Tuesday, November 20, 2012

"POPLAB" Debuts!

The unit, titled Werkberg, was created by sculptors Cassandra Emswiler, Kristen Cochran, and Greg Metz, and is part of the Co- Re-Creating Spaces exhibition at CentralTrak, 800 Exposition Ave., Dallas, that opened on Nov. 17, 2012, the first anniversary of the nationwide Occupy demonstrations that authorities presumably hoped to avert by evicting all the camps within the preceding 24 hrs.

The Werkberg houses a selection of enjoyable yet empowering books and videos donated by various collaborators, as well as projected views of artists' work spaces (the unit was partially inspired by Gregory Sholette's Dark Matter).

The show includes a related work, 451 degrees, by Karen Weiner with Celia & Frank Eberle, which functions as a card catalogue for the library (I'll try to get a pic of that and post it here soon).

The exhibition "surveys how artists are questioning and subverting existing systems, contexts, or spaces – the law, the economy, history, the news, language, etc. – and contributing to their re-imagining and re-creation, recognizing that 'reality' itself can be both art medium and art object, and speculates how developments in the virtual and the actual might affect one another."

In addition to the artists mentioned above, the show also includes works by Morehshin Allahyari; Nadav Assor; Amy Balkin; Aram Bartholl; Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler; Linda Bilda; Irina Botea; Martha Colburn; eteam; Cao Fei; Yevgeniy Fiks, Olga Kopenkina, & Alexandra Lerman; the Institute for Wishful Thinking; Martha Rosler; Dread Scott; and the Yes Men with Steve Lambert; and it was curated by Carolyn Sortor and Mike Morris.

See the exhibition through January 5, Sats. noon - 5pm or by appointment (subject to changes over the holidays); more details at Co- Re-Creating Spaces.