BE THEREJust Off FocusPresented by Andrew Kreps Gallery September 7, 2006- October 7, 2006Reception: September 7, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pmFia Backström, Anne Collier, Alice Creischer, Jamie Isenstein, Peter Piller, Eileen Quinlan, Stefan Thater, Padraig Timoney, Klaus Weber, Clemens von Wedemeyer
In Fia Backstrom's installation, the artist cut advertisements from the Summer 2006 issue of Artforum magazine and placed them side by side, under glass, on a shelf hung near ceiling-height. In doing so, Backstrom creates an artwork out of the filler that serves as backdrop to the editorial content of the magazine. The advertisements are the financial identity of the magazine (and thereby its lifeline), expected to stand on the sideline to what is understood to be the content. By re-arranging, or re-listing what is already a list, according to form and theme, background and foreground start to shift. The meandering logic used to arrange Backstrom's Artforum ads relates to many of the artists' use of chance, formlessness, and abstraction. Anne Collier's photo of unwound tape from a cassette is an abstraction made from an archaic recording format, while Eileen Quinlan's black and white photos utilize darkroom mishaps to reflect on the medium of photography. In a very different contemplation of photography, Padraig Timoney's Asadins (2006) is a geometric abstraction whose design is taken from the graphic code printed on every roll of film. Peter Piller's Girls Shooting (2000-2006) is a startling arrangement of reproduced photos of girls holding guns. The images were gleaned from the vast press photo archives that Piller sifts through at his newspaper desk job. Jamie Isenstein's Smoking Pipe (2006) is a side table with a pipe placed on it, smoke endlessly drifting from its end. The pipe rests on the table without support as if it has just been set down by a now absent smoker. As in much of Isenstein's work, the human body is modified, invisible, or implied, suggesting loss and illusion. Just Off Focus also includes works by Alice Creischer, Stefan Thater, Klaus Weber, and Clemens von Wedermeyer.
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