Event

UpsidePost an Event »

Catharine Clark Gallery

June 16 - July 15, 2012

Info

248 Utah Street
 San Francisco, CA 94103
Google Map »
Upside Lauren Kelley: Upside, 2009-2010 (video still), Single-channel video, Edition of 6, 3:31 minutes running time
Catharine Clark Gallery announces the Media Room presentation of Lauren Kelley’s single-channel video, "Upside." The exhibition dates are June 16 through July 14, 2012, with an opening reception on Saturday, June 16, from noon to 3pm. Lauren Kelley's exhibition coincides with the solo exhibition of photography by Ellen Kooi. Lauren Kelley’s stop-motion animated short "Upside"--completed during her residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2009–2010)--expresses a bittersweet pathos through a narrative told from the vantage point of a child assessing her family’s lot as a swimming pool party goes awry. Employing a wry wit when commenting on matters of sexuality, race, and meditations on place, Lauren Kelley is a video artist best known for her series of short animated videos that combine clay-mation with brown plastic dolls. Stylistically evocative of children’s television programs of her youth, Kelley stages absurd, jittery, and sometimes endearing narratives. These low-tech scenarios occur in Technicolor dioramas—a plush backdrop in contrast to the flaccid narratives of a discontented cast of ingénues. Like other works in this artist's ongoing series, Upside is a short-stop-animation work that draws inspiration from the grotesque charm of Todd Haynes’ The Karen Carpenter Story and The Yes Men’s political endeavors with toys. Lauren Kelley’s videos and photographs have been presented nationally at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; New Museum, New York; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland; The Kitchen, New York; and most recently she was included in the group exhibition Twisted Sisters, an exhibition of works by women artists depicting women as the subjects, at Dodge Gallery, New York, through June 23, 2012 (an exhibit that also included the work of gallery artists Nina Katchadourian and Julie Heffernan). Kelley was awarded the 2011 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, 2011 Visual Artists Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, 2008 Altoids Award from the New Museum, and fellowships from the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Illinois Arts Council. Her work has been reviewed in publications that include The New Yorker, Art in America, Artlies, Houston Press, and The Boston Globe. Exhibiting for the first time with Catharine Clark Gallery, Kelley lives and works in Houston, Texas.