Post-Apocalyptic Variety Show, Camp CARPA @ Joshua Tree, CA

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In the Spring of 2013 I asked three other artists to help put together a show of video, performance, cocktail tips, and joy. They contributed work and I served as the evening’s host. The host I play is a tattooed, sometimes sober version of Bob Hope for artists. CARPA allowed me to take an art gallery road show and reimagine it for a war torn, post zombie future, with real big problems and limited resources. Problems like how does one design a Karaoke machine that does not use electricity? (The answer is with salvage Ikea Kid’s furniture). American has faced many apocalypses like Katrina, AIDS, the economic downturn. America exports culture regardless of the crisis at hand. I wondered if this tradition would continue after the fall. I asked Theo Knox and Jordon Long separately to join me in imagining work for this future.

IMG_6892Long used a cement power counterweight spread on plywood to stand in for his own weight. He brought members of the conference to hold this weight as long as they could. They strained to keep the heavy powder up because underneath it Long and a group of volunteers had build a village of hollow plaster squares. Long coached his participants the craft of working through the physical strain. A skill he perfected in overcoming injuries sustained while working at a small zoo. People shared the weight for 8 hours before the last person bearing the cement, stood up and let the chain go. This crushed the plaster village and signaled the start of the show.

Theo Knox imagines connecting deeply with nature as a tool for healing. He brings the crowd through a nonlinear funnel of dream stories. He holds them and moves them around with him in this story. Blindfolded in the darkness Knox provided a post-apocalyptic Blockbuster for CARPA.

There were not just hit stories but also hit songs in our low-tech variety show. Members of the audience joined our cast to sing, “My Body’s Zombie for You.” A song written by Ryan Gosling that conveys the joy of loving someone so much that you actually want to eat them. – Steven Frost

It was amazing for my practice. I’ve been wanting to try a different type of performance for a while but haven’t felt comfortable in the places I’ve been showing. Carpa created an environment that allowed me to experiment and take my work into a space it hasn’t been before. My piece needed participants and Carpa was full of a diverse group of people to test out my work on. Because of this i’ll be continuing to explore what I began at Carpa and hopefully bring a whole new conversation to my work.  -Jordan Long

Under the premise a zombie apocalypse had finally happened, I wanted to know how we would entertain ourselves after we brought our own species to the edge of extinction? It occurred to me it would probably be doing what we have since our start:  tell stories and sing songs in front of an evening fire.  Essentially this act should be entertaining, maybe ridiculous, but also transmit some shard of knowledge, a history, information about the landscape, a belief system, or the human experience.

I decided to tell a story and sing a song about the place we were living during the Camp CARPA residency, the desert.  The story came from a dream I had a few weeks previous and the song was a prayer of salvation.

The structure and location of Camp CARPA provided the opportunity to explore my question with a captive audience. With our feet in the dirt of the Mojave beside a real campfire burning under the stars, these elements believable in our narrative, it was enough to tip the senses giving my mind permission to pretend I was in an imagined, desolate future.   -Theo Knox

Otherwise, @ Beige Memphis, Memphis TN, 3.22-5.1.13

otherwise,

beginning March 22 at Beige

Artists / choreographers / dancers / writers / and others from across the country were invited to submit scripts for performance by Memphis locals.  The scripts take a variety of forms – lists of instructions / screenplays / drawings / poems – and the performances will be just as diverse – public / private / elaborate / impromptu / impossible / obvious.

Any script can be performed by any person who wants to perform.  The results will be documented and compiled in an archive of Memphis’ first performance festival.  Scripts will premier at the opening reception, along with the first performances:

March 22 / 173 St Agnes Place / 6:00 – 9:00 pm

Artists include Jonathan Robert Payne / Sarah Jones and Christalena Hughmanick / Sayward Schoonmaker / Colby Keller / Justin Jorgensen / Daviel Shy / Matthew Morris / Katya Grokhovsky / Anthony Romero / Alan and Michael Fleming / Steve Frost / Tyler Murphy / Wolfie Rawk Mackensen /Jesse Harrod / Matthew Schlagbaum / R. E. H. Gordon / Sean Fader / Jillian Soto / Hannah Verrill / Trevor Martin / Lara Oppenheimer / Ariel Yelen / Oliverio Rodriguez / Marissa Perel / and more

