Nora Salzman: Studies and Specimens

 

PHILADELPHIA ‐ Tiger Strikes Asteroid is pleased to announce the opening of our May exhibition,Studies & Specimens, featuring work by TSA member Nora Salzman. This exhibition is Nora Salzman’s first solo show with the gallery.

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In Studies & Specimens, Salzman presents a single display cabinet. Building on her interest in the mechanisms of art and museum display, Salzman inverts her usual artistic process by making the display cabinet her point of departure rather than the creation of the art object. This inversion makes the display a speculative element internal to the art process that ultimately dictates what will be made to fit within.  Accordingly, art making itself is recast through a consideration of that which is generally conceived to be a subsequent curatorial decision. 

Nora Salzman received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She was awarded the Fleisher Wind Challenge grant and was a fellow in residence at the MacDowell Colony.  

Nora Salzman: Studies and Specimens
May 3 – May 26, 2013
Opening Reception: Friday, May 3, 6-10pm
Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment
(484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

Studies and Specimens on The Artblog

Nora Salzman’s showcase of display at TSA

By chip schwartz

May 24, 2013   

Nora Salzman’s first solo show at Tiger Strikes Asteroid is as much an experiment in curation and display as the art objects themselves. In “Studies and Specimens,” Salzman expertly constructs one centrally located cabinet which houses two opposing bodies of work – one three dimensional, the other painted. Both are based on the human form, but otherwise seem as if they were drawn from two entirely different collections.

Salzman merges traditional concepts with distinctly contemporary aesthetic elements

One side of the Plexiglas-laden structure in the middle of the gallery includes portraits of a man painted onto a series of panels. These views depict the male figure in a number of poses and hues. The colors range from completely desaturated black and white images to true-color skin tones with the occasional accent of violet or blue. An otherwise mundane splash of green hues glowing behind the man in the farthest right image stands out as the only real concentration of pigment in the show that strays much farther than black, white, or Caucasian-peach.

The portraits all possess the feel of computer self shots or smart phone captures. Their true origin goes unmentioned, but whether or not Salzman began with digital images is unimportant; the ubiquity of web-based images forces us into general acceptance of their earnestness and context in the present. A couple of white strands on the subject’s hoodie could easily be iPod earbuds, and a double-take is necessary to confirm that they are not.

While a few more traditionally inspired paintings may seem apropos for an exhibit emphasizing museum fixtures, they would also seem dishonest in a space like Tiger. Salzman appropriately finds a midpoint between traditional portraiture and contemporary art instead, toeing the line between haute and hipster.

Walking around to the flip side of the display case, one is confronted by a dissection table of three-dimensional anatomical casts – pieces that would seem more at home in a natural history museum than an art collection. A pair of forearms, two shins with their attached feet, and a mask-like, eyeless face reside behind the transparent cover, resembling a taxidermy workshop or institutional biology lesson. Tiny brackets and a white, head-shaped rest hold the parts in place without detracting from their forms or their visibility. The display case, in other words, exists as an invisible frame for the art contained within.

For Salzman, display is of equal importance to the art itself

The structure of the display case itself is both stable and effective. The craftsmanship of the components is clean and exact, revealing an attention to detail that moves beyond the art objects themselves and into the strange and overlooked arena of design that is not meant to be noticed. Curiously enough, Salzman makes this nebulous practice her focal point – and with apparent zeal at that. Perhaps only a venue such as this could effectively showcase a show of showcases, and the artist embraces this seriously self-referential theme unironically.

Vessels for art presentation are not unlike the bread of a sandwich, and Salzman seems adamant that a delicious brie wouldn’t pair too well with Wonder Bread.

The sum of all parts is what makes for a powerful exhibit, and to neglect the artistry of display in the rush to glamorizing the art itself prevents us from seeing the complete picture. The National Gallery surely doesn’t thumbtack its collection wantonly to the walls, and it is wise for living, working artists to exercise similar care and precision in their own displays.

Nora Salzman’s “Studies and Specimens” is a true eye-opener with regard to exposition and arrangement, and it makes a bold statement merely by looking as if nothing is out of place.

Studies and Specimens will be on view at Tiger Strikes Asteroid through May 26.

