Dustin Grella: Notes to Self

March 29 – April 21, 2012 Opening Event: Thursday, March 29, 6-8pm

Opening in the AC Institute Satellite Space on the 2nd floor of 547 W. 27th St., Suite 210

Special Performance April 17 at 6:15pm at James A. Farley Post Office (421 Eight Avenue @ 32nd Street) A reception will follow at the gallery at 7:30pm

All exhibitions are free and open to the public. Contact: [email protected] Notes to Self: Being obsessive and compulsive in our society often carries negative connotations. In Dustin Grella’s work, the artist prefers to celebrate these traits, referring to it as OCC, Obsessive Compulsive Culture. Grella approaches his work as if it were a puzzle, taking an action or an idea and aggressively repeating it, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, until a resolution is found.

In his Notes to Self project, Grella has written and then mailed himself a letter every day for over ten years. The exercise has generated 3650 letters (and counting), which remain meticulously ordered and still sealed to this day. The slight variations in the project, a change of font, the physical location of the cancellation stamp, and of course what is written inside, are nuances that help decipher time’s complexities. A C-7 quadriplegic, Grella has found that his attempts to send and receive these letters have been greatly hindered due to the fact that so many of Manhattan’s post offices are inaccessible. He has decided that for the tax deadline on April 17th at the James A. Farley Post Office (421 Eight Avenue @ 32nd Street) he will be climbing the stairs of the post office with his wheelchair chained to his waist and his taxes in his mouth in an attempt to bring attention to the fact that a large percentage of New York City’s post offices are still inaccessible.

www.dustingrella.com

This performance was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace Fund supported by the Jerome Foundation; the Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Bio: Dustin Grella was raised in the rural community of Medina, Ohio, and now resides in New York City. He received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts, being honored with the Paula H. Rhodes Award for Excellence in Computer Art. His animations’ accolades include winning the Walt Disney Award at the prestigious Ottawa International Animation Festival and in May 2012 will be premiering a series of micro-shorts at the Cannes Film Festival. He is currently in production of the Animation Hotline, a series of daily animations that use crowd-sourced voicemail messages for content. If you’ve got a story give him a call at 212-683-2490.