Concrete Abstract @ Heiner Contemporary, Washington DC, 3.1-4.20

Concrete Abstract
Seth Adelsberger, Lisa Dillin, Jeremy Flick, Steven Frost, Sue Johnson, Becca Kallem, Patrick McDonough, Danielle Mysliwiec and Matthew Smith
March 1 – April 20, 2013
Opening Reception: Friday, March 1, 2013, 6-8pm

Heiner Contemporary is pleased to announce Concrete Abstract, a group exhibition curated by Matthew Smith that explores the confluence of abstraction with the everyday, featuring work by Seth Adelsberger, Lisa Dillin, Jeremy Flick, Steven Frost, Sue Johnson, Becca Kallem, Patrick McDonough, Danielle Mysliwiec, and Matthew Smith. The works in the show cultivate a non-representational visual language that emerges from familiar ready-made objects, whether these objects are found or alluded to compositionally. Their formal and functional properties provide the contextual framework for works that are ultimately understood visually via their entanglement with abstraction, even as they remain securely tethered to the real, concrete world.

Concrete Abstract will be on view at Heiner Contemporary March 1 – April 20, 2013. The gallery will host an opening reception on Friday, March 1, from 6-8pm. Heiner Contemporary is located at 1675 Wisconsin Avenue, NW. For more information email info@heinercontemporary.com or visit www.heinercontemporary.com.

FLEETING @ Indi Go Gallery, Champaign, IL 2.1-2.11

Fleeting is an exhibition of 14 artists whose work addresses the theme of impermanence, opening February 1, 2013 from 7-9 PM at Indi Go Gallerylocated at 9 East University Avenue in Champaign, IL. Fleeting will be on display thru February 11 by appointment or during Indi Go’s open hours

In Fleeting, curated by Christina McClelland, 14 artists based throughout the United States and abroad explore the idea of impermanence through a diverse array of media, artistic practices, and methods of working. The works displayed take the form of site-specific installation, performance, painting, photography, video, sculpture, and participatory work. Particularly examining impermanence in the context of nature and biological phenomena, as well as through non-traditional and non-archival materials, Fleeting addresses the temporary and ephemeral nature of art and its subjects.

Featuring: 
Liene Bosque
Firat Erdim
Steven Frost
Kate Hampel & James Pepper Kelly
Joel Parsons
Nicole Pietrantoni
Patrick Reed
Matthew Schlagbaum
Nicole Seisler
Olivia Valentine
Urbana Land Arts
Allison Wade
Erin Washington
Sarah Beth Woods

Don’t Quit @ The Cultural Center, Chicago, IL 11.29

Happy Collaborationists presents a new workout by Jake Myers

Cinematic screenings almost always require sedentary audiovisual consumption by the viewer. Instead of passively staying seated, Myers invites viewers to actively respond to the physical cues on screen.

Featuring video contributions by:

EverythingIsTerrible (Commodore Gilgamesh)
Ben Russell
Prince Rama
E Aaron Ross
Jesse Avina
Jake Myers
Lara Unnerstall
Alyssa Lee Wilmot & George Alley
Stephanie Burke & Jeriah Hildwine
Meredith & Anna
Steven Frost
Theodore Darst & Anja Jamrozik
James Green
Aaron Orsini & Adam Rux
Mark Sansone
Alfredo Salazar-Caro
Chris Smith
Kiam Marcelo Junio
Aaron Strauss
& Dechon Jones

This will take place from 5:30- 6:30 at Preston-Bradley Hall in the Chicago Cultural Center on Thursday November 29th, 2012.

RSVP

Press: Queer Art’s Not Just About Gender – A Chicago Survery in Hyperallergic

"In a centrally located part of the gallery, younger emerging artist Steven Frost shows The Balcony (2012), an ornamented paddle attached to two other indiscernible leather objects that merge to form a balcony that surely wouldn’t hold more than an anorexic cat. Frost pulls the leather notion full circle, using paddles as fetish-objects-cum-ornamentation and thus decontextualizing them from leather culture, elevating them to a level of frivolous, dazzling, and utterly useless camp. It’s one of the pieces in this show that could have crossed over into Orendorff’s more object-and-craft-focused presentation."

