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Art News:
Lucas Ajemian & Julien Bismuth
DATES:
March 15 - April 21, 2013
Opening Reception:
Friday, March 15
6-8pm
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(A series of two rooms, connected by a smaller intermediary
space. The rooms contain several TV tray tables, some framed texts, a video,
newspapers, and large letters painted on white foamcore sheets. Muffled sounds
emanate from the basement. A houseplant wilts by the side of a radiator.)
L: ...so that the tables themselves are less actual pieces of
furniture, than something between an ideogram and a... a...
J: A pictogram? A performer? A video still? An idea of or for
an object, I mean of or for what an object could or should...
L: Did you bring a camera? I can't seem to find the footage of
the trumpet player. I wonder if the tables adequately convey the quagmire in
which we resolutely entrenched ourselves in order to produce them, or rather,
in order to make them as productive as they were of questions and difficulties
and... I dislike the word "issue," but I am tempted to use it here.
J: (softly burping) Things are only ever overplayed if one
wants them to be. The tables are outlines for conversations, the conversations
are placeholders for an indefinitely dilatable exchange, the video is a trail
or a trailer for a film that we have only ever described as a horizon. As for
the letters, I would qualify them as target practice. You and I are letters in
a sentence that is being rewritten by the undifferentiated hands of pleasantly
distracted participants. I had wanted to scribble something on the wall, but
the only thing that comes to mind is a mildly obscene acronym.
L: The light is falling as we speak, what is there left for us
to do here? Where have we put the tape? The tape measure? The hacksaw?
(The light fades in the space. The door narrows and comes to a
close. Somewhere, far off in the distance, a car starts then comes to a
screeching halt. Their phones ring as they pick up their coats and make their
way to the back of the space.) * * *
INVISIBLE-EXPORTS is
pleased to present Walks & Talks,
the second exhibition at the gallery by the collaborative duo Lucas Ajemian and
Julien Bismuth.
* * *
The collaborative duo
Lucas Ajemian and Julien Bismuth can’t stop talking to each other. Their shared
practice revolves around the concepts and conceits of collaboration and
dialogue. Their first exhibition at the gallery, Les Tristes: INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, explored — through correspondence
original, found, and repurposed — the blurred and frail line of authorship and
the legacy of avant-gardism for an era so enamored of vanguard gesture it
leaves no room for real transgression. In the exhibition presented here,
comprised of performance and conversation directives — letterpresses and
jointly-made objects — Ajemian and Bismuth present a kind of suffused,
semi-secret record of discussions and conversations about art making, conducted
not just with each other but with a series of unwitting participants—friends,
rivals, mentors, protégés, and interlocutors, drawn into dialogue with Ajemian
and Bismuth over the last few months.
Strewn across the gallery
are reconstructed tv trays, conceived and built jointly by Ajemian and Bismuth
not as single-diner contraptions and emblems of American loneliness, but as new
gathering-points for interaction and participation—the classroom desk of the
American living room. The solipsistic iconography of the classic suburban
American object, one that aids and participates in the consumption of both food
and popular culture, fits nicely within an art practice that revels in duality,
double-entendres, and humor. It’s a prop that props up.
Paired with each tv tray
is a letterpress, identifying a performative or intellectual action; one that
defined the discussion between Ajemian, Bismuth, and one of their new
collaborators, and which extends the promise of collaboration to the viewer,
too.
The final component of Walks & Talks, is a self-imposed
video retrospective, in which Ajemian and Bismuth crash and smash documentation
from their Les Tristes performances,
the conclusive tribute to a practice dedicated to the exchange of ideas.
Lucas Ajemian (b. 1975) holds an MFA from University of Illinois at Chicago. He has had solo exhibitions at LTD, Los Angeles; Galerie Parisa Kind, Frankfurt; Kirkhoff, Copenhagen; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. His work has been reviewed in Artforum, The New York Times, and Flash Art.
Julien Bismuth (b. 1972) holds an MA from Goldsmith’s College, London and is a PhD candidate in literature at Princeton University. He has had solo exhibitions at Emanuel Layr, Vienna; Simone Subal Gallery, New York; the Box, Los Angeles; GAK Kunstverein, Bremen, Germany; and Galerie Georges-Phillipe & Nathalie Vallois, Paris. His work has been reviewed in the New Yorker, The New York Times, and Flash Art.
Lucas Ajemian and Julien Bismuth have collaborated on a series of projects since 2005. They have exhibited together at Galerie Parisa Kind, Frankfurt (2006), the Orange County Museum, Newport Beach, CA (2008), Foxy Productions, New York (2008), and the ICA Philadelphia (2011). This will be their second collaboration at INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, New York.
* * *
INVISIBLE-EXPORTS is located in the Lower East Side, at 14A
Orchard
Street, just north of Canal. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11-6pm, and by appointment. For more information, call 212 226 5447 or email:
info@invisible-exports.com
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