DEM PASSWORDS

Abusement is an ambiguous and sometimes unsettling trip into the two hemispheres of the mind Perez; sides analytical and synthesizing. He trades in repugnant imagery of the Youtube variety and of older vintage, in this show, processed and filtered onto 30 meters of framed front and rear-projection screens. His work exists in a video art no-man's land where 70s liquid light shows meet the lustrous quality of big-budget Hollywood filmmaking.

In his latest work, Perez explores corrupted notions of our biological identity. Snake fetus footage, 2 seconds of gore from "Mermaid in a Manhole" looped over and breast-feeding adolescents blend between abstract washes of neon color. "Simple, dumb effects" turn 10 minutes of women's wrestling into something painterly; blown out and slowed down into glowing pulses.

Perez re-casts his taste for Pop banality with a personal and dynamic flair. He brings together sound, light, costume design and performance in a way that makes it easy to pick his style out of a line-up. He is his artwork like people who start to look like the dogs they own for a long time.

Perez is a classically trained filmmaker newly relocated to Los Angeles from Philadelphia; trapped in sunshine, depressed. But the opposite is also true.

Original score throughout. 7-channel video installation.

Danny Perez was born in 1979 in Washington DC. He graduated from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2002 with a BFA in Film/Video. His work has been screened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen and at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. "Oddsac," his feature-length collaboration with Baltimore band Animal Collective was release by Plexifilm in 2010.

It was in the mid-1990's when, as professional skateboarder himself, Greg picked up his first camera, a still camera, and began documenting his life and his friends’ lives within their surroundings, in the streets and on the road.

Selective Memory encompasses sixteen years, combining over 150 still images with unseen archival film and video to offer a true inside glimpse of this particular outsider world.

Most recently included in the American Visionary Art Museum's "What makes us SMILE?" exhibition, Ian's work shared the walls with the likes of Pedro Bell, John Root Hopkins, and even John Waters!

These are some of America's finest self taught artists, and he fit right in with them. His inclusion was not surprising since the funkiness of his characters and the effects of their presence does manage to pull an involuntary smile out of even the most critical viewers.

Each of his new color portraits is singular and unique, yet they are similar to each other like various subtle moods. It is definitely a state of mind we are dealing with when we face these dudes, and the sheer volume of the work is part of the message too. It's just enough to get lost and forget where you started....

Ian Flynn is an LA based artist born and raised in Atwater Village.

He has been showing his work professionally since 2003 and has been a practicing artist for as long as he can remember. Both of his parents are art makers and the act of creating is as natural to him as breathing or blinking.

Enjoy!

- Devin Flynn, artist and brother of Ian

Over an area of roughly 1000 sq ft, Barton casts a supernatural wilderness where, "light is a main character," and "portals, star gates, (and) floating light orbs," exist at "the threshold between the physical...and somewhere else." Barton's multi-dimensional artworks answer to his multi-dimensional conception of space and time with varying degrees of sincerity and jest and with the expressed goal to "put the audience into a state of mind that is conducive to concepts of pretend, imagination, dream and the absurd." The presence of a talking stuffed fox camped out in a fort along the east facing wall of the gallery works to that end.

The lobby area plays host to a life-sized and partly mechanized cut-out of the artist prostrated to an altered state alongside a wearable helmet piped with tones to decalcify your pineal gland (3rd eye), activate your DNA and prepare you for an ascension of human consciousness. Beyond the lobby, the flags of Barton's YESRAD organization - devoted to radical positivity and established in direct response to the activities of his neighbor NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) - herald your arrival into Barton's universe; a "universe made up of vibrating energy," naturally ambiguous but respectful of "technology, the matrix(!), myth, hype, quantum mechanics, (and) life." Hand-sewn textile works wrap and blend the transitional spaces between Barton's constructions and his "instant" 2-D ink-jet printed textures. Approaching the rear of the space, clouds gather where Barton's crystalled mountain sits as a main gathering point for these mysterious energies.

"I'm real psyched on contemporary mythologies...bigfoot, aliens and then you get into quantum physics stuff that almost starts to seem like mythology. Other dimensions. I know some of it is real and I want it to be real but I'm also into it as entertainment as much as sincerely looking to it for hope, inspiration, things like that. I always blend humor with the things that I'm most serious about and then some of the stuff I'm serious about might seem real funny to other people, but I'm not sure how much I'm joking."

Matt Barton lives and works in Colorado where he is professor of 3-D art at the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs. Barton has exhibited at The New Museum of Contemporary Art, Carnegie Museum, Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Biennial and Space 1026.