 

Review: Newcity Art

"...the more morose, corporeal work (which I personally prefer) with the implied optimism of clean design, graphic sexuality (pun implied), and exuberant color in pieces such as Kate Hampel’s glittery wall-and floor-text piece “Wish List,” Jamie Steele’s untitled dripping pink spray-paint blasts into sundry corners, Steven Frost’s pair of polychromatic assemblages entitled “Balcony,” and Elijah Burgher’s “Enclosure” for undisclosed ritual action, a standing frame with four hanging vividly-painted canvas walls..."

The Great Refusal: Taking on New Queer Aesthetics, Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL 9.14 – 11.10

The Great Refusal: Taking on New Queer Aesthetics
Sullivan Galleries
Through November 10
Reception: Friday, September 14, 4:30–7:00 p.m.

The Great Refusal: Taking on New Queer Aesthetics interrogates and explores the concept of queerness in this cultural moment. Through themes of Restraint and Indulgence, Progressive Rituals, Bad Values, and Misuse and Dislocation, this exhibition considers the term “queer ” as it intersects with race, class, sexuality, and gender. The show suggests conceptualizations of what Queer Aesthetics could be. Curated by SAIC faculty Oliverio Rodriguez along with current SAIC undergraduates and alumni, The Great Refusal showcases recognized artists as well as newly emerging practitioners. A series of performances, film screenings, and panel discussions will be held in conjunction with the show at the Sullivan Galleries, as well as at various cultural organizations throughout the city.

(image The Balcony, 2012 by Steven Frost)

 

Group Show: Octagon Gallery, Chicago, IL 5.24 – 6.29

SUPER CHALLENGE EXCITEMENT ZONE

Challenge 1: Traverse obscure digital landscapes in Theodore Darst’s psychedelic videogame. 
Challenge 2: Get a grip on Sarah and Joseph Belknap’s “Frack Mountain” Challenge 3: Push the limits of Steven Frost’s harness sculptures 
Challenge 4: Dance/Jiggle inside Claire Ashley’s inflatable Disco Balls
Challenge 5: Crawl through Jason Smith’s spandex tunnel to reach the finish line

Complete all five challenges in this obstacle course and win a glorious prize!

Featuring Sonic Sets by: DJ Jacques Jaumes && DJ Under Stalin

The Octagon Gallery 120 N Green St. Unit 3b Chicago, IL 60607 7:00 – 10:00p

SUPER CHALLENGE EXCITEMENT ZONE

Challenge 1: Traverse obscure digital landscapes in Theodore Darst’s psychedelic videogame. Challenge 2: Get a grip on Sarah and Joseph Belknap’s “Frack Mountain” Challenge 3: Push the limits of Steven Frost’s harness sculptures Challenge 4: Dance/Jiggle inside Claire Ashley’s inflatable Disco Balls Challenge 5: Crawl through Jason Smith’s spandex tunnel to reach the finish line

Complete all five challenges in this obstacle course and win a glorious prize!

Featuring Sonic Sets by: DJ Jacques Jaumes & DJ Under Stalin

The Octagon Gallery 120 N Green St. Unit 3b Chicago, IL 60607 7:00 – 10:00p

Robert Bills Contemporary, Chicago, IL 12.3 – 01.21

Robert Bills Contemporary is pleased to announce the opening of its group show Joint Disassembly

Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday December 3rd from 5-8 pm.

Joint Disassembly features the work of Steven Frost and David F. Hartwell. The works in this show explore the interesting and complex relationships between personal narratives, identifications, representations, allegiances, and how they relate to the broader public sphere and the creation of image culture in our society. Both artists draw attention to how the process of picking and choosing, assembling and disassembling is not merely the purview of art practice but an integral part of the way that individuals shape their lives. Playful and coy, the objects they produce demonstrate the extent to which individuals can control what is and is not revealed to others

To read more about the show please visit our website: robertbillscontemporary.com or our Tumblr: robertbillscontemporary.tumblr.com

Robert Bills Contemporary was named one of the top ten hottest galleries at Next 2010 by The Chicago Tribune. The gallery is located in Chicago’s West Loop at 222 North Desplaines Street at Lake on the lower level.  For general inquiries please contact the Gallery Director, Hannah Klemm at hannah@robertbillscontemporary.com, or call 312.234.9091.

