Johannes Vogt Gallery is pleased to present a two-person show by A.K.BURNS & G.T. PELLIZZI. On view are recent pieces ranging from sculpture to photography and video that engage light as a medium in the work or as an inspiration for the creation of the piece. Both artists were invited by Travis Boyer to exhibit coinciding with Boyerʼs first New York solo show.

A.K. Burns presents excerpts from two new bodies of work that come out of an ongoing obsession with the land of southern Utah. Hard rock, 2012 is part of a series of large scale photographs of tightly cropped desert-scapes, eerily lit illusions of granular matter that take shape from the depths of shadowed crevices. The light is akin to dusk and dawn remaining at a time and distance that deny locational specificity. A toxic mix of the desert sun and grossly enlarged expired 35mm film produce surreal colorations that are rhythmically interrupted by light beams (a result of the film passing through airport security scanners). The beams evoke the arrival or presence of an ʻotherʼ within the stillness of the ostensibly lifeless space. Hard rock, refers both to the material of the landscape as well as the audible hallucination image ʻnoiseʼ creates. Heavy film grain merges with the surface of the rock to create an optical fluctuation between flat and spatial dimensions.

Also on view is a preview version of a video work entitled, Earthship 2013, 2012. In reference to the sustainable biotecture in Taos, NM, Earthship 2013, is a poetic homage in which the artists body is suspended in ceiling hung restraints mimicking a photograph by Bob Mizer. Mizersʼ original is complicated by the artificial insertion of Utah landscape (via green screen) and the reveal of the making process. Burns brings awareness to the hegemony of gay male masculinity within the esthetics of masochism by inserting herself into the image. As in Hard rock, the essential material of the desert negates the human ability to situate oneself. Burns is precariously arched, hanging and constructed to appear sun burnt. The impression of unbearable heat, a strained body and an incongruous sense of location, affirms the artificiality of sustainability. Both works are alien landings that challenge the disproportionate significance given to our own time and place.

G.T. Pellizzi engages in a critical approach towards modernist artistic concepts. He uses iconic elements throughout art history and relates them to current social concerns recognizing the metropolitan landscape as a source of abstraction. He points out both the artistic and urban elements that constantly reappear in an ever-changing metropolis. His use of primary colors refer to the scaffoldings surrounding buildings in his monochromatic blue paintings constructed on plywood, and his painted light bulbs and fixtures allude to the loft spaces in industrial buildings where artists initially work before the gentrification process takes over.

A.K. Burns is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Burns is a founding member of the artists activist group W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy), and co-editor of RANDY, an annual trans-feminist arts magazine. Burns released the acclaimed feature-length video, Community Action Center in collaboration with with A.L. Steiner in 2010, and maintains an ongoing site-specific collaboration with partner Katherine Hubbard. Burns’ work has been exhibited internationally at the Tate Modern, London; TAG, The Hague, NL; The Andy Warhol Museum, PA; The Museum of Modern Art, The Hessel Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, and Sculpture Center, all in NY. She received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Bard College. A.K. Burns is represented by Callicoon Fine Arts.

Giandomenico Tonatiuh Pellizzi (G.T. Pellizzi) was born in 1978 in the state of Morelos, Mexico. He studied philosophy at St Johns College and is a graduate from The Channin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union. From 2001-2011, Pellizzi co-founded and has been involved in various art collectives, with whom he has exhibited at the Whitney Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, Centre Pompidou, PAC Murcia, and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and various art galleries in New York, Zurich, Berlin and London. Currently he collaborates with several characters of his own making in the guise of different personalities, of which G.T. Pellizzi is one. Pellizzi lives between New York and Mexico.

Since its inception only a year and a half ago, the gallery has taken on a challenging program leading to a change of location in November 2012. Travis Boyer and A.K Burns / G.T. Pellizzi are the inaugural shows in this new 2,200 sq ft. exhibition space. Vogt Gallery is committed to bringing attention to the complex artistic and cultural ties that bind New York to both Europe and Latin America.

For further details including images please contact Fabian Bernal at [email protected] or at 212.255.2671.