedule of cutting edge performance and installation art.

Stay tuned for all that’s to come next.

Happy new year!

Matt and Danika

2010 ARTISTS- GRIMANESA AMOROS KAZ MAZLANKA MORGAN O’HARA GA HAE PARK FRED FOREST DANIEL ROTHBART MAIA MARINELLI KRISTINA SKOVBY YEON JIN KIM NU DANCE THEATER VERONICA PENA

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Without Name Introduction by Matt Semler

Posted on 10. Dec, 2010 by admin in Art at Roger Smith, Arts, Hotel, LAB Gallery

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