Saturday, December 12, 2009

Brian Clifton & Morgan Jones


PUBLIC SURFACE presents:


MORGAN JONES
arithmetic sculpture

BRIAN CLIFTON

I want to believe in something. My stepfather recently passed away. NFS. ‘Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind’. Self-stylization distorts a genuine personality. Feeling openly influenced by someone, and this being a sign of love. February 2008. My sense of self as formless and relative. Compassion. I enjoy nice lighting

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Opens December 13, 1 - 6 p.m.
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http://www.briancliftonstudio.com/

http://www.morganrushjones.com/
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Saturday, November 7, 2009

The Modern extended


The Modern
will be extended until November 15

Make an appointment at any time or come by Sundays between 1 & 6 p.m

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The Modern

a group show with:


JEFFREY TRANCHELL
JACOB GRØNBECH JENSEN

KYLE KNODELL
SUSANNE PERSSON

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”Art has shown that it is a question of determining the relations. It has revealed that the forms exists only for the creation of relationships; that forms create relation and that relations create forms. In this duality of forms and their relations neither takes precedence.” – Piet Mondrian, “Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art (Figurative Art and Nonfigurative Art)”

”These visions call themselves new planes, because of their meeting in a new unknown (the plane of non-agreement). [---] it will pass from its false absolute, through a series of relative values, in to a new absolute value, true and poetic.” – Max Ernst, “What is the mechanism of Collage”

”Reason has robbed man of his roots. He leads a tragic life.” – Jean Arp, “Abstract Art, Concrete Art”



The Modern

Ever since it emerged in Europe between the two world wars, artists have sought to relate to modernism and it's different expressions. For this exhibition Public Surface is proud to present a group of artists that unite in an exploration of modernist traditions.

Having in common the usage of montage or assemblage and a play with surface and the plane of field, the show includes work that in different ways work with plasticity and the extension of visual limits.


All artists work with various collage techniques, creating new meanings through a poetic language built by remnants from the everyday.


Jeffrey Tranchell's collages consists of magazine pages that are "price marked" with tags like the ones to be found on fruits in the grocery stores in the US. The popular theme in the three pieces, the usage of the fashion industry and the enhancing of that industry's commercial tone, got a pop art quality, but Tranchell is above all engaged in a play with surface and dimensions. By sticking price tags on the prints Tranchell focus on the pure form of the two elements. The rectangle forms in bright solid colors break down the illusion of depth in the photograph that makes up the ad, and stubbornly points to the two-dimensional surface.


Similarly, Susanne Persson's untitled print shows us a photograph, taken from a website where people post machines for sale, with a part of the photograph blocked out. A white rectangle, stretched across the surface negates the image. While breaking down the illusive elements that constitutes photography, it simultaneously creates new ones.

In his digital collages, Kyle Knodell creates optical illusions simply by pasting one photograph on top of another. Like the abstract expressionists he acknowledges and challenges the eyes physical procedure. The three-dimensional scenes in the photographs of building materials scattered in different rooms are in the process of viewing transformed into two-dimensional blocks of color.


In this remix of modernism the artists sample and play with artistic leftovers. Weaving together disparate ideas they create collages not only in a physical sense but also intellectually. Whereas the modernist period gave us clear definitions and opposed tendencies, they are here merged together. In the modernist tradition the figurative and non-figurative where held separate as two different ways to approach and view the world. Since then this separation has been dissolved. Now, everything is transformed into the same thing.

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Saturday, October 3, 2009

The Modern


PUBLIC SURFACE presents The Modern
a groupshow with
:

JEFFREY TRANCHELL
JACOB GRØNBECH JENSEN
KYLE KNODELL
SUSANNE PERSSON


Join us for the opening this Sunday October 4, 4 - 6 p.m.

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Saturday, September 12, 2009

Niklas Tafra Audio Walk


Tomorrow is the last day of Niklas Tafra's exhibition at PUBLIC SURFACE.

Also don't miss the chance to experience Tafra's magical audio walk through Stockholm.
One person at a time the audience walk a pre-destined route, accompanied by a designated sound piece. To schedule a session contact the artist by mail at niklastafra@gmail.com or by telephone at +46(0)706357744.

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Saturday, September 5, 2009

PUBLIC SURFACE presents: Niklas Tafra


Opening reception at the gallery between 5 - 7.

Niklas Tafra

Hörlursläckagekonversation på gröna linjen, mellan Vällingby och Hässelby strand, tisdag den fjärde augusti 2009.
Headphone leakage conversation on the green line, between Vällingby and Hässelby strand, Tuesday the fourth of August 2009.

The show will be on view until September 13.

