Following up on the success of Source– a late spring show at The Halls that showcased the work of seven emerging artists, curators Melissa Staiger and Susan Ross worked with Rossana Martinez–intrepid pioneer of Gowanus and co-founder of Minus Space– to develop a little post exhibition Q & A with the artists– all self-defined abstractionists, all completely different. Check it out here

Hunter Satellite 2D, a group show set to open July 15th. The show features work by recent graduates of CUNY’s Hunter College MFA program in Fine Art.

The work included is no more than two spatial dimensions–whether on paper, canvas, a video screen or merely in concept.

What you’ll see: the guerilla photography of Jess Levey; Allison Evans’ and Noah Landfield’s densely layered oils; and the surreal video ‘advertisements’ by Amy Brener–in addition to Jo Q. Nelson’s site specific conceptual pieces and new work from numerous other, brilliant emerging artists.

For more information, please contact us at info@powerhouseprojects.com

In “Untitled” curator Erin Riley-Lopez brings together two technically superb photographers who capture the solitude, silence and poignance of a man-made world devoid of its human actors.

Two lone pillows stuffed uncomfortably on a motel closet shelf, a golden glow emanating from a Silver Stream trailer– Kunkemueller and Fountain amply demonstrate that beauty does exist in the quotidian, claustrophobic and creepy.

Manhattan’s 1811 Planning Commission gridded over timeworn Manhattan byways in a march toward orderly development. On the eve of the Commission’s work, Karen Bausman posits the question: without the geometry it imposed, what would navigation here be like? What if today’s routes from point to point were vastly more open-ended?

Bausman’s large-scale public installation The Wall Project invites spectators to engage such questions physically. The artist’s preliminary body of cut-paper assemblages and drawings questions the very notion what it is to occupy a space.

Organized by Astrid Persans

In Ross Smith’s show, the artist takes the historic African-American cultural practice of the show’s title and expands it to a global context. By repeating the same few people’s images alongside varying personal data on simulated travel documents from multiple countries, Ross Smith challenges viewers to examine their presuppositions about race, nationality and gender. In the process, he seeks to reveal how globalism has exploded these notions.

Organized by Susan Ross and Melissa Staiger
April 22nd through May 28th, 2010

Source is organized by curators Melissa Staiger and Susan Ross.
The group show features work by seven contemporary abstractionists who share concerns of feminine influence, antecedent and identity.

Abstraction may seems like an outmoded relic to some. Yet Staiger and Ross have brought to bear not only a keen understanding of where it’s been but a positive sense of where it’s going. The result makes abundantly clear the extent to which even relatively recent styles are being freed from their presumed periods.

These seven artists all exhibit roots in the concept or experience of femininity–whether a 19th Century Swedish mystic, Palm Beach fashion designer Lily Pulitzer, the work of Helen Frankenthaler or the Yin-oriented Japanese aesthetics known as wabi-sabi. They each trace their work back to some decisively feminine factor.

The very diversity of influences the artists acknowledge belies the simplification of placing them all under the umbrella of “Abstraction”. The seven—Lori Kirkbride, Glen Cunningham, Mark Dagley, Molly Herman, Rachael Wren, Ben LaRocco and Laura Fayer—while all nominally abstractionists, range in approach from Kirkbride’s preoccupation with color and pattern to LaRocco’s almost mystical appropriation of forms from the psyche.

Known for their ability to infitrate the corridors of power dressed in cheap suits and armed with absurd props the Yes Men have, among other things, singlehandedly caused a $2 billion drop in Dow Chemical’s market value, brandished a golden phallus on behalf of the WTO and, standing in as Exxon reps, passed out “human tallow” candles to energy conference attendees.

Our correspondent talks with Mike Bonanno about where it all started and how he grew such a huge pair.

And now, PowerHouse Presents. . . Mike Bonanno