Lisa Cooley Fine Art + ISSUE Project Room Present: “Creswell Crags” exhibition opening with live performances by: Barry Weisblat + Toshio Kajiwara + Aki Onda + Margarida Garcia + Bryan Eubanks

Sun 14 Sep, 2008, 6pm
Lisa Cooley Fine Art

As I travel through the mountain these spears, these crosses, these trefoils, these leafy hearts, these composite crosses, these triangles, these creatures facing each other and opposing each other to mark their eternal conflict, their divisions, their duality, awaken strange memories in me. I seemed to read everywhere a story of childbirth in war, a story of genesis and chaos… There is… a music of numbers and this music which reduces the chaos of the material world to its principles expl’l2ains by a kind of awesome mathematics how nature is ordered and how she directs the birth of forms that she pulls out of chaos and everything I saw seemed to correspond to a number – the statues, the forms, the shadows, always presented these recurring numbers… - Antonin Artuad, “The Mountain of Signs” from Voyage to the Land of the Tarahumara

Lisa Cooley presents Creswell Crags, an exhibition examining aspects of the primal or the ancient. The exhibition will run from September 7th until October 5th and will feature painting, photography, sculpture, weaving and video from Mark Barrow, Michael Bauer, Josh Faught, Frank Haines, Alex Hubbard, Rashid Johnson, Zak Prekop, Alan Reid, Erin Shirreff and J. Parker Valentine.
The exhibition’s title derives from a particular British Paleolithic site of the same name. Such a specific title allows the exhibition to bind together disparate threads running through the works presented, many of which utilize essential materials like raw wood, wax, plaster, cloth and torn paper. Several works concern primitive crafts like weaving, tool-making, and altar-making, while others specifically address the idea of antiquity. Overall, each work possesses a certain rawness, either in materials, marks, or content.
exhibition images here: http://www.lisa-cooley.com/exhibitions/

Barry Weisblat
Brooklyn born musician
Homemade Modified and Broken Electronics
Collaborations include work with Margarida Garcia, Toshio Kajiwara, Tim Barnes, Ricardo Arias, Sean Meehan, Dion Workman, Andrew Lafkas, Bryan Eubanks

Toshio Kajiwara
A sound performance artist currently based in Tokyo after 20 years in NYC. His obsessive interest in archiving obscure recordings from the times past, naturally extended itself into a series of sound performances using record players and tape machines in early 90’s NYC. Later he toured and recorded as a member of Christian Marclay Trio, and collaborated extensively with Tim Barnes, Peter Kowald, Shelley Hirsch, DJ Olive, Marina Rosenfeld, Barry Weisblat, Margarida Garcia and Okkyung Lee amongst others. Curated “Phonomena” improvisation series at Tonic for its first 5 years and runs the label of the same title. 2008 projects includes a dance piece premiered in Cuba entitled “EIS”, extensive collaboration with a Japanese choreographer Yoko Higashino, and a project entitled “Window Matter” organized in Lisbon by media artists John Klima and Adriana Sa.

Margarida Garcia
Musician born in 1977, Lisbon.
Doublebassist, public activity since 1997.
Some selected music collaborations in live/recording settings include Manuel Mota, Nöel Akchoté, Barry Weisblat, Otomo Yoshihide, Toshio Kajiwara, Oren Ambarchi, Ferran Fages, Alfredo C. Monteiro, Ruth Barberán, John Tilbury, Eddie Prevost, Bryan Eubanks, Andrew Lafkas, Rhodri Davies, David Keenan, Alex Neilson and Aki Onda.

Bryan Eubanks (b. 1977) is a musician and sound artist who focuses on collaborative improvisation and solo musical projects, working in live electronic settings with an instrument of his own design that integrates open-circuits and samplers, as well as in acoustic settings with the Soprano Saxophone. He has worked extensively with Joe Foster, Jean Paul Jenkins, Vic Rawlings, Doug Theriault, Leif Sundstrom (eventually in the duo GOD), and Andrew Lafkas. He has released recordings on EMR, Jyrk, Little Enjoyer, and Gameboy and performed music across the US, Europe, Japan, and Korea.http://www.rasbliutto.net/bryaneubanks

Aki Onda is an electronic musician, composer, and photographer. Onda was born in Japan and currently resides in New York. He is particularly known for his Cassette Memories project – works compiled from a “sound diary” of field-recordings collected by Onda over a span of two decades. Onda’s musical instrument of choice is the cassette Walkman. Not only does he capture field recordings with the Walkman, he also physically manipulates multiple Walkmans with electronics in his performances. In another of his projects, Cinemage, Onda produces slide projections of still photo images set to live guitar improvisation. Onda has collaborated with artists such as Michael Snow, Ken Jacobs, Alan Licht, Loren Connors, Oren Ambarchi, Noël Akchoté, Jac Berrocal, Linda Sharrock, and Shelley Hirsch. www.akionda.net

Lisa Cooley Fine Art
34 Orchard Street
http://www.lisa-cooley.com/
$5 6-8pm