Slick Paris
art fair featuring Fernando Montiel Klint, Guerra de la Paz, Ivana Brenner, Jack Balas, Juan Doe, Victoria Campillo, and Ward Yoshimoto
Curator Lynn del Sol
Run Dates: October 23rd - October 27th 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 23rd 2008 6-10pm
Location: Slick Paris
Directions: CENTQUATRE 5, rue Curial - 75019 Paris
For additional information, a price list, hi-rez images, and/or an artist press kit, please contact us
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Art in the new millennium faces the great challenge of inventing a new mechanism of recycling art theories. The desire to bring "theory to life" or to make practical use of it is inspired by the cultural logic of late capitalism. Logic generally also brings about criticism and many contemporary artists often describe their practice as a kind of social criticism. It is their way of responding, resisting and at times creating great change. In a way, artists today outrun the art critics at creating a true discourse in the field.
CTS presents a focused art fair presentation that explores a trend throughout the year of 2008 in which contemporary artists are engaging in questions about what our world may look like in the future and how art will remain relevant in this new hyper-commercialized world. The works selected though out the year will highlight the heightened awareness that artists have not only within themselves but between that cross-generational germination that influences and contextualizes art into a place in history. Loneliness, empathy, fragility, hopefulness, and yearning characterize the complex and rich state of our future.
The exhibition will feature sociopolitical sculptures by the well-known Cuban artist team Guerra de la Paz, conceptual text-based painting by American satirist Juan Doe, post utopian photography by newcomer Mexican Fernando Montiel Klint, noted figurative American painter Jack Balas, Spaniard photographer Victoria Campillo, suburban assemblage totems by American Ward Yoshimoto and the exciting organic sculptures by Argentine Ivana Brenner.
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about the gallery: CTS is quality art on the move. Championing provocative content driven work by local and international mid-career, underrepresented, and emerging artists in all media. Our goal is to build an infrastructure that knows no boundaries, one that carries the torch of modernism acting as a vehicle for dreamers, a cultural meeting place for great minds, an international community of interconnectivity and expandability. CTS exhibitions and artist have been touted in many local and international publications, including The New York Times, La Republica, Miami Herald, The Chicago Tribune, Art Nexus, Art Review, Art in America, Art Forum, Flash Art, NYarts Magazine, Lmagazine, Flavor Pill, Miami Art Guide, Artnet, Art Info and TimeOut New York.
about the artfair: For its third edition, Slick continues its engagement in contemporary art creation. The galleries presented at Slick are trendsetters, not trend followers. Sometimes disturbing, always surprising and engaging, the exhibited works affirm the convictions of the gallery owners. For this new edition, the fair will welcome over 58 galleries of which 55% are based in Paris, 23% are international (from Belgium, Croatia, Spain, Italy, the UK and the USA)
Art in the new millennium faces the great challenge of inventing a new mechanism of recycling art theories. The desire to bring "theory to life" or to make practical use of it is inspired by the cultural logic of late capitalism. Logic generally also brings about criticism and many contemporary artists often describe their practice as a kind of social criticism. It is their way of responding, resisting and at times creating great change. In a way, artists today outrun the art critics at creating a true discourse in the field.
CTS presents a focused art fair presentation that explores a trend throughout the year of 2008 in which contemporary artists are engaging in questions about what our world may look like in the future and how art will remain relevant in this new hyper-commercialized world. The works selected though out the year will highlight the heightened awareness that artists have not only within themselves but between that cross-generational germination that influences and contextualizes art into a place in history. Loneliness, empathy, fragility, hopefulness, and yearning characterize the complex and rich state of our future.
The exhibition will feature sociopolitical sculptures by the well-known Cuban artist team Guerra de la Paz, conceptual text-based painting by American satirist Juan Doe, post utopian photography by newcomer Mexican Fernando Montiel Klint, noted figurative American painter Jack Balas, Spaniard photographer Victoria Campillo, suburban assemblage totems by American Ward Yoshimoto and the exciting organic sculptures by Argentine Ivana Brenner.
