REFERENCE - EXHIBITIONS


	CURRENT
	MUTE Work by John Henderson and Justin Swinburne Opening Reception Friday August 27th, 7-10pm John Henderson's Casts are aluminum casts of paintings made by the artist. In a sense, these casts extend the lifespan of the originals, re-imagining the paintings' fragile materials in impervious metal. However, they also exist as something like a death mask for paintings no longer with us—the original "mother" paintings are destroyed during the casting process. Henderson's Flowers are documentation of photographs which the artist has augmented with oil paint. The subject matter of the original photographs—a flower stand in an outdoor market—is simultaneously obscured and parodied by the paint, whose decorative blur is not unrelated to the floral imagery. These works point to the parallels between flowers and paintings, the inescapable pull of the aesthetic and their function as pieces of capital. Justin Swinburne's Screens are photographs of the artist's iPhone screen, printed larger-than-life on aluminum sheets. The enlarged incidental smears of oil on glass reveal images that point to a hybridization of humanistic expression (vis-a-vis 20th Century abstract painting) and technological mediation. The Screens depict technology shut off and dimmed to the point of revealing its user's trace. Swinburne's Scans present gestural compositions that upon further inspection reveal themselves as digital prints. Made with the pseudo photographic process of digital scanning, these latently dynamic images point to their lack of physical identity and emphasize a flattening and digitization of texture, color and light. John Henderson (b. 1984, Minneapolis) lives and works in Chicago. He has been involved in recent exhibitions at Elephant, Los Angeles, Monument 2, Chicago, and Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center, Chicago. Justin Swinburne (b. 1985, Los Angeles) lives and works in Southern California. He has recently been involved in exhibitions at The Forgotten Bar Project, Berlin, Co-lab Gallery, Copenhagen, and Kavi Gupta Gallery, Berlin. http://www.johnhendersonart.com/ http://justinswinburne.com/

	PAST

	zu täuschen den Schutzhund August 14th-21st REFERENCE Art Gallery is pleased to announce a show featuring works by AIDS-3D (Berlin), Ben Schumacher (NYC) and Victor Vaughn (Baltimore), curated by James Shaeffer. As the Internet has increasingly become a source for not only the exhibition of art but also the transfer of artworks so has ideas of dematerialization and issues of originality in artwork come into question again. Now artworks can be created on a computer and sent to multiple participants simultaneously while also exhibited online. Images, 3D models, and videos can all be reproduced ad infinitum and exhibited endlessly. Featuring works by AIDS-3D, Ben Schumacher, and Victor Vaughn; each artist presents pieces that address concurrent issues of originality, distance, immaterialism and reproduction – a theme attended to with the actual exhibition itself. Concomitantly with the exhibition at P·P·O·W, all the work will be available for free download off the Internet and simultaneously shown at REFERENCE Art Gallery in Richmond, VA.


	Space Slave Trade Presents: THEY TOL' ME TO CUT MY FUCKIN MUSIC DOWN I DON'T WANNA CUT MAH FUCKIN MUSIC DOWN GIMME A BEER RIGHT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOWW!!!!!! New work by Seychelle Obsidian Digiomi Allah and Chinonyeelu Uchechi Amobi Opening reception Friday July 16, 2010 7-11pm show runs through July 31st http://www.spaceslavetrade.com/


	Subtraction: New Work by Jesse Robinson June 4th-30th 2010 www.jesserobinson.net REFERENCE Art Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by Los Angeles artist Jesse Robinson. By reinterpreting commonplace objects and structures as platforms, alternative propositions of use and function are presented. Through sculpture, photography, video, and painting Jesse’s work exhibits that the use and misuse of objects can be a highly charged gap filled with both friction and possibility. Subtraction: the act of decreasing or reducing something. In terms of sculpture, a ‘subtractive’ process is the removal of material to reveal form. This idea is a way to frame the following collection of two-dimensional and three-dimensional works. The difference, however, is that here the material ‘subtracted’ is amplified through (conspicuous) absence revealing the form of the negative space. In the untitled video, what appears to be a still image subtly changes as the clouds move in real time and the highlights on the chairs appear and disappear. The two folding chairs upholstered in green screen fabric are, in the video, replaced with the ethereal hypnotic movements of the clouds. The ubiquitous structure of the folding chair becomes a frame or container, collapsing the space between product photography and fantasy and between static and active. In the Simple Pleasure of Organization the shirt is “worn” by an aluminum sculpture, allying the corporal satisfaction of scratching with a more cerebral formal structure. The t-shirt is a novelty back scratching t-shirt that has a grid printed on it, so as to help facilitate the precise location of an itch. The t-shirt becomes an intersection of two seemingly disparate ideas: structure and pleasure. - Jesse Robinson