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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

PUBLIC SURFACE at Färgfabriken


PUBLIC SURFACE kommer att finnas på plats på Färgfabriken på fredagkväll när tidningen People anordnar festligheter. Grupputställning med Jeffrey Tranchell, Kyle Knodell, Bon Nguyen, Nolan Simon och Susanne Persson, samt installation av Susanne inne i baren.

4 Sep, 21.00-03.00 Färgfabriken, Lövholmsbrinken 1

Kom förbi, och glöm inte att osa!
Osa till peoplefest@swdspublishing.se senast 3 september

Dj:s
Svarta rummet: Pjotr, Charles Gudagåfva, Nadja Chatti
Röda rummet: Peopleredaktionens bästa
Penthouse: People + Aplace

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Friday, August 28, 2009

Personal Pronouns



This weekend Hanna Frostell of Personal Pronouns will create an installation at Public Surface as a part of Fashion Play's Modevandring. We will be open Saturday 12-5 p.m. and Sunday 12.30-6 p.m..

This weekend will also be the last chance to see Nolan Simon's Events and Characteristics!

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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Nolan Simon, Showroom, I Wanna be a Hippy



Two years ago Nolan Simon participated in Showrooms project in the Swiss Alps.

http://showroom.st/5/
http://sundaysnewyork.com/sept1.htm

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Sunday, July 26, 2009

New York, Nolan Simon


Public Surface will be closed for two weeks and will reopen August 9.
We're in New York to install a show:

http://www.aperture.org/gallery/

And to pick up art work for our next exhibition at Public Surface with Nolan Simon!

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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Persson Clothing











The Persson Clothing summer collection, for sale at Public Surface. All clothing created by hand in Sweden under high ethical and environmental consideration.

Come by and shop!

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Summer and a New Patio






Public Surface has been taking some time off to celebrate summer and to move indoors (still under Liljeholmsbron.) This sunday we're opening up the new outdoor patio. The library and store will be open Sundays. Come by, have a coffee and sit down and browse through our collection of books!

Our next exhibition will open in August when the new gallery space will be ready.

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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Kyle Knodell - Sediment, Sentiment



Through creating different contexts and situations, from printing a traditional gelatin print of the blank layer in Photoshop to coloring walls and ceilings by filtering existing light sources, Kyle Knodell looks at how meaning is formed and constructed. His work roots in a process were ideas concerning the display and presentation of various and often disparate subjects join one-another, drawing attention to contradictions and misunderstandings that emerge during our construction of meaning and the failure of completely rational readings.

For the current exhibition, Knodell has installed a series of photographs, together with a video, in a physical context consisting of podiums and pedestals. The placement of the images in a sculptural three-dimensional context renders them as tactile objects that continuously refer back to themselves and their physical form. Knodell's installation dissolves the idea of the photograph as illusion and constant referent – and thus not truly existent form of being – and lets it become an object on its own physical terms.

The photographs function as triggers, unmoved movers who start a chain reaction and finally become a centre part in the “poetic entanglement of meanings” that is the final presentation.

The obscurity and complexity of the installation pushes us to refocus our view of the photographs. In relating the different – but, in their anonymity and their every-day-ness, intimately connected – elements Knodell presents us with a display of the fragility of matter that comments and questions our perception of reality.

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May 16th - Last Day of Preparation








Kyle.
Jacob och Sara.
Johan, Magnus, Julia och Micke.
Erik och Jacob.

Tack alla!

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Friday, June 5, 2009

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: kyle knodell
Date: 2009/5/12
Subject: Chatta med kyle knodell
To: blomkvist.erik@gmail.com


