15 FEBRUARY – 15 JUNE, 2014
four month-long exhibitions
Evelin Stermiz – Andrew Ellis Johnson
Vienne Chan – Paul Barrios
This spring, MIA is excited to be in residence with Outpost@Armory, a program initiative of Armory Center for the Arts, from February 15 to June 15, 2014. The residency will consist of MIA programming four sequential, month-long, video based, solo exhibitions, screened daily in the Armory’s Pasadena Art Alliance Gallery, by international artists who work in moving image. The works may be seen during gallery hours, Tuesday through Sunday, noon – 5pm.
Austrian artist Evelin Stermitz created Water Portrait I-IV (2010), in which women’s faces are reflected in the ripples of the Ljubljanica River in Slovenia. Their words, dedicated to the water, reveal experiences of violence against women. This work will screen from February 15 through March 13.
In Fayoum, Egypt, just after the revolution of January 25, 2011, Andrew Ellis Johnson filmed DESCENSION, a work that places the audience in a suggested majlis, an Arabic meeting room. A second work, Suspension, reads like a visual parable. With an ever-changing light source, a single human foot suspended above a heavy block takes on qualities that suggest conscience, martyrs, and the suspension of time. These works will screen from March 15 through April 13.
Hong Kong-born, Tel Aviv-based Vienne Chan created Attempts at Immutability, which depicts video images of objects and cycles of movement being projected back onto themselves. A second video, V’la’ir, was made in response to recent protests over the rising cost of housing in Tel Aviv. Chan learned Hebrew Sign Language in order to do a manual reading of a line from David Avidan’s poem “Harechovot mamirim l’at” (“and to the city, there is no beginning and there is no end.”), the signing of which she videotaped and projected onto the walls of the city’s buildings. These works will screen from April 15 through May 13.
Colombian artist Paul Barrios created Tres tiempos (Three Times), the title of which refers to visual transformation through material, deconstruction, and construction; in this piece, symbolic objects are seen being ritually buried in three different walls. Nudo de nodos depicts a curious mechanism that transports symbolic items to create relationships between different people. Objects appear as codes, but their interpretation becomes transformed. These works will screen from May 15 through June 13.
About Outpost@Armory
In late 2011, the celebrated artist- and neighborhood-centered organization Outpost for Contemporary Art was at a critical financial and administrative juncture. Rather than see the organization close, Armory Center for the Arts invited Outpost into the Armory fold with the aim of maintaining Outpost’s well-regarded programmatic vitality while augmenting Armory’s spirit and capacity to invent. Through focused planning and collaboration, a vision is emerging for melding Outpost’s international and community-based programs with Armory’s respected gallery and arts education programs.