Quotations by Matt Barton

Ciocci's performance will begin promptly at 9 PM, to be preceded and followed by a DJ presentation by Juiceboxxx.

The following is an interview conducted with Ciocci by Dem Passwords gallery director Sebastian Demian on February 21st, 2011:

Sebastian: What is Poetry in Motion 2 all about?

Jessica: The thing I'm most excited about doing is going out there and doing this performance. And that's really where my energy is right now.

Sebastian: What will the performance be or what has informed or inspired it?

Jessica: It's inspired by... that's a tough question, but it's going to be something totally new for me and for everybody else. And it's inspired by improvisation.

Sebastian: When I look at your artworks whether it's the early comics stuff with Paper Rad or what you are doing now, I feel there is an unifying spirit, but it's hard to pin down. What I love though is seeing things through your lens. I feel like you can take something that is seemingly mundane and through your lens you bring utility to it for me. And I'm trying to figure out, what is it?

Jessica: I'm curious how you would describe that or how you see it.

Sebastian: I think there is a peace frequency that is always being touched on and I've described your work as disarmingly charming. I don't even know if that really captures it for me but that's what it is. It's disarming. You take the sting out of a pop-up AD in a way. I think it's rooted in do-it-yourself, and I think of you as one of the key figures from this East Coast do-it-yourself renaissance that happened in the late 90s early 2000s. At home, but so sophisticated and thoughtful. It may appear simple on the surface but there is so much more and that's what I mean by, "through your lens this stuff is given utility." There is this density to the experience. You can look at a thumbnail jpeg and all of a sudden I'm plunged into the enormity of the experience of Jessica's work. But I didn't have to see 1,000 pictures to do it, it just took a lo-res thumbnail and somehow now, I'm here in her world.

Jessica: I think you're on to something. There are a lot of words that could be thrown around. There is a lot of information out there. It seems like what this is all about is what I've been paying attention to and the fact that there is a lot of care and thought put into it. And it's almost like every single thing I've done, it doesn't really matter what the form is because that's always changing. It's going to reflect the importance of what I'm focusing on. This is kind of a complex idea that I've been putting a lot of thought into and writing about by myself, but I think the performance will be about this. It will be about being present. It's just life. It's a destination and a jumping off point. So it's something that I've been thinking about and moving towards over the past year very intuitively and in an improvised way and the past couple of months I've had a lot of time to stay still and sort of reflect on all of this. So in a way, this will be coming back into action.

Sebastian: Will you be debuting any DJ mixes? Is that a part of the show?

Jessica: One could say that the whole show could be considered a DJ mix. I may bring things to hand out to the audience. It might be in the form of Xerox or MP3s.

Sebastian: What is the connection to "Poetry in Motion 1-2" from 2001?? Was that a zine that you guys published?

Jessica: Yeah, that was one of the first zines we did. That was right when Jacob (Ciocci) had moved to Boston and we both met Ben (Jones) and started Paper Rad and it was really formed out of the spirit back then that I've been reflecting on a lot lately, which I think can be found in some of the writings in that zine which were based on Ben making these poems on his own and then me kind of spontaneously coming up with these funny poems about, not about anything, but just writing down these things flowing spontaneously when I would be at work trying to entertain myself. We both discovered that we had been making these poems and we brought them together and made this really ridiculous book out of them and we were excited about that. And the other thing that I think is in the spirit... I think the name just says it all, but the other thing in the spirit of all of this is a zine that Jacob and I made. Jacob is my brother, you know, so we share a love for goofing off and being silly and that's where, you could say, laughter comes in. We made something called "Product Brainstorming"* which was just like ad-libbing and coming up with ideas that are pretty ridiculous. It's not serious or cool, but that was really the foundation for what we were doing at the time, so I've just been reflecting on that.

Sebastian: What do you feel about the Internet and it's relation to your artwork or your daily life.

Jessica: I think about it a lot. It's just a part of life. It's a part of my life. I think it's always changing and that's the nature of it. It is, one could say, Poetry in Motion. (laughs) That's kind of what I've been doing for the past year, getting back into the Internet and trying to stay with it and intuitively figuring it out. When I started using Twitter I didn't know what the hell it was but I jumped in and believed that anything is possible. And I wanted to push that and figure out what it was and how people were using it and then I think I finally understood how most people use it, and in some ways that made it less interesting. But there are always new avenues opening up as long as you have your eyes open, and that is constantly happening for me in life and on the Internet. It's the same thing. It's important to always have your eyes open and be aware.

