U:L:O: Part I 2016 | U: Tim Gentles

Back Seat Driver

June 17 – July 10, 2016
Opening Reception June 17, 6-9pm

Katherine Botten
Kathe Burkhart
Rafael Delacruz
Elizabeth Englander
Brandon Drew Holmes
Zac Segbedzi
Edward Shenk

In Catherine Grant's 2011 essay "Fans of Feminism," she writes of 'the figure of the fan' as one that disrupts the traditional position of both the artist and the art historian by acting according to attachment and desire, rather than irony and distance. That this is typically considered antithetical to how one is supposed to engage with art probably goes some way then to explaining the myriad ways in which artists throughout history have gleefully, and often only somewhat self-reflexively, embraced the position of the fan in their work.

In varying ways, the work featured in Back Seat Driver engages with the notion of the artist as a fan—whether that is through an ambivalent adoption of subcultural tropes; appropriation of the visual language of celebrity; or the use of materials that pertain to fan cultures, such as rock music or video games. The exhibition suggests that rather than simply an emancipatory figure, the fan is equally a figure of hierarchies of taste, racial and class divisions, and the consolidation of social power.

Katherine Botten (b. 1990) is an artist and writer based in Melbourne, Australia. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Punk Cafe, Centre for Style and Slopes (all Melbourne), and she has a forthcoming solo show at TCB art inc, Melbourne. Her writing was featured in How to Sleep Faster #5 (2015), published by Arcadia Missa, and her novella Positive Trauma was published by 89+ in 2014.

Kathe Burkhart is an artist and writer based in New York and Amsterdam. She has exhibited at the 1993 Venice Biennale, and had solo exhibitions at Participant Inc., New York (2003), Kunsthalle Fri-Art, Fribourg, Switzerland (2016), NYU's 80WSE Gallery (2012-13) and MoMA PS1, New York (2007) among others. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Art Institute of Chicago and the SMAK Museum, Ghent, Belgium.

Rafael Delacruz (b. 1989) lives and works in New York. Two person exhibitions with Quintessa Matranga include: Rope, Baltimore (2015); Et al., San Francisco (2016); Kimberly-Klark, Queens, NY (2016). Delacruz's work has also been featured in group shows at Centre for Style at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, Australia (2015); Levy.Delval, Brussels, Belgium (2015); Pamela's, San Francisco (2015); and Sydney, Sydney, Australia (2016). He is one third of the animation project Last Renaissance.

Elizabeth Englander (b. 1988) lives in New York. She has exhibited at U.S. Blues, Brooklyn, NY (2015); The Duck, New York (2016); and Kimberly-Klark, Queens, NY (2016); as well as organizing the show Mental Christmas in Long Island City, NY (2015).

Brandon Drew Holmes is the only son of Mia Vaughn and Baskerville Holmes. He makes work about white people for Black people.

Zac Segbedzi (b. 1991) is an artist from Melbourne, Australia. In 2016, he had a solo exhibition at Punk Cafe, Melbourne, and he has participated in exhibitions at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne (2015) and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2015). He recently organized the pop-up exhibition Reena's Bedstuy Glove Affair in New York (2016).

Edward Shenk (b. 1987) is an artist and writer. He has exhibited at Higher Pictures, New York (2012); the New Museum Store, New York (2014); James Fuentes, New York (2015); and Center, Berlin (2015). He was a co-founder of Reference Art Gallery, Richmond, Virginia (2009-2012).

Tim Gentles is a writer and curator based in New York. He has an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, and his writing has appeared in Art-Agenda, Art in America, E-flux and other publications.

U:L:O: is an annual curatorial program that invites six curators over a six week period to organize a show in one of the three spaces at Interstate Projects, Upper(U:), Lower(L:), and Outside(O:). For 2015, Interstate Projects is pleased to present two parts. U:L:O: Part I is from June 17 – July 3, and includes U: Tim Gentles (New York), L: Kimberly-Klark (Queens), O: Andrew Russeth (New York). Part II is from July 15 – July 30, and includes U: Al Bedell (New York) L: Nichole Caruso (New York) O: Jupiter Woods (London).

Image: Katherine Botten and Zac Segbedzi