160 Columbus Avenue – Featured Artists

FRANCISCA CAPORALI and MARY JEYS
CHRISTY GAST
HADASSA GOLDVICHT
JESSICA MEIN
TRINE NEDREAAS
TRINY PRADA
ANA PRVACKI

FRANCISCA CAPORALI (Brazil) and MARY JEYS (USA)
“Explosion in NY”- 2008
VOS edition of 20

“Explosion in NY” investigate the premise that New York landscape is part of everyone’s imagination; and that this same landscape has been damaged and destroyed in every possible way by Hollywood producers. Caporali and Jeys play with this imaginary city, presenting the landscape in a more documentary format, while showing the destructions and explosions in a very pictorial way.

Francisca Caporali lives between Brooklyn and Brazil. She received an MFA from Hunter College – Integrated Media Arts in NYC and was recently awarded the AAUW International Fellowship and LMCC Swing Space residency in New York. Her videos have been shown in over 50 different festivals and exhibitions, and she received several awards for “July War “(2008), a documentary film that looks at the devastating first-hand effects of the 2006 Israeli military offensive in Lebanon.

Mary Jeys lives and works in Brooklyn and is a multi-media artist and activist. Her work explores destruction and explosions as they relate to popular culture. Recent projects include a radio project exploring the sounds of the stock market crash airing on Free 103.9 and a campaign manager performance for John McClaneof the Die Hard movies. Jeys’ work has been exhibited in New York, New Jersey, Texas and Ireland. She has participated in various residencies, including LMCC’s Swing Space in Manhattan’s financial district.

CHRISTY GAST (USA)
“Mounted Horse Men”- 2008
VOS Edition of 20

A landscape’s overlooked detritus, if closely examined, reveals much about the cultural histories of place and people both in conflict and accord. Christy gasts projects explore the cultural history of landscape through a variety of media. The folklore, music, and vernacular architecture of place informs the narrative structure and logic of my work. Inspired by themes culled from local histories and cultural fringes, she is interested in often-overlooked places where history and identity politics intersect as metaphors on the body or the landscape.

Part sculpture, part accessory, part documentary, Mounted Horse Men is a primitive tool that, once removed from its sheath and inserted into a USB drive, launches a video study of men imposing order on the landscape. Made possible with open-PLAYER software, the order of the clips is reconfigured each time the stick is inserted, revealing new meta-narratives. www.christygast.info

HADASSA GOLDVICHT
“60 seconds ”- 2008
VOS Edition of 20

“60 Seconds” is a video based on religious rituals of grief. This piece refers to the concept of time and our constant attempts (and failure) to hold on to it.

Raised in Jerusalem, she creates time based installations and videos refering to the rituals with which she grew up in the Jewish Orthodox world. Writing is integral to her practice. Each piece begins in the form of a poem or essay. Words and letters walk in and out of the images she creates and function as a substance that precedes language and exists above the representational aspects of language.

Hadassa Goldvicht is the 2008-2009 recipient of The Elizabeth A. Sackler Museum Educational Trust SACI Scholarship. She received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in NY and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2008).
Recent and upcoming exhibitions include: 2009 (September) “Fresh Direct: Jewish Ritual in Art”, The Jewish Museum, NY; Basekamp Gallery, Philadelphia; The Center for Book Arts. 2008- A Minus Suitcase, Jack the Pelican Gallery, NY;Holy Holes, Dumbo Arts Center, New York, NY; The Vector Journal,New York, NY;Guest Smocker: Andrea Zittel’s Smockshop, LA Art Fair, The New Museum.

JESSICA MEIN
“White Shadow”, 2007
“Cegueira”, 2008

In “White Shadow”, the artist explores the materiality of the digital moving image and addresses the technologically produced distance by reinserting the hand into the moving image and the physical relationship of the frozen image, or stills, in relation to the compressed time in a single-channel sequence. “Cegueira” attempts to capture the patina of time and layers of images that form the grittiness and materiality of urban space. Physical properties of digital video, such as interlacing, are used as structures for the horizontality of the blinds and of images in movement.

Jessica Mein (Brazil) received an M.F.A. from Hunter College in 2007. Recent and upcoming exhibitions and video screenings include Jessica Mein, Simon Preston Gallery, New York; Open Video Series No.7, CRG Gallery, New York; New York Group Show, L MD, Paris. Jessica Mein’s work can be found in public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; among others. www.jessicamein.com

TRINE NEDREAAS
“Forget me not” #1, #2, #3 – 2004

The “Forget me not” series shows three individuals performing their specialist act. A sword swallower, a strong man and a glutton. The films comment on our desire for fame and the admiration of others and illustrate to what extremes some are willing to go to achieve this. On another level, the films comment on a desire to leave something behind, to be remembered as somebody after one is dead.

Trine Nedreaas (Norway) often works with unknown but extraordinary individuals with unusual talents that she identifies or has heard about. By convincing people to perform their speciality in very particular settings, Trine compares her creative approach to that of an active director as opposed to a passive documentary-maker. The use of humor to strengthen a sense of unease and lack of fulfillment is another characteristic of Trine’s approach.

Upcoming shows include: Oct 2009: Luxe Gallery ( New York;); Sept 2009 : Vigelands Museet, Oslo; May 2009: Galerie Michael Janssen ; March 2009, Galerie Eva HOber, Paris.

TRINY PRADA (France-Columbia)
“Delicatesse (Delicacy)”- 2008
VOS edition of 20

“Delicatesse” investigates the paradox of nature.
The video combines the image of hands working the the fields and holding flowers as a manifestation that strength and sweetness go together and provide a real vision of beauty as a true mirror of the world.

Thread as a theme runs seamlessly through Triny Prada’s body of work from the recto-verso paintings that the artist has sewn to her videos and performance art culinary interventions. Video provides the spatial and formal conditions to express the movement and sound that are present in her painting.

Triny Prada currently has a solo show at the Museum of Modern art, Cartagena (Columbia). Her video work has been extensively featured in major film festivals most recently in Clermont-Ferrand, Vidéoformes 2008, official selection of the XXIII International Arts Event Video and New Media. www.trinyprada.info

ANA PRVACKI
“Wild Goose Step (and then she said)” – 2007
VOS edition of 50

Wild Goose Step (and then she said) is the fruit of Prvacki’s reflections upon how to go about a show dealing with the artist/ curator relationship. Upon the suggestion of Singapore based curator and friend June Yap to put on “a pretty dress and chase your goose around the garden”, the artist followed these instructions thereby demonstrating trust and a certain level of surrender to the curator. The goose only bit her twice.

Born in Serbia, Ana Prvacki lives and works in Singapore and New York. Her works take the form of varied projects and enterprises that draw on performance, consumer aesthetics and DIY to investigate our increasingly dematerialised economy of services and ideas. In 2003, Prvacki founded Ananatural Production, an innovation and lifestyle consultancy combining conceptual concerns, contemporary issues and various modes of communication to distribute ideas, recipes and instructions for various types of experience. Prvacki’s installations are often participatory, promoting and providing products and services to the audience.www.ananatural.com/