Artificial Paradises photographs by Raul Rodriguez and Therese + Joel (Therese Öhrvall and Joel Jägerroos) Curated by Antonio Ortuño

May 11th – 27th, 2012

Local Project 45-10 Davis Street Long Island City, NY 11101 www.localproject.org

Opening Reception May 11th, 6pm to 9pm

Gallery hours Thursday and Friday: 4- 8pm Saturday and Sunday: 12- 6pm

Take the E,M,G, or 7 train to Court Square Station near P.S.1 and 5 Pointz

The fundamental motivation of this project is to raise the idea of “city” as an artificial paradise. Without creating any judgment, it is a reflection of the reality of spaces in which citizens live together in large cities. The sequence of photographs becomes a performance of a neutral, faceless, synthesized character. This character roams on a structure; also neutral, geometric, organized, created by humans. The performance then becomes “sense” with “the world of ideas and culture” inherited from the history of mankind. A representation of individual and space dismantled, without any armor or appearance that could dress and shape. Just being present in the same space, raw and synthesized, interacting with both neutralized individual and space. No frills or learned presentations of any kind. Abstracting spectators from their realities, so that they may make an objective look carefully, at a distance, pausing in the frantic everyday movement that builds and shapes their lives and cities.

Raul Rodriguez, a visual artist from Canary Islands, creates stolen moments that depart from trivial situations to bring another concept or esthetic, by transporting them out of context and creating new connotations and perceptions speak about the world and everything that surrounds it. His work has been exhibited in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga, Tenerife Island, El Hierro Island, and Milan. He won the International Young Emergent Artists award by La Casa Encendida and Obra social Caja Madrid Emergencias 2.0 in 2010.

Therese + Joel’s work balances deliberately between fine art and fashion, as well as the concepts of horror and beauty. A Swedish-Finnish photography team, their work has been exhibited internationally, including The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia, Krasnoyarsk State Museum in Siberia, Milk Gallery & F.L.O.A.T. Gallery in New York City, Gallery S.Bensimon in Paris, France and Ricoh Ring Cube Gallery in Tokyo, Japan. Therese + Joel were also selected as one of the 30 emerging photographers to watch in 2011 by Photo District News.

http://www.theresejoel.com/leaving.html