To unsubscribe from this list respond to hannah@robertbillscontemporary.com

Group Show – Platform Gallery, Seattle, WA 12.1-12.17

One more kiss then we’re history

Cobi Moules, Kelli Connell, Molly Landreth, Steve Locke, Steven Frost

December 1 to 17, 2011

Opening, First Thursday, December 1, 6 to 8PM

This exhibition brings together the work of several artists who deal with gender identity, persona, and sexual orientation as conceptual frameworks for their art-making. Each of the artists approach the subject from different mediums, intensities, and points of view.

Steven Frost is fascinated by the spectacle and the often extreme masculinity exhibited in professional wrestling, particularly as played out in Mexican Lucha Libre culture. His fiber-based objects hint at the tension between masculinity and queerness through the use of everyday materials combined in visually surprising ways. In this exhibition, his painted, sewn, and transformed hand towels “address the perceived wrongness of my love of sweat, tears, and cum. They merge somewhere between: a cum rag crumbled under the bed; the athlete wiping himself during a bout; a towel used by Vegas-era Elvis then sold on eBay. This wrong-love translates into my assertion that fringe, sequins, gold, metal studs and floral motifs are not cheap or tasteless, but have a value given to them by their audience.” The titles of the works are drawn from various writings by Jean Genet. “Genet’s penchant for rough trade and lack of shame in expressing this “wrongness” moves through a lot of my work. In particular a quote from the Miracle of the Rose, ‘…beauty is the projection of ugliness and by developing certain monstrosities we obtain the purest ornaments.’”

Platform Gallery

114 Third Avenue South

Seattle, WA 98104

206-323-2808

www.platformgallery.com

Hours: Wednesday to Friday 11AM to 5:30PM, Saturday, 11AM to 5:00PM

Member: Seattle Art Dealers Association

Solo Show – Pleasant Plains Workshop, D.C. 10.7-11.12


Human Mansprings 
A Solo Project by Steven Frost
October 7 – November 12, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, October 7, 6-9pm

We are thrilled to have Steven Frost as our next gallery artist. Frost is a a formerly DC-based artist who lived on Georgia Avenue and worked at the Corcoran College of Art + Design during his time here. Frost left DC in 2009 to pursue his MFA in Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Steve is currently living and working in Chicago, and showing at a variety of galleries and alternative spaces across the country.

RELATED:
Pictures from the Opening
Washington Post Gallery Pick of the Week

Group Show – The Box Factory, San Francisco, CA 10.1-11.7

  Men’s Work

Curated by Jeremy Sanders

The Box Factory – 865 Florida Street, San Francisco, CA

Nov 6, 3pm – Panel Discussion with artists & Tina Takemoto

Each artist in Men’s Work renders their particular experience of maleness through domestic forms, thereby subverting viewers gendered expectations of the objects and materials therein. Delineations of work and home are blurred and broken; questioning exactly what is Men’s Work?

Bren Ahearn
Victor De La Rosa
Cirilo Domine
Steven Frost
Kris Grey
Luke Haynes
Sam Lopes
John Paradiso
Jeremy Chase Sanders
Erik Scollon

Group Show – Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, VT 9.23-11.27

Manhood: Masculinity, Male Identity and Culture

September 23 – November 27, 2011
The exhibition examines the gap between cultural expectations of masculinity and the identities chosen by men. Touching on themes of readiness, ability, confusion, frustration, freedom and responsibility, the thirteen artists in the show explore this landscape in the present.