13:38 jag: how's it going?
13:52 kyle: hey!
i am writing about my work for you right now
13:53 i had to sleep out the time change
13:54 jag: great!
I have started to write the p.r. but it's quite hard to do it without speculating a lot
kyle: yea i understand
i am just trying to write down some of my basic ideas with the work for you
14:16 kyle: here is a start for you
14:17 kyle: i just emailed it let me know if you have any questions and i am going to look at it myself a bit longer
jag: sure
One thing immediately: Are the photographs your own?
I read that some of them are
kyle: um some are my own and some i take from other sources
jag: not interesting which.
not for me
14:23 kyle: so you are saying your are not interested in which is which
jag: While working with installations around the photographs, how do you relate to the "source"? Or do you?
14:25 Well, what I mean is, do you publish the origin of the photo?
14:26 kyle: ohh well i dont think i relate in a specific way. its more that i look at images as a plentiful source or maybe as preexisting readymades
14:28 jag: So you start around the photograph and install around them? metaphorically speaking
14:29 kyle: yes indeed
the photograph is at the root
14:31 but i look at the display and presentation of them as the final product
14:32 jag: Ok. While looking at the photographs I get a feeling of coincidence. That there is no "plan" behind them, or at least a very loose such. Is that so?
kyle: a poetic entanglement of meanings
jag: mm
kyle: yes they are loose
14:33 i like the sound of a poetic entanglement of meanings
jag: me too
very nice formulation
14:34 kyle: why thank you :)
14:36 i dont know how it fits in but i have also been thinking alot about how meaning is produced
or formed
jag: mm
14:37 I have written that the photographs are pictures of no interest, do you feel offended by that?
14:38 kyle: hmm
jag: And by that I don't mean that they are uninteresting
kyle: like they are of no interest to me?
14:39 jag: No, more like they don't carry any "inherent" values..
They are not directed in any way..
kyle: yea yea that sounds nice
14:43 i think that what the photograph did to images was to allow for the Banal, every day and the fleeting to be more closely looked at
14:45 http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/ppmsc/00200/00242r.jpg
jag: like a trick? to bring people closer to the nothingness of reality?
kyle: yea exactly
14:46 the images usually share a formal relationship that Implies some importance but one finds they do not add up
14:47 jag: and the installations vs. the sole photograph? will there be a juxtaposition there or will you try to engrave the nothingness?
14:51 kyle: i think that for me there is a juxtaposition with the photographs and the installation because the photographs become almost opaque objects when put into the installation were as most photographs are looked at as a window to some other place. i look at the flatness of the photo by placing it in more of a sculptural 3D context which brings out the nothingness
14:52 does that answer your question?
14:53 jag: yes. it does.
14:54 very much so
kyle: great
brb
jag: brb?
kyle: sorry
14:55 jag: bra
kyle: I will be right back
going to have a smoke outside
jag: sure
14:59 kyle: ok im back
15:01 jag: good
15:02 kyle: do you have more questions?
jag: here is a rough draft:
Kyle A. Knodell – Sediment, Sentiment
In the subtlety and coincidence of things lies often the reality of life. To me, descriptions of reality often fail to promote an accurate picture of the world because they often seem to be occupied with doing just that. The quest for truthfulness and sincerity often tends to obscure more than enlighten, and life gets lost in naturalistic conformity.
Kyle Knodell’s work in general seems to be based in spontaneity, from the blank and empty PS frame blank layer to coloring of walls and ceilings filtering the gallery’s existing light sources. In a sense his work seems to root in a very organic process were an idea marks the starting point, a seed, but then are allowed to grow almost without interference. The spontaneity draws attention to contradictions and misunderstandings and the display that is the result of the process communicate a visualization of nothingness
The photographs used are pictures of no interest, they are not directed in any way. Some are stock photographs with drained sentimental values while some are the artists own. In the artwork they figure as a trigger, as the unmoved mover, who starts a chain reaction and finally becomes a centre part in the “poetic entanglement of meanings” that is the final presentation.
Within the walls of the gallery everything seems to be Art. And Art is historically a part of the top of the hierarchy of things. In Knodell’s work this hierarchy is broken down and questioned. The banality in the photographs together with the often minuscule installations around them juxtapose the basic elements of documentary photography, the window to some other place, with a more nuanced and interesting view on

15:14 kyle: hold on i am just looking this over
jag: sure
15:36 kyle: sorry i was also chatting with my mother
15:37 kyle: do you know when this needs to be printed?
or finalized
jag: no
not really
before sunday
15:38 kyle: ok because i think its a good start but some things might not be in rhythm with the work. so i think we should keep this and when i know more how the installation will be i will think about the changes.
15:39 there might be some specifics that might be good to touch on
jag: sounds good..
15:42 kyle: cool, thanks alot!
i think i am going to go walk around for a bit
jag: I guess Susanne will try to document the process so you can share photographs..
15:43 Do it
kyle: yea that is important
jag: Walk over to Långholmen
kyle: where is that?
i am at copacobana right now
15:44 jag: north.. down to långholmsgatan. then left, away from the gallery site. towards kungsholmen
15:45 walk up on the big bridge and then off it when you've passed the first stream
15:47 kyle: ok cool what is in Långholmen
jag: Nothing.
It's like the countryside
kyle: o nice
that sounds good
15:48 i will talk to you later
thanks again!
jag: thank you!
15:49 take care

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Kyle Knodell - What it is Not , at the CAVE Gallery, Detroit





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Sunday, May 10, 2009

Public Surface presents: Kyle Knodell – Sediment, Sentiment



Opening reception 05.17.2009, 4 to 7 pm

On view 05.17 to 06.14, Saturdays and Sundays
from 12 to 6 pm, or by appointment

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