YUJI AGEMATSU HAROLD ANCART CAMERON ARIEL DILL JIMMIE DURHAM SAM FALLS AMY GRANAT MATT HOYT PATRICK JACKSON GYAN PANCHAL SOPHIE STONE

I have become a keeper of rooms; I no longer wander ecstatic among; the gardens. My dreams are the fabric of the walls. I have become so ridged in an attitude of listening that my body resents the movement of selection. From my high window I can see the mountains of Eternity and I can hear the legion song of the Soul and I would lift my own song at last. -Cameron Parsons(1)

Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery is pleased to present Vision Quest, a group exhibition organized by Amanda Friedman and Taylor Trabulus, running from June 21 through August 10, 2012. A reception will be held on Thursday, June 21 from 6-8 pm.

Cameron (Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel) (1922-1995) retreated to the desert of Beaumont, California for a kind of ‘vision quest’, living for a time in an abandoned canyon without water or power.(2) Throughout her life, she exchanged daily comforts for spiritual, holistic and aesthetic journeys. Whether in the beat community in Los Angeles, studying in Mexico, or starring in Kenneth Angers’ film, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Cameron consistently voyaged both inwardly and externally, defining herself as an influential West Coast artist, performer, poet, seer and mystic.(3) Acting as a guiding force for this exhibition, on view are several of Cameron’s works on paper.

Akin to Cameron’s methodology, the works selected demonstrate an impulse to explore the preternatural- unnatural phenomena with rational explanations. By utilizing the destructive powers of the sun, Amy Granat’s photograms and Sam Fall’s garden hose prints on cotton are both made by a transparent procedure. Reminiscent of an artifact from an unknown future, Jimmie Durham’s raw sculpture composed of a painted wooden box, bone and glass is made to resemble a camera sitting on a shelf. Yuji Agematsu’s assemblage of renovated refuse archives the artist’s explorations as he moves through New York City, exuding a material awareness and otherworldly glow.

Matt Hoyt’s small-scale pieces on shelves and Sophie Stone’s “tiles” appear to be natural and found objects, but are made using artifical substances. In Patrick Jackson’s Dirt Pile a mound of sediment is absurdly displayed on a marble and glass pedestal. Gyan Panchal’s sculpture of insulation and silver leaf, alludes to a customary and everyday object, yet emanates a prodigious aura through its re-contextualization of materials. Transitional situations continue to manifest through technique in Ariel Dill’s dynamic oil paintings, while Harold Ancart’s drawing and metal sculpture renegotiate surface and area. Simultaneously looking inward and outward, to nature and to urban life, the works in Vision Quest empower art to be both found and sought after, while existing in a realm transcending space and time.

1 Cameron’s Magic Diary, 1950s. 2 Michael Duncan, Cameron catalogue for the exhibition “Cameron” at Nicole Klagsbrun (The Studley Press Inc., 2007) 40. 3 Michael Duncan, “Cameron,” .