with a special performance by Sharon VanEtten k

Secret Project Robot is pleased to present Exercises in Futility a photo exhibition, installation and experiment in live cinema conceptualized and arranged by Kevin Buchholz. In this exhibition Kevin’s work plays on the traditional/untraditional role of photography in postmodernism and offers the viewer both an aesthetic treat and an intellectual challenge… As usual it promises to be an amazing show, and we hope you are able to make it by!

Exercises in Futility is a project consisting of 9 photographic sequences, 4 short videos, and a short live piece to be performed at the opening with the remnants left in place in the gallery space for the duration of the show.

The photographs are small (4.5×5.5in) individually framed gelatin silver prints arranged in sequential fashion.

The videos are short (approximately 30 second) clips shown on small displays to mimic the form of the prints in the show.

The performance will involve building a city out of playing cards for approximately one hour and subsequently blowing the city down with a large piece of plywood which will fall from the wall just after the city is finished.

The idea behind the exhibition and the work is to give a palatable example challenging the notion that the act of seeing is an innocuous impulse. Taken from multiple perspectives, including the photographer, the historian, and the viewer the active participant will understand that seeing is anything but objective.

All of the photographs in this series are simple Exercises in Futility and yet without prior knowledge of the photographer’s intent or reference base, which will be hidden until the viewer has traversed the room, the viewer will be forced to recognize how much prior knowledge and judgment they bring to each image.

In these images, pulled from the everyday mundane, the trained mind will find reference to art historical materials, photographers and theories, making the images an intellectual pun. The photographer’s eye will appreciate the quality of the prints, the accuracy of timing the uniformity of color, size and lighting.

The viewer is free to determine the signification or reference for him or herself, finding perhaps an unknown narrative to even the photographer