"Eid Ma Clack Shaw" organized by Abby Messitte at LABspace Feb 7- March 7

Eid Ma Clack Shaw

Organized by Abby Messitte

February 7 - March 7, 2015

Opening reception, Sat. Feb. 7th, 5-7pm

Gallery hours:  Thursday – Saturday, 1:30-6 and by appointment

Ellen Berkenblit, Damien Crisp, Steve DiBenedetto, Rob Fischer, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Graham Hamilton, Simone Shubuck, Ruby Sky Stiler, Despina Stokou, Whiting Tennis, Wayne White

“I fell back asleep some time later on

And I dreamed the perfect song

It held all the answers, like hands laid on

I woke halfway and scribbled it down

And in the morning, what I wrote, I read

It was hard to read at first but here's what it said:

"Eid ma clack shaw zupoven del ba

Mertepy ven seinur cofally ragdah"

-   Bill Callahan, from Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle

Songwriter Bill Callahan tells of how a bad case of writer’s block is broken by a dream in which the perfect song reveals itself: a song whose flawlessness is not compromised by the nonsensical content of the lyrics.

The artworks in this exhibition employ text as a formal element.  At times fragmentary or illegible, language acts as a medium, just like color or composition.  Liberated from linguistics, the letters convey a more immediate authority.  As such, the elegance and structure of the mark-making take precedence over meaning.

Ellen Berkenblit renders words with a grace and confidence consistent with all of her painterly gestures. Damien Crisp melds activist notes and thoughts with emotive paint. Steve DiBenedetto renders provocative phrases as hyperactive landscapes.  Rob Fischer uses re-purposed glass painted with fragments of text, reminiscent of abandoned signage.  Sara Greenberger Rafferty’s printed plexiglass depict performers contorted in the shape of letters.  Graham Hamilton’s artist’s statement is cut into painted MDF with a CNC table router.  Simone Shubuck uses vintage book pages as the ground for ruminative drawings. Ruby Sky Stiler’s wall relief cobbles together an incongruous pastiche of imagery and text, which references classical antiquity.  Despina Stokou paints text as she would a landscape in her layered and at times subversive mixed media works.  For Whiting Tennis, words and letters become the building blocks for imagined architectural structures in his works on paper.  Wayne White’s bold phrases become monuments within the backdrops of found thrift-store paintings.