Sebastian: Recently you have been more out in the open. You can be contacted on Twitter and I think that's in large part how I came to be doing this show, because you were out and accessible. Is that something you've been excited about?... Immersing yourself more in the world that before you would process? Your drawings were processing a Pop world and now it's, "Hey, I'm in the world now!"

Jessica: That's exactly it. Feeling less subject to the world and becoming the subject. Allowing that. I think a lot of Paper Rad stuff had to do with...well it was about a lot of stuff, but maybe it had to do with how culture can feel overwhelming and just reflecting that feeling...the input. And in a way the "grid drawings"** that I did were kind of a transition out of that period for me and that was a way of focusing on one thing and keeping track. Kind of like a way of coming out of being overwhelmed by input by outputting something. One thing at a time. Now I feel like I'm more interested in the balance and the flow between input and output. It's about being the subject versus recording what's going on.

Jessica Ciocci has exhibited in the US and abroad at galleries including The New Museum of Contemporary Art, Whitney Museum for American Art, Deitch Projects, Pace Wildenstein, Foxy Production, John Connelly Presents, Daniel Reich Gallery and Tate Britian, among others.

*http://jacobciocci.org/2011/02/product-brainstorming/ **http://rhizome.org/editorial/2009/sep/2/eleven-evocations-for-paper-rad/

And to preserve their symbolic value, Santoro is careful to make images that allude to - but never indulge in - narrative. Instead he likens them to the frescos discovered in Pompeii and Herculaneum: charged, often erotic, images of Venus, Hecate, and other gods that underpinned and explained Roman daily life. Those frescos, and the work presently on display, are unprecious exaltations to the forms and ideas that move us.

Frank Santoro has previously exhibited in New York and Switzerland. He has published comics and zines including Incanto, Chimera and Cold Heat. He is also the author of the graphic novel Storeyville (PictureBox). Currently at work on an animated film and a new picture narrative, Santoro lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA.

- Dan Nadel writer / Picturebox publisher

Nazi Knife brings together artists from various radical scenes of creation in the USA, France, Finland and Belgium, united by a raw and deliberate style founded in the spirit of do-it-yourself, at home experimentations in sound and on paper.

Nazi Knife's artistic direction, deliberately obscure and cryptic, explores the marriage of Utopia and totalitarianism, capitalist science fiction and hippie psychedelism, with roots in the American Noise music scene and under the influence of the weirder holdings of Parisian cult bookstore Un Regard Modern.

"As soon as the word Nazi is read, obvious suspicion and a beginning of faintness may occur. But, it is necessary to exceed the title to be plunged in what there is to see: rough and punk drawings, which do not make distinction between good and bad taste." - Joseph Ghosn

Jonas Delaborde and Hendrik Hegray will produce a wall drawing for the show and will have for viewing their latest publications, False Flag and Nazi Knife #7. Contributors Ryan Riehle and James Ferraro will present music.

Created between 2007 and 2010, Secret Education offers the first glimpse into the advanced state of the visual language Perry has pursued for the last five decades.

With paintings extending out of his legacy as a songwriter and layered in the spirit of his 4-track studio masterworks, Perry incorporates the vibrant color palette of the Rastafarians, sometimes invoking the power of a West Indian form of black magic known as Obeah and referencing holy texts alongside comic strip superheroes.

His singular style is the nexus of a highly personal brand of Christian mysticism and a Pop world he is in part responsible for creating. Made with a ritualistic precision and and a quality of purpose that defies his reputation as a madman, this first exhibition of works by Lee "Scratch" Perry marks a watershed moment in the timeline of one of the 20th century's most celebrated creative figures.

Lee "Scratch" Perry was born in Kendal, Jamaica on March 20, 1936. As a key architect of the Jamaican music explosion, Perry crafted the sounds, gathered the artists and infused Reggae's top performers and foremost figures with the spirit and aesthetic that would become the hallmark of the genre.

With an inimitable style and a flair for experimentation, Lee Perry blazed a trail unparalleled in music. In the 1970s, Perry brought Reggae to the wider world, winning the support of British fans and artists including The Clash, Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones while commanding the streets and the burgeoning Punk movement. In the 1980s, he launched into Techno music. In the 1990s, Lee became a mentor figure for the Beastie Boys and enjoyed a renaissance with American fans. Since the late 1990s, Lee Perry has toured the globe relentlessly as a solo performer, selling out shows from San Francisco to Sydney. In 2003 Perry won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album, an honor he was nominated for again in 2008.

Lee Perry's documentary portrait, "The Upsetter," narrated by Benicio Del Toro, will be in theaters, on DVD and VOD in 2011 and his encyclopedic biography, "People Funny Boy," by David Katz, is available worldwide.