Monster Mongers and Retailers of Other Strange Satellites 2

July 9-July 23, 2009

Opening Reception: Thursday July 9, 6-9 PM

compactspace is pleased to present “Monster Mongers and Retailers of Other Strange Satellites 2,” a group show which will showcase works by University of California, Irvine, 2009 MFA graduates in Studio Art—Arielle Bivas, Marcus Civin, Laurel Frank, kate hers, Dong Hoon Jun, Jared Nielsen Jen Smith, Sean Sullivan, Grant Vetter, Maya Weimer, and Morgan Wells. “Monster Mongers and Retailers of Other Strange Satellites 2”, a sequel to the very recent exhibition at LAXART, is a chance to see fresh and exciting artwork in an intimate setting in Downtown Los Angeles. The artists in this exhibition work in the disciplines of photography, video, performance, installation, sculpture, drawing, and painting, and engage with subjects that range from identity, language, and architecture, to the body, institution, and globalization.

Students from unique backgrounds and experiences seek out UCI’s rigorous three-year MFA program, which emphasizes experimental and interdisciplinary approaches to art making within an intellectual and theoretical framework.

Please visit www.mfa2009.org to preview work by the artists exhibiting in ““Monster Mongers and Retailers of Other Strange Satellites2” at compactspace.

Arielle Bivas’ video installations point to the imperfect translation of visceral sensations, recounting embodied memories and exploring intimacy and trauma.

Marcus Civin’s black-and-white photographs, reminiscent of silent film intertitles, express and echo the sympathies of soldiers, the language of officers, and the taunts of thirsty herders and tightfisted farmers. Civin sometimes uses these photographs as props in his new performance, “Bounty”. At compactspace, viewers can spend time with the photographs as an installation of texts.

The sculpture and installation pieces of Laurel Frank rework the use of artifice as it pertains to issues of infectious taste and synthetic pleasures in an economy of excess. Frank’s engagement with rocks as tropes of class position double as a short hand for achieving the American dream, i.e., harnessing the wild frontier, domesticating nature, moving mountains!

kate hers combines Hegel’s notion of Other as it relates to self-perception with Edward Said’s post-colonial Other.  While living in Berlin, hers compels herself to stop speaking any other language besides German, a language she cannot speak fluently. She performs a daily diary in front of her video camera. (This diary was later uploaded to her website.) Das deutschsprachliche Projekt examines aspects of identity, confidence, self-worth, and personality that are bound up in language.

Dong Hoon Jun’s photographs and videos balance humor and melancholy, consider how to be human within institutional architectural gestures, and find brief moments when certain gestures—whether physical or intellectual—can suggest a hidden world of fancy or fantasy.

Jared Nielsen is constructing a postsustainable future from the shit pile of the present.

Jen Smith uses handicraft and domestic materials to re-imagine the pomp and ceremony of wartime banners ? shuffling the letters of “Mission Accomplished” into new texts such as “Cold Icon Piss Shammie” and “Oh Dismal Cosmic Penis.” In video and photographic work, such as “The Wound and the Voice,” Jen explores the erotics of heroic mythologies, as exemplified in photographs from Abu Ghraib.

Through highly detailed and pristinely rendered drawings, Sean Sullivan, directs the gaze to contemporary nature morte. His work describes the impasse between population explosion and limited resources.

The abstract paintings of Grant Vetter consider American abstraction intertwined with a culture of violence. Vetter uses paint to imitate the look and texture of torn flesh, to allude to the tragic conditions of the current “war on terror,” and to the history of oppression related to the American military industrial complex.

Maya Weimer’s videos create new representations of diasporic and postcolonial identities. “New Seoul Cartographies,” a poetic meditation on South Korea’s national re-addressing initiative, maps memory, history, place and displacement.

Morgan Wells is a multidisciplinary artist who uses a never-ending list of materials that create a unique combination of different artistic ideologies. With a distinct sense of humor, his artworks are built around monumental installations that act as both a constructed space, and as a singular object.

compactspace is located at 105 E 6th Street next to Pussy and Pooch

Los Angeles, CA 90014

T. (626) 676-0627 (contact: Glenna Jennings)

www.compactspace.com

compactspace is open Wednesday through Saturday 11am – 6pm.

compactspace Los Angeles and its sister space in Geneva, Switzerland are part of the compactspace collective started 2003 in Berlin. compactspace Los Angeles opened 2004 in LA’s Pico-Union district and has recently re-located to historic downtown LA, where they promote a multi-media arts program that mainly features emerging and mid-career artists. compactspace LA is made possible by the contributions of the University of California, San Diego Visual Arts Department.