Artists Space

Salad Days

July 15 – July 31, 2004

A person's "salad days" are the days of youth, when he or she is "green" (without experience), but fresh and hopeful.…The important connotation of the phrase is the sense of crisp, fresh youth, tossed with abandon and topped with the tangy vinaigrette of boundless optimism.

– The Word Detective, Evan Morris, 1998

Artists: Brigitte Boyer, Ross Cisneros, Drew Gilmore, Lisa Hamilton, Jiae Hwang, Ezra Johnson, Claudia Joskowicz, Emily Katrencik, Lisi Raskin, Jackie Salloum, Matthew Siegle, Hank Willis Thomas

Curators: Tomoko Ashikawa, Isolde Brielmaier, Jennifer Chapek, Amy Davila, Dean Daderko, Louky Keijsers, Heather Kouris, Luisa Lagos, Jennifer Musawwir, Nicole Russo, Jeffrey Walkowiak, Letha Wilson

A fruit salad with watermelon, oranges, berries, and more in a metal dish, as if at a deli station. Overlaid white text in script reads "Salad Days."
[A fruit salad with watermelon, oranges, berries, and more in a metal dish, as if at a deli station. Overlaid white text in script reads "Salad Days."]

Salad Days presents the work of twelve emerging artists who are at a particular moment in their artistic career described as their “salad days”. Ten emerging curators were invited by Artists Space’s Associate Curator, Letha Wilson, and Program Coordinator, Jennifer Chapek, to work collaboratively on this exhibition and each select one artist.

This group of curators, also in their "salad days," met several times to address conceptual and organizational aspects of the show. Each curator brings to the table their unique curatorial perspective and experience, reflected in their choice of artists.

The end result is an exhibition that showcases an exciting group of artists at the beginning of their careers and provides them with an opportunity to present their work to a broad audience. In order to shed light on the curatorial process, each curator will present both an essay on the work of the artist they have chosen, and an essay expressing their own curatorial perspectives and philosophies.

The exhibition will also be accompanied by three public events called Salad Expos. At each event four artists, along with the curators by whom they were chosen, will participate in activities ranging from discussions to performances.

Hank Willis Thomas’ images and objects explore the tenuous relationship between history, the body, race, class and commercial markets, visually examining the ways in which each of these aspects comes to bear on today's carefully and intentionally developed products, logos and corresponding ad campaigns.

Claudia Joskowicz's work focuses on the lapses in narrative that are formed when texts or events are taken out of their original context and represented through popular media; be it television, film or the internet.

Drew Gilmore takes urban icons and objects and transforms them through specific materials into minimal sculpture and installation. The content of his work is a re-evaluation and contemplation of urban experience though specific building types or geological formation, often skewing or reversing their original meanings.

Jackie Salloum’s Arabs-a-Go-Go presents a lively video montage of Middle Eastern films from the 1930’s through 70’s paired with an equally invigorating soundtrack. Salloum’s video is a reminder that lighthearted, popular culture occurs around the globe and despite regional/ethnic variations, they share the characteristic youthful and good-humored elements of American pop culture.

In the paintings of Lisa Hamilton, fragments of reality, perceptions, thoughts and dreams weave in and out of the picture plane as exact lines, dizzying swirls, and quasirepresentational images. This confrontation takes place on wood panels, creating places of tension with the vibrantly colored paint.

In the series I am the Real Princess of the Magical Land, Jiae Hwang confronts the images of power, youth, hope, and uncanny innocence as a statement of individualism or standardization. In these works, the artist celebrates and neutralizes reality by deploying a weapon of cartoon-like figures (anime) to reinterpret the universal image of school girls’ uniforms.

Ross Cisneros’ Native is a video work that addresses the evangelical concerns of the artist and Bubbles, the film’s narrator. Native is a duel between the existential real, the myth of the West, and what’s cool.

Through her own experiences with chemotherapy as an early adolescent, Brigitte Boyer’s work, The Sick Collection, discusses issues of the human body, the inorganic versus the organic, the natural against the fabricated. By using modern medical practice as a vehicle to visualize her experiences, her work portraits how the human body could be changed into a different form, like a cyborg.

Lisi Raskin’s projects include mock test sites, fictional neurotic scientists and make-believe spaceships that are at once playful and carefree but also laden with anxiety and fear. Her most recent work = (equals) is a landscape portrait that examines and compares three different sites: the desert, an active nuclear power
plant, and an Olympic diving and swimming pool that was once a large Jewish cemetery.

Ezra Johnson uses painting, drawing, and sculpture to create pieces that capture everyday scenes and commercial products. His work can be seen as a filter through which cultural clutter is processed, blending together the media’s constant bombardment of images to create a balanced scene from all the chaos.

Matt Siegle constructs meticulous collages of Sports Illustrated football players and greeting card animals using quotidian materials such as plastic baggies, Scotch tape, discarded frames and contact paper. These iconic figures are placed within a new context, giving the viewer a fresh look at banal images and prosaic resources.

In Architecture: Consuming that Which Consumes Emily Katrencik examines space and architecture by balancing between social boundaries and structures. Part of the piece presents lollipops made from sugar, corn syrup and concrete of a Le Corbusier building, suggesting an invitation for the spectator to consume
the wall alongside the artist.

July 21, 2004

Salad Expos
Public Event
6-8 pm

A rectangular, 3x5 grid hung on a white wall, comprised of close-up photographs of the inside of people
Salad Days. Installation view, Artists Space, 2004. [A rectangular, 3x5 grid hung on a white wall, comprised of close-up photographs of the inside of people's mouths. Just in front of the wall to the left of the photographs, there is a white plinth with a black Converse shoe, a false shin extending out of it, with a metal bone coming out of the top.]
A black converse shoe with a white sock. Extending out of the shoe is a white plastic false shin with a metal bone coming out of the top.
Salad Days. Installation view, Artists Space, 2004. [A black converse shoe with a white sock. Extending out of the shoe is a white plastic false shin with a metal bone coming out of the top.]
Two white models of large buildings sitting on a wooden floor. Between the two models is a large mound of dirt.
Salad Days. Installation view, Artists Space, 2004. [Two white models of large buildings sitting on a wooden floor. Between the two models is a large mound of dirt.]
Two paintings hung on white walls meeting in a corner. The paintings are colorful, predominantly pink and red.
Salad Days. Installation view, Artists Space, 2004. [Two paintings hung on white walls meeting in a corner. The paintings are colorful, predominantly pink and red.]
A red stripe is painted on a white wall. Hung in the red stripe are twenty sheets of white paper with a single figure drawn on each one.
Salad Days. Installation view, Artists Space, 2004. [A red stripe is painted on a white wall. Hung in the red stripe are twenty sheets of white paper with a single figure drawn on each one.]
A white wall with orange and yellow lollipops arranged in lines. In front of the wall is a small television on a white plinth.
Salad Days. Installation view, Artists Space, 2004. [A white wall with orange and yellow lollipops arranged in lines. In front of the wall is a small television on a white plinth.]
Photographs hung on a wall in two rows. The top row photographs are outlined in black and show images of people inside an apartment. The bottom row photographs show people on a subway.
Salad Days. Installation view, Artists Space, 2004. [Photographs hung on a wall in two rows. The top row photographs are outlined in black and show images of people inside an apartment. The bottom row photographs show people on a subway.]
    An image of a factory with smokestacks on concrete, just behind a body of water surrounded by long grasses.
    Lisi Raskin, still from = (equals), 2004. [An image of a factory with smokestacks on concrete, just behind a body of water surrounded by long grasses.]