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Nora Salzman: Studies and Specimens
May 3– May 26, 2013 
Opening reception:  Friday, March 3, 6pm-10pm

Hours:  Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment
(484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

Style Points & Substance Pangs

Style Points and Substance Pangs on The Artblog

A slap of the absurd at Tiger’s Style Points and Substance Pangs

By chip schwartz

April 23, 2013   ·   0 Comments

—Chip deconstructs some perplexing work that deals with corporate logos, cat conundrums and cross-cutural cartoons.  A fun show of absurdist humor. –the artblog editors———————————–Tiger Strikes Asteroid takes a foray into an ambivalent and over-saturated world in its April exhibition “Style Points and Substance Pangs” curated by Rachel LaBine and Keith J. Varadi. Three artists have work in the show: Jamian Juliano Villani, Emily Ludwig Shaffer, and Edward Marshall Shenk, and the work is, at times, difficult to find an entry point into, but when there is a way in, the images likely leave the viewer even more perplexed  than when they set foot in the gallery.

Shopping mall logos tweaked and out of context

Edward Marshall Shenk’s blandly titled “Diptych” is anything but blasé. Upon entering the gallery, these two canvases stand out as the largest work and the clear centerpiece. One is immediately submerged in a sea of logos and branding not unlike a casual stroll through a shopping district or a brief jaunt onto a retail website. Where Shenk’s work differs is that all of the brands are detached from their actual designs and mixed up with other brands’ designs and colors. It becomes somewhat of a game trying to match the brand names with their actual visual cues.

After a short time, however, it becomes clear that we tend to recognize far more of these companies and products than we expected or even cared to – even when they are mismatched.

Are any of these logos original or are they all just products of the artist’s imagination? Is it even possible to tell, and if so, why exactly does it matter? Just how much of our everyday brainpower is utilized for viewing, processing, and remembering brands and advertisements? While this game of match-the-ads is entertaining, it also provides us with some profoundly disturbing revelations about the nature of how things are sold to us each and every day.

Elsewhere, Shenk presents two original prints applied to the outsides of ‘magic’ coffee mugs sitting on a hot plate. Entitled “Communion,” this piece allows for little formal analysis except for one mug with cartoon pants and shirts applied to what looks like a hardcore pornography scene. These additions presumably appear and disappear with heating like some type of perverted transubstantiation.

Feline mysteries and Shrodinger’s cat

Also a bit concerning, but also smacked with absurdist humor, is Emily Ludwig Shaffer’s pair of paintings. Both are entitled “You Know” and each pose the same question: “Why are you looking at me blonde cat?” On each canvas the form of a yellow cat is the clear focal point, the words of the (rhetorical?) question float around and behind its shape. One of the animals is only a splotchy, cat-shaped blob, and in the other painting, some of the letters are whited out; neither piece seems complete.

We keep felines in our houses and they stare at our utterly alien activities with their large, slit-pupil eyes. Surely no one is positive why the blonde cat looks on, but the artist tells us we do anyway.

Perhaps these paintings are merely Cheshire Cat tautologies lending themselves to an “it is what it is” mentality. After all, while the old adage is that curiosity kills the cat, in this case the results seem more Schrodinger than anything else. The blonde cat is looking and the blond cat is not looking. You know.

Jamian Juliano-Villani presents some of the more vexing work in the show (if that is possible) with her two paintings “New Peking” and “Third World.” These scenes are reminiscent of East Asian prints from ancient China or Japan, but exist as obnoxiously bright renditions of what would otherwise be serene snippets of history. Most of his figures are extremely comical, illustrated with gigantic noses and anatomically incorrect blobs of bodies. Booze is poured from on high into waiting mouths in “Third World,” and lines of dominoes wait to be kicked over in what can only be described as an orgiastic setting. In “New Peking,” a pair of surreal, giant hands form shadow animals behind a drinking couple, the woman’s breasts in full view. Post-coital sake, anyone?

Don’t expect to come away understanding much in “Style Points and Substance Pangs,” but don’t be afraid to accept unknowing either. This show seems to revel in its obtuseness and if anything, it encourages everyone else to, too.

