While completing his MFA at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Silva has maintained a studio practice that deals largely with the role of technology in the formation of identity and experience. Whether he is mocking contemporary art’s commercial aspects through a lemonade stand auction bidding war, or pushing the limitations of physicality in a 24-hour Formula One simulator session, Silva is as engaged with confrontation as he is observation. For “Zero Down,” he will infiltrate the audience’s experience in an unanticipated way that is rife with parody and criticism of an increasingly pecuniary world. By engrossing the attendees of this one-night opening in a guerrilla fashion, Silva will highlight some of our most intrinsic tendencies, as well as some of our most ridiculous.

The three artists met while studying at Claremont Graduate University (Burns and Erlendson recently completed their MFAs at Claremont, while Breiling continues to pursue her MFA there). All three women have strong individual practices and collaborate from time to time in order to experiment beyond their own individual boundaries as studio and performance artists. For Zero Down they will birth new mythical identities for themselves in the latest iteration of their collaborative performance piece, If you want me you can find me in the garden (2013). Working from gender theorist, Judith Butler’s position regarding the notion of gender performativity – as discussed in her book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) – the artists will perform rituals that are gender bending and confuse the institutional normalizations that are expected of specific labels such as female or male. The performance will re-imagine and continue the cyclical principle of transformation—namely birth and re-birth in the spiritual, bodily and abstract realms. While this birth will be a poetic parody of gender paradigms, it will also be a serious reflection on performing gender through one’s relationship with others.

Allison Wyper uses her performance space as a site for critical investigation, focusing on collaboration, intimacy, and endurance. For Zero Down, Wyper will be performing as a fictitious character, Abby Ghraib, who “has traveled far and wide breaking hearts–and backs–at parties, museums, and theaters.” Assisting Wyper will be performance artist Karen Anzoategui, who will be brokering audience participants to pose with Abby Ghraib in their very own torture photo. Within each micro-performance, both the artist and participant are bound in a nonsensical exposition that is simultaneously humorous (like posing with your favorite character at a theme park) and haunting (placing one in direct dialogue with the tortured detainees of the infamous Abu Ghraib scandal of 2006). The interaction leads one to question their relationship to acts of violence, the news media, and our culture’s pleasure in passively viewing/actively participating in spectacle.

Allison holds an MFA from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, and a BA in Theatre Studies with concentrations in Directing and Visual Art from Emerson College. Her work has been seen in Los Angeles (at LACE, Highways Performance Space, LACMA, Hammer Museum, Fowler Museum, UCLA, Cal State Long Beach, REDCAT, and Craftswoman House), San Francisco (at the Performance Art Institute, Studio 24, Dance Mission, Yerba Buena Gardens, NOHspace, The Garage, and CounterPULSE), Boston (at Boston Center for the Arts, the ICA, in the Boston Cyberarts Festival, and Emerson College) and internationally, in Calgary, Berlin and Perth, Western Australia.

Marking his second performance at 1019 West, Ma will present a video projection of a previously staged work, “The Shit Pipe Explosion @ The China Outpost,” originally performed on February 10, 2012. Epitomizing the artist’s interest in exploring critical thoughts, attitudes, and assumptions about immigration, this work documents Ma’s self-imposed sweatshop housed in the basement of a downtown L.A.  gallery. As a result of backed up sewage water, Ma was told that the ground of his sweatshop would have to be jackhammered up – presenting an realistically plausible obstacle that many immigrant workers would experience in their day to day lives. In response to this, and as an illustration of the demanding environments and expectations endured by migrant workers, Ma divided the space in half and continued operations as the construction took place. Using his interdisciplinary techniques to stage interventions and encounters, Ma uses himself as a vehicle for dialogue about struggle, personal space, karma, rebirth, morality, and freedom – embracing contemporary modes of exchange first supported by his relational predecessors.

Thai-born Ma is currently based in Los Angeles, CA. He has shown as such institutions as the 18th Street Art Center, the Armory Center for the Arts, Pitzer College Lenzner Gallery, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall, and others. He is the recipient of several awards and grants, including the California Community Foundation Irvine Fellowship, and the Feitelson Art Fellowship.

Focusing on the binaries of private vs. public and the accessibility vs. limitations of agency, Christy Roberts is an artist of many guises. Roberts addresses performance within popular culture and adds a critical twist: whether it’s turning an art gallery into a ice skating rink,  or staging a feminist glue-wrestling championship, Roberts embodies all the gusto that we would expect from any female superhero. Yet despite this dramatic staging, Roberts maintains an analytical perspective on such heroics. For Zero Down, she will perform “Upward Mobility” (2013), in which the artist will use climbing equipment to scale the 1019 West building while outfitted in a token “little black dress” and heels. Her performance will be an exploration of her interest in the private and public spheres as well as ideas about the nature of the art market, celebrity, and feminism as exotic commodity.