###
about the gallery: CTS is quality art on the move. Championing provocative content driven work by local and international mid-career, underrepresented, and emerging artists in all media. Our goal is to build an infrastructure that knows no boundaries, one that carries the torch of modernism acting as a vehicle for dreamers, a cultural meeting place for great minds, an international community of interconnectivity and expandability. CTS exhibitions and artist have been touted in many local and international publications, including The New York Times, La Republica, Miami Herald, The Chicago Tribune, Art Nexus, Art Review, Art in America, Art Forum, Flash Art, NYarts Magazine, Lmagazine, Flavor Pill, Miami Art Guide, Artnet, Art Info and TimeOut New York.
about the artfair: For its third edition, Slick continues its engagement in contemporary art creation. The galleries presented at Slick are trendsetters, not trend followers. Sometimes disturbing, always surprising and engaging, the exhibited works affirm the convictions of the gallery owners. For this new edition, the fair will welcome over 58 galleries of which 55% are based in Paris, 23% are international (from Belgium, Croatia, Spain, Italy, the UK and the USA)
Slick 08 art fair. Paris, France 2008Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
about the artist: Fernando Montiel Klint There is a strange aura that surrounds Fernando Montiel Klint’s works. His shockingly bright colors, his classical posturing, cinematic lighting, and the complex emotional range of the participants, Fernando’s images are theatrical constructs. To watch them in their creation is to watch the photographer dance with light, participate and engage in disguise, allowing himself to be seen as he literally moves into the space of the scene. They are theatrical and bizarre, fictional performances, staged for the camera constructed in the computer. A grant recipient in 2004-05 for Younge Creators and a Honary Mention in the 12th annual Biennale of Photography (Mexico), he is represented in the collection of Museum of Guandong (China), Texas State University (USA), and the Museum of Modern Art (Mexico).
about the artist: Guerra de la Paz is the composite name that represents the creative team efforts of Cuban-born artists, Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz. What began as an idea for two individual artists to share a working studio in Miami's Little Haiti, has become an ongoing collaboration that has evolved into constant experimentation. The recipient of the 2008 SCOPE Foundation Grant for artist project “Under the Banyan Tree,” they are are represented in the Satchi Collection (London), 21C Museum Foundation (Louisville, KY), Frost Art Museum (Miami, FL), Miami Art Museum (Miami, FL), and The Cintas Fellows Collection.
about the artist: Ivana Brenner was born in 1982 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Throughout her adolescence, she lived between the city of Buenos Aires and her family’s hometown of Baradero, in the countryside. She received a rigorous traditional education at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, where she graduated with honors from Universidad de Buenos Aires (2004).
about the artist: Jack Balassis an artist working in painting and photography, cross-referenced at times with writing and other media. His goal is to make images that are memorable not only via their stylistic variety, in a sense creating flags that signal a kind of symbolic territory, but also to offer the viewer a kind of map where it is the viewers responsibility to build bridges across the middleground between images and ideas. He has received his BFA and MFA from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb. He has exhibited widely, including at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts, AZ; University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie and the Tucson Museum of Art, AZ. He received a fellowship from the Colorado Council on the Arts, Denver and from the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C. He is represented in the Kent Logan Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
about the artist: Juan Doe an artist that strains the boundary between painting, propaganda, polemics, and philosophical discourse in art. He encapsulated a new age aesthetic through his command of the graphic process but with the masterful execution of a painter. His images are non-negotiable, they cannot be interpreted or postponed; they exist now, for the oxygen of the viewers eyes. A recipient in 2007 and 2008 of an individual grant in visual arts from the Bronx Council of the Arts, he is represented in the Bronx Museum (New York).
about the artist: Ward Yoshimoto commingles American and Japanese traditions and craftsmanship in his deft assemblages of found objects. Referencing Dada, Surrealism, and Pop, as well as the turbulent social and political landscape of his youth, Yoshimoto’s wry constructions address an ongoing history of cultural displacement with equal parts iconoclastic brio and meditative, almost obsessive rigor. In this singular brand of contemporary suburban folk art, cocktail stirrers, crucifixes, clocks, and pool balls assume formations as whimsical as they are poignant—the detritus of the American Dream washed ashore, picked over, and reassembled in an attempt to piece together a sense of identity amid the constant flux of contemporary life.
about the artist: Guerra de la Paz is the composite name that represents the creative team efforts of Cuban-born artists, Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz. What began as an idea for two individual artists to share a working studio in Miami's Little Haiti, has become an ongoing collaboration that has evolved into constant experimentation. The recipient of the 2008 SCOPE Foundation Grant for artist project “Under the Banyan Tree,” they are are represented in the Satchi Collection (London), 21C Museum Foundation (Louisville, KY), Frost Art Museum (Miami, FL), Miami Art Museum (Miami, FL), and The Cintas Fellows Collection.
about the artist: Ivana Brenner was born in 1982 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Throughout her adolescence, she lived between the city of Buenos Aires and her family’s hometown of Baradero, in the countryside. She received a rigorous traditional education at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, where she graduated with honors from Universidad de Buenos Aires (2004).
