Gosia Koscielak Studio & Gallery
1646 N. Bosworth Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622
http://www.gosiakoscielak.com
info@gosiakoscielak.com
T.847.858.1540



Gosia Koscielak Studio & Gallery, Chicago, USA and Elzbieta Koscielak Gallery, Wroclaw, Poland is proud to announce their international projects curated by Raul Zamudio a New York City - based independent curator and critic http://raulzamudio.blogspot.com/

CHICAGO:

All the World’s a Stage


New paintings, works on paper, and sculpture by Emma McCagg.

Dates: 11.11 - 12.27.2006

Opening reception: Saturday, November 11, 2006 6:00 - 9 pm
Evening performances and open mike night of opening



Raul Zamudio curatorial statement:

Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Stephen Lambert’s Reality TV; what do these immensely disparate individuals—a cultural theorist, a philosopher, and creator of a TV genre, respectively — and their ideas have in common? They all recognize the thin line between reality and artifice. While it would be shortsighted to assume that Emma McCagg’s solo show titled All the World’s a Stage refers to the collapsing of art into life where actor and audience become one, this new body of work is more concerned in narrating the meltdown of fact and fiction and its social, political and cultural affectation. In her Endless Gossip Column (after Brancusi) (2006), for example, McCagg stacks tabloid journals one on top of each other and configures them into a Brancusi-like sculpture alluded to in the work’s title. This deliberate blurring of high and low culture, where even discourse around this canonical Modernist work is reduced to hearsay and gossip, is also extended in McCagg’s paintings. These works are constituted from a convergence of pulp journalism and political infomercials that subsequently make it difficult to tell the veracity of one source of information over the other. The individual pieces in the exhibition dovetail on what she construes as a kind of mass cultural schizophrenia manifesting in the contemporary world in a myriad of ways: Reality TV becomes more interesting than life; and chat rooms become virtual stages where people create and discard personas like the rest of us change socks. But the unreality of these endeavors is only made more surreal when the ostensibly unbelievable becomes status quo: an actor becomes president of a nation while his spouse consults an astrologer; a bodybuilder and Hollywood star known for his role as a robot is elected governor of a state; the current First Lady of the White House introduces herself as “a kind of Desperate Housewife;” the author James Frey fabricates his memoirs; and another writer made her nam!
e paradi
ng around as the destitute, drugged, male trick-turner named J.T. Leroy, but was exposed as a female yuppie who was “slumming” in order to get published. These real-life “scripts’ as humorous as they are, would never be believed as fiction because of their lack of verisimilitude; in life, however, they foreground that indeed all the world is a stage.


“Emma McCagg is a conceptual post-figurative painter who constantly pushes the boundaries of convention to bring about social awareness not only about the parameters of personal and social relationships, but also as critique.”—excerpt from catalog essay by Dr. Thalia Vrachopolous, Director of Exhibitions, Tenri Gallery, NYC, and writer, Sculpture, NYARTS and Art Fairs magazines.



Raul Zamudio is a New York City - based independent curator and critic and host of the talk show Art After Dark. He is currently Curator-at-Large, the Artist Network, NYC; and was Curatorial Director, White Box, NYC, 2003-2005
He is corresponding editor for Art Nexus, correspondent for Flash Art, and contributing writer to Contemporary. Other texts appear in PART, Zingmagazine, TRANS, Estilo, Journal of the West, Tema Celeste, Arts in Culture Seoul, Art Notes, NYARTS, Laboratory, Akrilyc.com,Seoul Journal, Latinart.com, Bridge, Berlinerkunst, Framework: the Finnish Art Review, and the L.A. Times.



WROCLAW, POLAND
LESNICA CASTLE:


BODY DOUBLE
New paintings, works on paper, sculpture and video by selected international artists.


Dates: 11.24 - 12.31.2006

Opening reception:
Friday, November 24, 2006 6 - 9 pm


Artists: Oreet Ashery, London, Karlos Carcamo, New York City, Cleverson, New York City/Brazil, Alejandro Diaz, New York City, Andrea Frank, New York City, Erika Harrsch, Mexico City, Scott Lifshutz, New York City, Katja Loher, Switzerland, Emma McCagg, New York City, Yasira Nun, New York City, Edgar Orlanieta, Mexico City, Dan Perrone, New York City, Riiko Sakkinen, Toledo/Finland, Svai & Paul Stanikas, Paris/Lithuania, Sari Tervaniemi, Helsinki , Video works: Robert Boyd, New York City, Teresa Serrano, Mexico City
Stuart Croft, London, Ferran Martin, New York City/Madrid