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Style Points and Substance Pangs
April 5th– 28th, 2013 
Opening reception:  Friday, April 5th, 6pm-10pm

Hours:  Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment
(484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

Correspondence I: TSA New York

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Correspondence on KnightArts.org

Tiger Strikes Asteroid’s dual-location correspondence

Published on March 19, 2013 by Chip Schwartz in Philadelphia

Tiger Strikes Asteroid (TSA) is in the midst of a dialogue with their newest manifestation – a second gallery located in Bushwick, Brooklyn. TSA NY, as it has become known, was started after founding member Alex Paik made a move to New York, but continued corresponding with the original Philadelphia TSA space. Throughout March, the TSA NY members are exhibiting their work in Philadelphia as part of the pragmatically named show “Correspondence I: TSA NY.” Come August, the shoe will be on the other foot at the TSA Philadelphia artists exhibit at the Bushwick location.

One standout piece from this first exchange is “Rock (Helmet)” by Norm Paris. Sitting off in the back corner on a shelf, it seems lonely, not only due to its apparent estrangement from the other art, but also due to its emptiness. The original object was an old child’s football helmet, as evidenced by the frayed strap, rusty fastener and overall shape. Paris covered the entire exterior in a chunky gypsum coating, making it seem more like a conglomerate rock or a slab of concrete, thus its primary title. As a helmet it is all but unusable, and it seems more like a fossil than a football accessory, lending to the idea that it is far detached from its original time, place and function.

A mechanical-looking pastel painting by Matt Phillips hangs in the diagonally opposite corner. With a name like “Manual,” it either serves as a colorful reference manual for some fictional machine or merely a device that requires direct human input. Round gear-like sections vary in their rotation, their two-colored circles stopped forever in their last configuration. The belt that seemingly feeds through their spinning parts is also mirrored in the lower left corner in a smaller-scale, bright-green reproduction. This repetition seems instructional but also adds a secondary motif to the otherwise circular shapes that dominate the canvas.

Naomi Reis provides some relief from these other hard-edged and industrial type objects with “In A Grove.” As one might imagine, the imagery Reis utilizes is based in the complex intertwining of natural forms. Immersing oneself in the middle of a forest is an easy way to commune with the earth and get lost in the weaving forms and interconnected systems of nature. Reis takes these notions and adds some splashes of unnatural color into her many, detailed layers, abstracting the experience before bringing it into the white-walled gallery. The piece looks more like a collage of paper cutouts than a painting and provides a small window into nature through the artist’s eyes.

Another three-dimensional work is Tai Yin Ho’s “Boom Bang: Intra-contra-construction.” Here, a hunk of amber colored glass (think Jurassic Park without the DNA-laden mosquito) sits atop a pile of white printer paper. It would seem to be nothing more than a paperweight, until one observes its sharp, treacherous-looking edges. The top sheets of paper all have slashes and tears in them, presumably from the glass. While this shard has an intriguing overall shape and pleasant honeyed hue, it would prove to be a poor paperweight and potentially a hazard to one’s fingers as well.

This first correspondence between TSA NY and TSA Philadelphia will be on view at the Philly gallery space through March 31. At Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Brooklyn, “Correspondence II” will open on August 9.

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CORRESPONDENCE I: TSA NY
March 1st– 31st, 2013 
Opening reception:  Friday, March 1st, 6pm-10pm

Hours:  Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment
(484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

Ed Panar : Animals That Saw Me.

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PHILADELPHIA‐Tiger Strikes Asteroid is pleased to announce the opening of our February exhibition, Ed Panar : Animals That Saw Me. a photographic essay by Ed Panar and a book published by The Ice Plant, a Los Angeles based publisher, curated by TSA member Jaime Alvarez.

From The Ice Plant’s description of the book:

Roaming the natural and urban world with a camera for over 16 years, often alone, on foot, keeping a low profile, Ed Panar has repeatedly been caught in the act of photography—not by other people, but by a random assortment of familiar animals: cows, cats, frogs, dogs, turtles, deer, geese…you name it.

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Animals that Saw Me on The Artblog

How Ed Panar knows that animals saw him – At Tiger Strikes Asteroid

February 13, 2013

by Edward M. Epstein

Hearing about photographer Ed Panar’s exhibition “Animals that Saw Me” at Tiger Strikes Asteroid (to Feb. 24) left me skeptical. How did the artist know it was the animals that saw him? Isn’t this just animal portraiture?

Looking at the work and speaking to curator Jaime Alvarez cured me of my skepticism. A graduate school colleague of Panar’s at the Cranbrook Academy in Michigan, Alvarez explained that Panar photographs obsessively, shooting roll after roll (yes, he still uses film), and only printing a small selection of the pictures he has taken. Panar’s photographs are really a sampling of everything he sees while out in the world. His online collections have titles like Walking Home, The Sun Rises in the East, and 20 New Pictures—suggesting an engagement with the mundane rhythms of everyday life, and a certain randomness in method.

