Leo Koenig Inc. Projekte is pleased to announce: Cleopatra’s Presents: Xavier Cha, Jenna Gribbon, Hannah Hoffmann, Andrea Huelse, Anna Lundh, Caris Reid, Hanna Sandin, Maayan Zilberman

Leo Koenig Inc. director Nicole Russo invited Cleopatra’s, a Brooklyn-based curatorial collective, to organize an exhibition in the new Leo Koenig Projekte gallery. Discussing potential ideas and exhibition strategies revealed that Russo’s interest in Cleopatra’s mirrored Cleopatra’s interest in an unofficial group of artists of which they had just become aware. The exhibition’s participants are a self-organized group of cultural producers. The group has been gathering regularly for two years in convivial support of each other’s ideas and, together, further conversations between their respective practices.

Unaffiliated through professional work nor artistic collaboration, the participants conduct informal meetings in the form of potluck-style dinners, hosted on rotation at their homes or live-work studios. These meetings are a thread of social continuity between participants with notably different practices and professions. Cleopatra’s is interested in how, at its core, the group’s alliance is a support structure for their creativity and individual careers as painter, filmmaker, performance artist, lingerie designer, photographer, jewelry designer, set designer, gallerist, collector, sculptor, writer and more.

The group’s commitment to the relationships between each of them (operating on different levels) provides an opportunity to develop and continue a critical dialogue amongst peers. Their union is a place for creating discourse, incorporating varying disciplines, knowledge, skills, and practices. On this occasion, Cleopatra’s is interested in seeing the group working together on one unlikely exhibition that reconciles autonomous and divergent practices. In presenting a more traditional group show – including painting, video, text and sculptural installation—the curatorial model takes after the group’s own structure of the social event that drives their connectivity.

Cleopatra’s was founded in June of 2008 in a storefront located in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York and is co-operated by Bridget Donahue, Bridget K Finn, Kate McNamara and Erin Somerville. Cleopatra’s works collaboratively with artists, curators, writers, designers and musicians, operating in a territory outside of their respective studios to further connections between practices, disciplines and creative communities. Investigations are realized in the storefront, as well as in the form of off-site public programs, events and in print publications. As a non-commercial art space and working archive, Cleopatra’s looks to not only produce exhibitions and events in its physical space, but also to produce and document in print and on-line projects, recordings and happenings. The space serves as a curatorial studio space, a showroom, and a library making all actions and projects accessible to the public.

Xavier Cha’s performance-based work revolves around conventions of accessibility, exchange and hierarchies of space. Her performances, installations, and videos explore phantasmic supports behind cultural development and the individual’s search for place/transcendence within this web of complex subjectivity. A frequent collaborator, Xavier has invited dancers, musicians, cults, and clowns among many others- not only to participate in her projects, but also to become protagonists of the work. She received her BFA from RISD in 2002 and her MFA from UCLA in 2004. Xavier’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States as well as internationally, including The Kitchen, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Moscow Biennial, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art (UK), the Sculpture Center, Asia Society Museum, Hammer Museum, and MoCA Miami. Xavier Cha is represented by Taxter and Spengemann Gallery and currently lives in New York.

Jenna Gribbon was born in Knoxville, TN and currently lives and works in Long Island City, NY. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art in New York, and at Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Los Angeles, and of numerous group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad including, among others, shows at Babel Kunst in Trondheim, Norway; the Georgia Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta, GA; the National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts in New York, NY; and the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, Finland. Earlier this year she was included in Realism-The Adventure of Reality a large-scale exhibition which traveled to two museums in Germany; first to Kunsthalle Emden in Emden, and subsequently to Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung in Munich. Gustave Courbet, Gerhard Richter, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia were among the other artists in the exhibition. In 2006 she was commissioned to paint three works for Sofia Coppola’s film, Marie Antoinette, which premiered at the New York Film Festival.

Hannah Hoffman is originally from Dallas, TX. She has lived and worked in New York for the past 2 1/2 years. She currently works at Gavin Brown’s enterprise.

Andrea Huelse is a New York City-based set and costume designer whose work has been seen in fashion photography, film, television, opera, and fine art around the world. Recent clients include: Diller Scofidio and Renfro, PBS, Wolf Trap Opera, V Magazine, Ford Models, and Michael Joo. Andrea earned an MFA in Scenography at New York University, and was a recipient of the NEA/TCG Young Designer Grant in 2005.

Anna Lundh is a Swedish artist based in Stockholm and New York. She graduated in 2008 with an MFA from Konstfack University of Art, and has also studied at the Cooper Union. In recent years she has participated in residency programs such as the LMCC Workspace in New York and Art Omi International Arts Center, Ghent, and she recently completed a Post Graduate Research project at Konstfack, Stockholm. Her work investigates cultural and social phenomena, technology and language and takes the form of installations, video, text and various experiments. Anna has previously been exhibited at venues that include Bonniers Konsthall and Haninge Konsthall, (Stockholm), X-initiative (for Rhizome) as well as Apexart and Marian Spore in New York.

Caris Reid is a painter living in New York City. She is a contributing editor for Dossier Journal, the biannual arts and cultural publication, where she has interviewed artists such as David Salle and Tauba Aurebach. Her artwork is featured in the current issue, No. 6. She is in the process of curating her second show, titled All That is Unseen, this February at Alan Nederpelt, with curator Meg O’Rourke. Her first curatorial project, titled, Autosuggestion was in a pop-up space in Soho in the Fall. This March she is in the group show The Sultans Played Creole, curated by James Cope, At Champion Contemporary in Austin. Her work has also recently been featured in the group shows Mouthful of Poison at Ramiken Crucible and Behind the Green Door at DNA Gallery. She graduated Cum Laude with a BFA from Boston University in 2005.

Hanna Sandin is an artist based in New York. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Fake Estate in 2009 and the not-for-profit A.I.R. Gallery. In 2005, she received the Emerging Artists Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park as well as from A.I.R. Gallery in 2008. Hanna was subsequently in residence in the Workspace program at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York in 2009. Her work has been shown in both the U.S. and internationally at Mary Mary Gallery, Clifton Benevento Gallery, the Kitchen, Karma International, Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, and Philips de Pury & Co Gallery in London. Her works will be on view at a group show curated by Peter Eleey at PS1 Contemporary Arts Center.

Maayan Zilberman is one half of New York based lingerie brand The Lake & Stars. Maayan’s designs have been featured in Vogue US, UK, and Italia, The New York Times, and Elle, amongst others. Her work has been part of museum shows at The Fashion Textile Museum in London and has been included in books on Contemporary Lingerie and The History of Lingerie. Maayan is also a professional baker, founding WaveCake (a specialty cake and pastry service) in 2009. In addition to this she is a contributing writer on Advanced Style, the much loved blog about seniors with incredible style. Maayan Zilberman graduated with a BFA from School of Visual Arts and was later a participating artist at the Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como, Italy, followed by a show hosted by Viafarini Foundation in Milan.