	EXIT LIGHT - May 7th-28th 2010 Artists: Joshua Abelow, Meghan Brady, Talia Chetrit, Brian Chippendale, Martha Clippinger, Alexander Conner, Wesley Friedrich, EJ Hauser, Kaite Herzog, Michael Kennedy Costa, Frankie Martin, Ross Moreno, Craig Olson, Eddie Peake, Richard Roth, Vlad Smolkin, Ann Trondson, Keith J. Varadi Opening Friday May 7th, 7-11pm Closing Friday May 28th, 7-11pm Opening Night Performances by: The American Short Story, Picayune, Pink Type Closing Night Performances by: Diamond Black Hearted Boy Haunted Houses Ramz Nailz Wesley Friedrich



	Enquire Within Upon Everything : New Work by Rhys Himsworth April 23rd-May 2nd 2010 Opening Reception Friday April 23rd 7-10pm www.rhyshimsworth.com

	Friday April 16th 7-11pm, One night only Punishing Prints

	The Silence of God, The Unbearable Silence of God March 26th-April 15th 2010 Featuring work by: Matthew Brett (Richmond) Andrew Laumann (Baltimore) Jason Lazarus (Chicago) Peter Sutherland (New York) Ann Woo (Hong Kong) Damon Zucconi (New York) Opening Reception Fri March 26th from 7-11pm The works exhibited are representations of immaterialism, obliqueness, mysticism, and white noise. With one exception, the artists have either removed the central subject of their work, offered the impossible, or have attempted to replace what has been taken away – all examples of the mysterious and perplexing. By either showcasing absence or challenging what we believe to be incredulous we are forced as viewers to put together aspects of narrative and plausibility in our mind. Many of these works provoke a frustration in the mind of the viewer. The show title comes from the following story - When collector Dominique de Menil was asked about the attraction to Rothko’s works he said that his works evoke “the mystery of the cosmos, the tragic mystery of our perishable condition,[and] the silence of God, the unbearable silence of God.” Download an essay for the show here - http://freepdfhosting.com/ae91cb645e.pdf

	"Scouting Foul" New work by Ryan Crowley February 12th - March 6th Opening Reception February 12th from 7-11pm

	"Mirrors" January 23rd-February 6th 2010 The internet has dramatically increased the availability of documentation of art produced and exhibited around the world. This increase has corresponded with a new reliance on images as a means of consuming art and art exhibitions. For many exhibitions, the audience for the installation views outnumbers visitors to the venue itself. As a result of this shift, the photographers who produce these images and the institutions that edit them mediate our understanding and experience of art. Despite decades of art and criticism deflating the aura of objectivity surrounding both institution and photograph, they continue to wield substantial influence over how we see and read art exhibitions. What is the role of the physical exhibition venue in the era of immaterial reproduction? This show subverts the traditional relationship between object, exhibition and documentation, a relationship built on the economic model of galleries and museums and objects for sale. Using photographs of the exhibition site empty and images of artworks photographed elsewhere, composite images are created as installation views of a hypothetical exhibition. These composited installation images are then distributed by the gallery’s website. The exhibit will culminate in a projection of these images directly from the gallery’s website within the gallery itself. This circular presentation is meant to challenge the boundaries of where we locate value in art. The institution, the first hand experience and digital documentation are all melted into one, leaving the viewer to decide where art took place.

	"NO PROMO" November 20th-December 31st 2009 Featuring work by: Kari Altmann (New York) Øyvind Aspen (Norway) Caitlin Denny (San Francisco) Jessica Hans (Baltimore) Nina Hartmann (Chicago) Parker Ito (San Francisco) Michael Muelhaupt (Richmond) Whitney Rainey (Richmond) Lazaro Rodriguez (Miami) Opening Reception November 20th from 7-11pm

	"No Hay Banda" October 9th-31st 2009 Featuring work by: Michelle Ceja (San Francisco) Petra Cortright (Berlin) Brenna Murphy (Portland) Ben Schumacher (New York) Will Simpson (New York) Travess Smalley (New York) Victor Vaughn (Richmond) Opening Reception October 9th from 7-11pm


	EXHIBITION PROPOSALS Click on the image to the left for information on submitting a proposal for showing work at Reference.


	PROPOSE AN EXHIBITION IN GOOGLE 3D WAREHOUSE Click on the image to the left for more information.