PRESS RELEASE
London Artforms Gallery
March 28 - May 23, 1996
Sex and Drugs and Explosives
For nearly 6 years, artist and independent curator Kenny Schachter has beenorganizing exhibitions in and around the New York area with foundations,not-for-profits, galleries, and in spaces he rents himself, introducingmany now well known artists in the process. Working exclusively with emerging,unrepresented artists, the shows have usually been defined by a raucous,anything goes, scabrous sensibility. When the exhibits have been orchestratedin uninhabited locales, in most cases ground floor spaces, which Schachtertemporarily rents for periods of 4 - 8 weeks, they have been characterizedby a grass roots effort to communicate with as broad an audience as possible,by keeping vastly extended hours -- 7 days a week, 10 hours per. Despitemany NY galleries relocating to cheaper, less accessible areas, these expositionshave continued to be staged where the largest concentration of people willsee them.
This exhibition will showcase the work of ten (10) emerging artists workingin the US, unaffiliated with commercial galleries, in various mediums. Theaim of the show is to present a cross-section of current artworks that reflectsome of the most promising artistic output in the States (primarily artistsin and around the environs of NY), not solely in an effort to distinguishthe work from what is happening abroad; but, in addition, to highlight sharedsensibilities between Americans and Europeans. The group of artists, fromdivergent backgrounds, will exhibit paintings, sculptures, installationsand videos.
More often than not, people of disparate cultures attempt to establish theircollective identities by nature of what distinguishes one particular societyfrom another. It is an easy tactic to split people as a rallying point,in order to polarize them in favor of one position or another. The resultis group pitted against group, on supposed ideological grounds, withoutany real foundation for the opposition. However, this simple-minded strategyof delineation (which at times can have terrible consequences) is usuallyjust an effort to manipulate issues (and people) and make things more categorical,while ignoring the fact that we are increasingly interdependent and interrelated.This is not to deny that legitimate shades of difference do exist betweencultures.
The title is derived from the following thoughts: From the earliest outbreaksof political insurrection to middle eastern car bombings, there is a longhistory of international terrorism, that has shown no signs of abating.The Baader- Meinhof Group, the Red Army Faction, the IRA, the Basques, extremeright-wing groups in the US; these and countless other loosely knit organizationshave been formed over time with the sole purpose of instilling fear in theminds of (usually) innocent people, in an effort to physically and psychologicallyunsettle and destabilize a given society. At present, to name just a singlerecent such attack, the gigantic explosive that detonated in Oklahoma Citywas constituted with simple ingredients freely available to every mom andpop farmer across America. Within minutes of the blast, the step-by-steprecipe for the device was made available to millions of people via modemand computer on the internet. What is as disturbing as the loss of lifeand pervasive despair spawned by the blows is the level of popular acceptancethat this is simply the way things are. Recently in NY, a 14 year old childblew off some fingers constructing a pipe-bomb in his parents basement.When questioned by a reporter, the boy's friend shrugged his shoulders andstated, "you know, sex & drugs & explosives". This showwill explore the state of society whereby everyone has access to the methodsof destruction as easily as a song and how the resulting uncertainty affectsour everyday lives on a regular basis.
Kenny Schachter
| slide sheet | pressrelease
| essay | mailus
| home |