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Martina Johnston Gallery

December 11 - February 7, 2011

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1201 Sixth Street, 2nd Floor
Berkeley, CA 94710 Berkeley, CA 94710
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Brought to Light Matthew Troy Mullins, Stacks, Watercolor and Gouache on Paper, 48" x 36", 2010.
The Martina }{ Johnston Gallery is pleased to present "Brought to Light," an exhibition featuring the films and installation of Rose Khor and the paintings of Matthew Troy Mullins. Please join us for an opening on Saturday, December 11th from 4 to 8p.m. The multiplicative effect of technology on humanity's instinct to collect and catalog has led the inhabitants of our computerized, postindustrial societies to think of information as something abstract, disembodied, replaceable and disposable. Using differing theoretical approaches and tools of art practice, Khor and Mullins explore the physical architecture of the archive, focus on the significance of the unique historical object and, in the process of creating artwork, reinvent their personal relationship to the forgotten articles of the endless catalog. Each of their work functions as a model of how to keep humanistic values alive in the face of the overwhelming. Matthew Troy Mullins is exhibiting a current, ongoing series of large scale watercolor and gouache paintings on paper. To create this work Mullins researched and gained access to the private and semi-public archives of various museums and learning institutions around the Bay Area. Based on photographs from these sites, the images in his paintings hint at the awesome scale of these undertakings, while their free flowing, delicately meticulous, yet deeply felt rendering enables the viewer to connect to these overpowering products of human endeavor at an emotionally comprehensible level. Down dimmed, climate-controlled corridors, the archive occupies row upon row of generic metal shelving, boxes stacked in towering columns, strictly labeled sets of drawers, and cabinets brimming with outdated media formats, suggesting that the Modernistic grid is the contemporary mode of being. But Mullins has taken down the boxes and opened the drawers to reveal the fascinating contents; with great care each is observed and passed along to us. With her film "August Moon, Safe Light" (2010), Rose Khor has rescued an uncataloged object, one condemned to obscurity by its inconvenient refusal to fit within the dominant historical discourse. Found in a second-hand store, the pile of photographic contact sheets from which this film is sourced records the making of "The Teahouse of the August Moon" (1956), a film set in Okinawa during the US occupation of Japan and starring Machiko Kyō, Glenn Ford and Marlon Brando, in yellowface. Khor uses digital video to redirect our attention. She deconstructs and reassembles the gazes, gestures, and ways of speaking of the actors to expose the propaganda messages of the original film. Her goal is to "redirect our national consciousness towards this history to examine race, gender, and cultural relations between the United States and Japan." Khor demonstrates a practice in which each of us continually reappraise our interpretation of history and renegotiate our personal relationship to its endless detritus. Importantly, this relationship must be as emotionally profound as it is intellectually perceptive. Exhibition runs December 11th, 2010 to February 6th, 2011 Reception: Saturday, December 11th, 4 to 8 p.m. Closing: Sunday, February 6th, 2011, 1 to 4 p.m. Hours: Sundays 1 to 4 p.m. or by appointment
Brought to Light Matthew Troy Mullins, Traps, Watercolor and Gouache on Paper, 48" x 36", 2010.
Brought to Light Rose Khor, August Moon, Safe Light, DV Still, 2010.
Brought to Light Rose Khor, August Moon, Safe Light, DV Still, 2010.