 

ManhoodSFrost 
Steven Frost Marquess of Queensberry 2010    

Artists:

Jesse Burke, Providence, RI; Steven Frost, Chicago, IL; Jason Hanasik, San Francisco,CA and Norfolk, VA; Keith Hoyt, New Paltz, NY; Zihan Loo, Chicago, IL and Singapore; Darrel Morris, Heidrick, KY; Polly Motley, Stowe, Vermont; Andrew Mowbray, Dorchester, MA; Mark Newport, Ferndale, MI; Oli Rodriguez, Chicago, IL; Jules Rosskam (screening), Amherst, MA; Jeremy Arlo Simmons, Oakland, CA; Travis LeRoy Southworth, Brooklyn, NY

 

Curated by Nathan Suter  

Group Show -SPLAY @ Roxaboxen 8.26-9.18

Roxaboxen Exhibitions presents…
SPLAY : Curated by Marissa Perel
August 26th – September 18th
Opening Reception: Friday August 26th 7-10pm
gallery hours Saturday 12-3pm

SPLAY : Curated by Marissa Perel

August 26th – September 18th
Opening Reception: Friday August 26th 7-10pm

Roxaboxen Exhibitions
2130 W.21 St.
Chicago, Illinois
Gallery hours Saturday 12-3pm

SPLAY: An International group exhibition that explores sexuality as a platform for self-reflexivity. Through painting sculpture, video, performance and site specific installation, each artist questioned her/his own subjectivity in the face of her/his desires. How do we understand ourselves in the flesh in the midst of the digital, where personalities and bodies are framed for market consumption, singles networks and virtual cruising? Who is the real subject? Do we elude even ourselves as the subjects of our experiences, instead in the substituting or superimposing the fulfillment of fantasy over personal satisfaction? SPLAY is an exhibition that opens up a dialogue about the place of real pleasure within the manifold real and imagined identification of sexual identity. The work in Splay is a proposition to the the viewer as the artists attempt to be seen and satiated at the risk of alienation, rejection, or humiliation. What results is a subversive play (s-play) insinuating the viewer as a participant, voyeur or longed-for other.

Artists: Madeleine Baily (Chicago), Steven Frost (Chicago), Yasi Ghanbari (Chicago), Elise Goldstein (Antwerp, BE), Rachel Lowther (Glasgow, UK), Ivan Lozano (Chicago), Brian Maller (NY), Alison Rhoades (Grenoble, FR), Tessa Siddle (San Francisco), Fritz Welch (Glasgow, UK), Syniva Whitney (Seattle)

Group Show -Experience is Never Unattached 8.16-9.22

Experience is Never Unattached
Sullivan Galleries
33 S. State Street, 7th fl
Chicago, IL

August 16–September 22
Reception: Friday, September 9, 4:30–7:00 p.m.

By favoring experience over interpretation, Experience is Never Unattached is rooted in exploratory and collaborative modes of making and viewing. This exhibition showcases new work by current MFA students and recent alumni and is curated by Leah Oren (MA 2013), curatorial assistant, Department of Exhibitions and Exhibition Studies and Jeannette Tremblay (MA 2011). Featured artists include Andrew Barco, Eric Baskauskas, Marissa Lee Benedict, Victoria Bradford, Craig Butterworth, Scott A. Carter, Federico Cattaneo, Benjamin Chaffee, Al Díaz-Palacios, Vicki Fowler, Steven Frost, Alex Gartelmann, Katya Grokhovsky, Antonia Gurkovska, David R. Harper, Akemi Hong, Ji Youn Hong, Kelly K. Jones, Cheng-Yung Kuo, Ei Jane Janet Lin, Ivan Lozano, Alfredo Martinez, Su Hyun Nam, James Alured Powers, Matthew Schlagbaum, Charlie Schneider, Jonas Sebura, Nicole Seisler, Soo Shin, Benjamin Stagl, Amber Renaye Thomas, Clare Torina, and Rafael Vega.

Review in ArtSlant

Exploding Faces, Confining Spaces was reviewed in ArtSlant by Joel Kuennen .