An artist who photographs nearly everything that comes into view would, by mere probability, capture repeated instances of certain objects. In his walking tours of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Los Angeles, California, for example, Panar caught a certain number of utility poles, frame houses, signs and handwritten notes in doorways. Gazing at the contact sheets over the years (works in this exhibition span a period from 1993 to 2010), the artist must have also in certain instances seen a pair of eyes gazing back.

The eyes appear in Big Sur, peering out from behind an enormous tree stump. This image is a study in light, shadow, and texture, and in its sea of dense black, a tiny squirrel holds court. The animal’s gray fur is barely noticeable amidst the gnarled gray of the tree’s bark, captured in rich detail by Panar’s camera and careful printing technique. Detail is abundant in Along the Monongahela River as well. A cat stares out from amidst a thick shag of dried grass and barren branches. In both photographs, the animal is a footnote in the composition —positioned midway between near and far, insignificant in size. Chance is a convincing explanation of its presence, yet it somehow makes the photograph.

Morning Commute and Early June are much more like snapshots, both taken close up and blurred slightly. In the first, a shaft of raking light right reveals a duck insolently flapping its wings—apparently not pleased to find a human in its path. In the second, a deer’s enormous head gazes into a rain soaked car window, not quite the “deer in the headlights” we are used to seeing. Although an animal is a central to both images, its location in the frame is off-center, suggesting that neither was conceived as an animal portrait. It is clear that the non-human is doing the surveillance in these shots.

The cow in California Valley looks much more like a character in a regular animal shot. Gazing over a barbed wire fence on a relentlessly hot day, the brown bovine is planted in the precise center, horns and back aligned with the horizon. Though this image is tightly composed, the cow’s intense stare puts it in the same vein as the others. Her stance and coincidental positioning next to the mailbox reminds us that this is her home, and we are passers-by.

A viewer of “Animals the Saw Me” expecting another zoo full of fluffy friends is bound to be disappointed. Like Panar’s other work, “Animals that Saw Me” is less about the particular objects in view than the patterns in which they occur. Walking through life and picturing the world, we find that others—including some with fur or feathers–are picturing us. This lesson must be obvious to an artist like Panar who is constantly willing to soak up what the world has to offer.

“Animals that Saw Me – Ed Panar,” to Feb 24. Tiger Strikes Asteroid, 319A N. 11th St. 2nd floor

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Ed Panar : Animals That Saw Me
February 1st– 24th, 2013 
Opening reception:  Friday, February 1st, 6pm-10pm

Hours:  Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment
(484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com

The Search for Dispravosláviye in Title Magazine

Cult Logic – Remote Viewing Sister Pauline Turpin

by Ryan McCartney

January 21, 2013

Arriving at Tiger Stikes Asteroid for The Search for Dispravosláviye: Shanna Wadell & Rob Matthews, I already know a few things about the show. Prior to the opening, the gallery posted an extensive discussion between curator Rubens Ghenov, Matthews, and Waddell concerning the show’s focus around cults. Still, I’m not really sure what I expected. Cults are as diverse as they are many, but I was surprised by these works and how their sense of empathy differed from what I had imagined. Leaving the gallery, and thinking more now, I am left considering the nature of compassion.

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The Search for Dispravosláviye on The Artblog

The Search for Dispravosláviye – Rob Matthews and Shanna Waddell tackle the idea of the cult at Tiger

By alison mcmenamin

January 19, 2013   ·   0 Comments

In The Search for Dispravosláviye at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Shanna Waddell and Rob Matthews are thinking about belief systems. Waddell’s works are focused on sixties’ counter culture and cult groups that exploited the cultural revolution. For Rob Matthews, it’s a questioning of dogmatic beliefs and skepticism toward certain religious practices. The show curated by TSA member Rubens Ghenov is on view until January 27.

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The Search for Dispravosláviye: Shanna Wadell & Rob Matthews
Curated by Rubens Ghenov
January 4 - January 27, 2013
Opening Reception: Friday, January 4, 2012, 6pm - 10pm

Hours:  Saturday and Sunday, 2pm-6pm and by appointment
(484)-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid@gmail.com