Performance Still

If you’re a female self-portraitist with a collection of wigs, chances are that you will inevitably be compared to Cindy Sherman. Lenae Day (b. 1986, Berlin), however, takes Sherman’s penchant for dramatized caricature and proliferates it into a full-fledge production. Reinterpreting advertisements, feature stories, and photojournalism from LIFE Magazine during the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Day crafts satirical mise en scénes for which she makes the props, sets, costumes, dances, and storylines. Day is a one-woman show with a proclivity for parody both behind and in front of the camera. For Zero Down, she will perform a durational piece related to a 1940s article about a dancing, bikini-clad woman that takes exhibitionism to a new level in her backyard. In assuming the role of this real-life character, Day will stage her interest in modern voyeurism in her own mock-yard. This performance will exemplify her interest in fabricated and factual histories as she tenaciously seeks her own.

“Day Magazine”

First built in 1950s as a Volkswagon dealership, the formerly commercial venue inspired this curatorial partnership to curate a sensory evaluation of the way in which art is impacted by commerce. As art is increasingly viewed in mercenary, fiscal, and commodified ways, does conceptualism risk eradication? In a departure from 5790projects’ previous group exhibitions, the partnership has dedicated this show exclusively to performance artists in order to address this quandary, providing a platform upon which these issues can literally be played out. Whether it’s Lenae Day‘s uninhibited investigation of exhibitionism, or Christy Roberts‘ evaluation of the private versus public sphere, each artist will stage a presentation of contemporary art’s most fiscally provocative form. Here, the viewer will be challenged to consume ephemeral works in unanticipated ways – be it the social interventions of Allison Wyper, or the environmental crafting of Nuttaphol Ma. Moreover, each artist will exhibit a unique relationship with the art marketplace that addresses the increasing fluidity between disparate practices, such as Chris Silva‘s reconstitution of popular games and physical endurance. As contemporary art finds both obstacle and opportunity through the evolving channels of technology, media, and business, a collaboration between Patricia Burns, Andrea Breiling, and Crystal Erlendson personifies the delicate navigation that must take place in order to sustain diversity in art-making.

Leading up to the exhibition, we will post more in-depth information about each artist and their upcoming performance. In the meantime – mark your calendars for this one-night mega-event on Saturday, June 1, from 6-8pm!

Opening Reception: February 9^th, 7-10p

On view through: February 15, 2013

Beacon Arts Building
808 N. La Brea Ave.
Inglewood, CA  90302
714.783.8310

Gallery hours: Monday – Friday, 11a-6p

5790projects is thrilled to announce its first quarterly pop-up group exhibition for 2013, Storage Wars, featuring five LA-based artists practicing in painting, sculpture, and mixed media arts. Concurrently, more than thirty artist studios in the Beacon Arts Building will be exclusively open for viewing during the opening’s hours.

First built in 1951 as a moving and storage company, the recently renovated Beacon Arts Building inspired this curatorial partnership to host an evaluation of the way in which we store and archive personal histories. How do we define ourselves through retained artifact? The artists featured in Storage Wars grapple with a similar quandaries – whether it’s the modified Hammurabi’s Code of Natalie Labriola (in which emoticons replace hieroglyphics), or the abstracted still life paintings of Etienne Zack, preserving a unique narrative through registry and archive is an intrinsically human ritual. While Emily Silver‘s bittersweet birthday party relics recall a collective fascination with documented milestones, Justin John Greene‘s wry paintings recall our tendency to romanticize our experiences with a cinematic flair. These various behaviors are hinged on our plight for an enduring identity a notion exemplified through Finishing School‘s mixed media, performance, installation, and intervention projects. As technology modifies our relationship with verisimilitude, the relevance of a repository, archive, or even cache for our perennial selves is ever evolving.

For more information on the artists included in this exhibition, please email us at 5790projects@gmail.com. We thank Beacon Arts Building for their generous partnership on this exhibition, and open studios.

Included in 5790projects’ first pop-up show, “Get Lucid,” Rubio recently received his MFA from Claremont Graduate University (CGU). He is the recipient of a Graduate Fellowship from CGU and a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant Nominee.  He has exhibited throughout Southern California at various venues such as the dA Center for Arts (Pomona), Todd Madigan Gallery (CSU Bakersfield), and most recently a solo exhibition at George Lawson Gallery (Los Angeles). The artist lives and works in Bakersfield, CA.

In an effort to support local contemporary artists, 5790projects awards the Moore Family Foundation Grant (MFFG) to one Los Angeles-based artist on an annual basis. The grant recipient will not only be awarded a solo project room show at Mark Moore Gallery (Culver City, CA), but $1,000 in funding. After reviewing numerous submissions and 5790projects nominated  exhibition artists, Rubio’s paintings stood out as a incredible display of innovation and process-oriented practice. We thank all of the talented artist that applied for grant consideration. The 2013 grant window will be open from January – November of next year. For more information about applying for the grant, please visit the MFF Grant page on our website.

Nano Rubio’s Project Room show at Mark Moore Gallery will open on January 12, 2013 from 6-8pm, and remain on view through February 9, 2013.