“Frost and Vernau’s work both share a youthful enthusiasm and willingness to develop a personal style and the work ethic to stay with it, a quality rarely found in younger artists. Their work is bright and figural and interestingly enough, both are reacting to the influence of time and its annoying absence from most object-based art that, along with most photography, can’t help but freeze time in exchange for the creation of aesthetic spaces.” –read the full review

Steven Frost on ArtSlant

Don’t Quit. Suffer Now. at 18 S. Wabash

Don’t Quit. Suffer Now.
[August 30 – November 5, 2010] [18 South Wabash]
Steven Frost and Jesse Butcher

This gallery is presented in association with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago & the Chicago Loop Alliance

Don’t Quit. Suffer Now. is an examination of the historical deification of masculinity. Through collaboration, the artists explore the idea of a champion by creating a space of aggression devoid of violence, yet littered with the remains of physical contact.

pictures from the installation

Don't Quit. Suffer Now. (Installation Shot)

Don't Quit. Suffer Now. (Installation Shot)

the Conscience of a Nation @ GMU 10.28.08

Catch my McCain portrait in this upcoming show…

 conscience of a nation

THE CONSCIENCE OF A NATION
SID CHAFETZ LEADS THE WAY
George Mason University Fine Arts Gallery
October 27-November 7, 2008

Reception Tuesday, October 28 from 4:30-6:00 p.m.

FAIRFAX, Va., October 2, 2008 – While Americans and the rest of the global community are intensely focused on the outcome of the 2008 presidential election, artists are also struggling with the point and counterpoint of the political compass in our nation’s capital. As a way of delivering personal responses and insights about our sense of conscience, including cultural identity and political decision-making, George Mason University’s Art and Visual Technology (AVT) department is presenting an exhibition titled The Conscience of A Nation: Sid Chafetz Leads The Way, curated by Helen Frederick, AVT professor and coordinator of printmaking. The show will be held at Gallery 123 on the Fairfax Campus from October 27 through November 7, 2008. The opening reception will be held on October 28 from 4:30-6 p.m.

The Conscience of A Nation features the work of a group of regional and invited artists from states such as Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin, who have been asked to exhibit their visual commentaries about our community, particularly to investigate the psyche of survival instincts and emergency situations that grow from the consequences of the political actions of our leaders. In order to make the exhibition dynamic and collaborative, George Mason University faculty and students are invited to add their own work to the exhibition throughout the week before and after the election.

“I conceived the exhibition as a way of sharing discourse and collaborating with other artists, including younger artists, at a time when transformation is critically needed in the world,” Frederick said. “The nation’s capital is a Petri dish for shared boundaries of cultural and political awareness. Mason seemed a very suitable place to make visible the psychic conditions growing from our deep personal and universal concerns that have erupted around the time of the election.”

The show is anchored around artist and printmaker Sid Chafetz’s provocative digital print “Walter Reed Hospital”. This 48 x 96” work was inspired by the Walter Reed Army Medical Center neglect scandal, and juxtaposes images of amputees and replacement limbs with the heads of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice positioned on athletic bodies in motion.

“I’ve been very critical of this administration and its behavior and I thought an absurd image might express my feelings better than a factual image based on reality,” Chafetz said.

For more than 60 years, Chafetz has created art shaped by the political events that define our culture and determine our survival. His work is displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Columbus Museum of Art and the Dahlem Museum in Berlin, among others.

Chafetz said that his work is inspired by Rembrandt “for his deep sympathy of human beings” and Francisco Goya, whose work “was consistently critical of war and its consequences.”

George Mason University students and faculty who wish to participate in “The Conscience of A Nation” must contact Helen Frederick, AVT associate professor and curator, at (703) 993-1013 or hfrederi@gmu.edu, or Solomon Wondimu, exhibitions assistant, at swondimu@gmu.edu.

The following artists will have work on display in “The Conscience of A Nation ”:

Ken Ashton
Graham Boyle
Meaghan Bush
Sid Chafetz
Billy Colbert
Fred Folsom
Peggy Feerick
Helen Frederick
Chawky Frenn
Steve Frost
John Hitchcock
Bridget Lambert
Manuel Navarette
Margaret A. Parker
Jefferson Pinder
Mark Planisek
Michael Platt

Steve Prince
Renee Sandell
Tate Shaw
Erwin Thamm
Yee-Haw Industries
Sean Watkins
Genna Watson
Rex Weil
Sue Wrbican

Additional George Mason Faculty and Students

This event is FREE and open to the public. The gallery is open to the public on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and weekends by appointment. The Fine Arts Gallery is located on the Fairfax campus of George Mason University at the intersection of Braddock Road and Route 123. Paid parking is located in the deck adjacent to the mainstage Concert Hall.  Visit www.gmu.edu/cfa