Sandow Birk, Depravities of War
Muriel Hasbun, barquitos de papel and other stories
Sirajski and Jessica Benjamin, of Wrath and Proxy Wars
Exhibitions on view through April 3, 2010.
Large Gallery
Sandow Birk
Depravities of War
The Depravites of War is a series of 15 large-scale woodblock prints inspired by the series of etchings by Jacques Callot’s “The Miseries of War” in the 17th century, which in turn were the inspiration for Goya’s “The Disasters of War” in the 19th century. The works were published by HuiPress in Hawaii in 2007. A series of paintings completed the project.
Los Angeles artist Sandow Birk is a well-traveled graduate of the Otis/Parson’s Art Institute. Frequently developed as expansive, multi-media projects, his works have dealt with contemporary life in its entirety. With an emphasis on social issues, frequent themes of his past work have included inner city violence, graffiti, political issues, travel, war, and prisons, as well as surfing and skateboarding. He was a recipient of an NEA International Travel Grant to Mexico City in 1995 to study mural painting, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, and a Fulbright Fellowship for painting to Rio de Janeiro for 1997. In 1999, he was awarded a Getty Fellowship for painting, followed by a City of Los Angeles (COLA) Fellowship in 2001. In 2007, he was an artist in residence at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, and at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2008.
Sandow is represented by the Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Los Angeles, Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, and P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York City. He lives and works in Los Angeles.
Square Gallery
Muriel Hasbun
barquitos de papel and other stories
I come from peoples in exile. I became an adult with an extreme sensitivity to the irreconcilable…
-Muriel Hasbun
Muriel Hasbun explores the intricacies and emotional reverberations of identity through art, and uses photography and personal histories as vehicles for exchange. Through an intergenerational, transnational and transcultural lens, Hasbun constructs contemporary narratives and establishes a space for dialogue where individual memory and collective memory spark new questions about identity and place.
Muriel Hasbun’s photographic and video work is a process of re-encounter, synthesis, and re-creation. Through it, past and present become interlaced in a renewed configuration; in Santos y sombras/Saints and Shadows, the Palestinian desert and Eastern European ash sift, shift and blend in the volcanic sands of El Salvador, to form the texture of the path on which she defines and expresses her experience. With barquitos de papel/paper boats, she draws from the autobiographical as a point of departure, and alludes to the role of lens-based media in the telling of our stories. The installation beckons to the public to add their own paper boats inscribed with their family history and stories of migration. Hasbun will conduct a workshop to encourage participation in the barquitos de papel collective archive.
Muriel Hasbun’s work has been exhibited at the American University Museum (2008), Museum of Photographic Arts (2007), Centro Cultural de España de El Salvador and FotoFest (2006), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (2004); the 50th Venice Biennale (2003); the Centro de la Imagen (1999); and the 29ème Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d”Arles (1998). Her photographs are in numerous private and public collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Muriel Hasbun is a 2006-08 Fulbright Scholar. She is Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Photography at the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, DC.
New Works Space
SIRAJSKI and Jessica Benjamin
of Wrath and Proxy Wars
Milorad Stanojev aka SIRAJSKI
Born in 1963 in Opovo, Serbia, ŠIRAJSKI lives with his wife Nataša, son Miloš, and daughter Andriana in ÄÂÂÂÂÂÂÂelarevo, Serbia in the agriculturally-rich province called Vojvodina. ŠIRAJSKI started painting at age twelve and had a first public exhibition of his work in high school in 1978. The artist is custodian of the Museum of Applied Arts of Vojvodina which is housed in a castle formerly owned by the wealthy DunÄÂÂÂÂÂÂÂerski Family from the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. ŠIRAJSKI works are in private collections of prominent collectors including the humanitarian Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Paul KaraÄÂÂÂÂÂÂÂorÄÂÂÂÂÂÂÂeviÄÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ (an important patron of the arts). In his many artist colony communities, SIRAJSKI is respected as “an artist’s artist.”
ŠIRAJSKI is a self-taught artist, influenced by masters such as Dali, Peter Brueghel, Hieronymus Bosch, and Richard Dadd . An important literary influence is a book by the Serbian author (who died last November) Milorad Pavic entitled Dictionary of the Khazars. Pavic’s innovative book treats the history of a people known as the Khazars whose empire, known as the khaganite, disappeared in the tenth century shortly after the Khazars converted from their faith (about which little is known) to Judaism. There is an archaelogical site by the Danube River in the town of Celarevo where SIRAJSKI lives that is recognized as the gravesite of the Khazars. SIRAJSKI’s works are in part his inquiry into the history of the Khazars. SIRAJSKI is fascinated by the questions raised surrounding the so-called Khazar polemic. A genuine interest in all faiths fuels SIRAJSKI’s works of fantastic realism.
Sirajski is represented by Vesna Rafaty in Dallas, Texas.
Jessica Benjamin
“My work focuses on the process and visual impact of contemporary technology on personal and geopolitical perspectives. As technological innovations develop we are continuously introduced to information and images that influence perspectives, decisions, and identity. These influences are delivered to us by media sources such as the Internet and in the advancing ways we document our lives.”
Jessica Benjamin was born in 1974 in Bloomington, Illinois. After graduating from Illinois State University, she moved to Snowmass Village, CO, to work as a summer resident at Anderson Ranch. In the spring of 2000, Benjamin moved to New York.
In 2006, Benjamin moved to Sag Harbor, New York where she currently lives and works.
Recently, Jessica completed two album projects with Wynton Marsalis, “From the Plantation to the Penitentiary”(2007) and “He and She”(2009). In April, her paintings were shown at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York.
exhibition sponsors:
City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs
Susan and Claude Albritton III
Arlington Camera
Trammell Crow