about the artist: Jack Balassis an artist working in painting and photography, cross-referenced at times with writing and other media. His goal is to make images that are memorable not only via their stylistic variety, in a sense creating flags that signal a kind of symbolic territory, but also to offer the viewer a kind of map where it is the viewers responsibility to build bridges across the middleground between images and ideas. He has received his BFA and MFA from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb. He has exhibited widely, including at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts, AZ; University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie and the Tucson Museum of Art, AZ. He received a fellowship from the Colorado Council on the Arts, Denver and from the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C. He is represented in the Kent Logan Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
about the artist: Juan Doe an artist that strains the boundary between painting, propaganda, polemics, and philosophical discourse in art. He encapsulated a new age aesthetic through his command of the graphic process but with the masterful execution of a painter. His images are non-negotiable, they cannot be interpreted or postponed; they exist now, for the oxygen of the viewers eyes. A recipient in 2007 and 2008 of an individual grant in visual arts from the Bronx Council of the Arts, he is represented in the Bronx Museum (New York).
about the artist: Ward Yoshimoto commingles American and Japanese traditions and craftsmanship in his deft assemblages of found objects. Referencing Dada, Surrealism, and Pop, as well as the turbulent social and political landscape of his youth, Yoshimoto’s wry constructions address an ongoing history of cultural displacement with equal parts iconoclastic brio and meditative, almost obsessive rigor. In this singular brand of contemporary suburban folk art, cocktail stirrers, crucifixes, clocks, and pool balls assume formations as whimsical as they are poignant—the detritus of the American Dream washed ashore, picked over, and reassembled in an attempt to piece together a sense of identity amid the constant flux of contemporary life.
Installation View: Slick 08 art fair. Paris, France 2008Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
Installation View: Slick 08 art fair. Paris, France 2008Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
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Guerra de la Paz, Carmen (from the series Friends and Family framed), 2007, acrylic on linen, 14x11in (36x28cm) Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
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Guerra de la Paz, Ho, 2003, mix media sculpture with found materials, 28x8x8in (71x20x20cm) Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York,-2007,-mix-media-sculpture-with-custom-three-piece-suit,-20x55x15in-(51x140x28cm).jpg){kind=spacer}
Guerra de la Paz, Money Makes The Man (Divitiae Virum Faciunt, Latin 1684) 2007, mix media sculpture with custom thee piece suit, 20x55x15in (51x140x28cm)Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
/Juan Doe, The Art of teh Deal (SOAP) 2008, enamel on canvas, dyptic, each 72x48in (cm).jpg)
Juan Doe, The Art of the Deal (SOAP) 2008, enamel on canvas, dyptic, each 72x48in (183x122cm) Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York.jpg)
Fernando Montiel Klint, Sobredosis, 2005, chromogenic prints, edition of 5, 47x53in (120x135cm)
Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
Ivana Brenner, Sin Titulo, 2008, Solidified paint on acrylic laser-cut base, install size approx. 95in (250cm)Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
, 2008, Solidified paint on acrylic laser cut base, 20x35x2in (51x90x4cm).jpg)
Ivana Brenner, Untitled (dyptico) 2008, solidified oil paint on acrylic laser-cut base, 15x15x2in (36x38x5cm) Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York.jpg)
Jack Balas, Boy A Goya, 2008, oil on canvas, 28x22in, (71x56cm)Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
, 2008, watercolor, acrylic and ink on paper, 15x23in, (23x58cm).jpg)
Jack Balas, Susan Sontag (MUSE-Museum series), 2008, watercolor, acrylic and ink on paper, 15x23in (23x58cm) Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
Jack Balas, The Sculptures of Picasso (MUSE-Museum Series), 2008, watercolor, acrylic, and ink on paper, 23x15in (59x38cm)
Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
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Ward Yoshimoto, Duchamps Bike, 2002, Mixed Media Assemblage, 13.5X7X5in (35x20x12cm) Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York.jpg){kind=spacer}
Ward Yoshimoto, Ambushed Again, 2008, mixed media assemblage, 32x11x5in (81x28x13cm) Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
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Ward Yoshimoto, A Is For Amanda, 1991, Mixed Media Assemblage, 18x11x3in (46x28x8cm) Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York 2006, lambda print, edition of 3.jpg)
Victoria Campillo, Series Intimacy (Robert Ryman), 2006, lambda print, edition of 3, 19x24in (48x60cm)Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York
 2006, lambda print, edition of 3.jpg)
Victoria Campillo, Series Intimacy (Jackson Pollock), 2006, lambda print, edition of 3, 19x24in (48x60cm)Image courtesy of {CTS} creative thriftshop, New York