Martin Basher, Kate Burnet and Dan Woerner, Vidal Centeno, Blane De St. Croix, Natsu, Olek, Tamara Kostianovsky, Chris Yormick

Curated by Erin Riley-Lopez

Opening Reception: June 25, 5–7pm Please note Market Doors Close Strictly at 7pm

Collected: Working Space 10 is AAI’s annual exhibition featuring works selected by guest curator Erin Riley-Lopez from artists participating on the Lower East Side-Rotating Studio Program, in Fall 09 and Spring 10. AAI sponsors the Lower East Side Rotating Studio artist residency Program with artists chosen by a panel of outside artists, curators, and arts professionals in order to reaffirm our commitment to this vibrant and historically significant multicultural neighborhood. The artists selected are presented here in Working Space 10.

Martin Basher works in a variety of different media—from photo-realist paintings, large-scale abstract canvases, and assemblage sculptures to collage techniques. Whether it is a photo-realist painting of a hand shake or a collage of imagery surrounding hands shaking, Basher looks specifically at how consumer culture preys on the public at large

Kate Burnet’s and Dan Woerner’s recent videos weave images from pop culture, the 1961 British film The Day the Earth Caught Fire, and their own animations of burning cars, among other collected material, into a complex system of images that do not rely on a traditional linear narrative format.

Vidal Centeno’s seemingly designed lamp, which will hang from the ceiling in the gallery, actually takes the form of a concept spy satellite and is a reference to military intelligence culture. The title of the piece, LOTIS, is a play on the object’s lotus-like form and is also an acronym for Light Obscuring Tactical Illumination System, which indicates its non-functioning status.

Through painterly qualities, scale, perspective, and design Blane De St. Croix creates drawings that have a visual tension. Starting with locations that have experienced some kind of political upheaval, such as the US/Mexican border and Guantanamo Bay, the drawings evolve into landscapes that reveal territorial friction.

Creating a web-like maze of red beads and brass wire, Natsu will present an installation that will occupy one corner of the gallery. She plays with ideas of science and the universe in imaginary ways with the beads representing atoms and the overall structure representing an entire world.

Olek uses crocheting as a performative act. Literally creating a new skin for the gallery, she will work in the space inviting viewers to step out of their shoes and experience the recently crocheted floor.

Using recycled clothing, embroidery, and in some cases meat hooks Tamara Kostianovsky confronts the viewer with sculptures and installations that resemble meat carcasses. The work is a larger metaphor for violence as well as the physical fragility and vulnerability of humanity.

Chris Yormic playfully re-imagines a childhood game of Connect Four. Two towers will hang side by side on the gallery walls revealing an image made from the black and red game pieces that pops from the yellow armature.

Erin Riley-Lopez is a graduate of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. Erin was a curator at The Bronx Museum of the Arts from 2005–2009 where she curated collection based and annual Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) exhibitions. She has curated exhibitions at the Center for Book Arts, NY and the Center for Worker Education, CUNY and has upcoming exhibitions at the Bronx River Arts Center and AIR Gallery. Her writing has appeared in …might be good a project of fluent ~ collaborative, Austin, Texas; Bootprint a publication of Boots Contemporary Art Space, St. Louis, Missouri; art:21; and the recent Joan Mitchell Foundation 2009 MFA Grant Recipients exhibition catalogue.

Cuchifritos is FREE and Open to the Public. Handicapped accessible. The LES-RSP is made possible by the generous support of The Pollock-Krasner Foundation and members of Artists Alliance, Inc. This exhibition and LES-RSP are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. This exhibition is made possible by public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts and the generous support of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.