On June 18, 2011, Larry Bob Phillips will begin work on his project Wiggle Room, as part of Recess’s signature program Session.
Over the course of two months, Phillips will record four collaborative events, covering the walls inside 41 Grand Street with large-scale, and densely detailed drawings. Phillips will invite artists to join him in the space for temporary performances, and will draw these interventions. The artist’s anticipation and memory of the performance will inform the content of Phillips’ wall drawings. Visitors to Recess can engage in performances and witness their own integration into the ongoing drawing.
Throughout this Session, visitors to Recess in SoHo will witness a diverse series of collaborations, starting with Michael Beitz’s construction of “exhibition furniture” for Wiggle Room. Later, Phillips’ drawings will become a backdrop for an evening of humor and music hosted by musician-writer-stand-up comedian Jeffrey Joe Jensen. Phillips will collaborate with Amy Pina to add a final layer of color to the drawing installation, which will create a vibrant atmosphere for CHERYL, a spirited and dynamic group that uses the dance party formula to explore both playful and controversial themes.
Visitors to Wiggle Room can expect, in the words of the artist, “a raucous, unpredictable, but dramatic ride.”
Turning the traditional into the new, and the real into the imaginary, Salon Style features a collection of large surreal wall-size black and white paintings that hang at angles that push and pull at the architecture of the gallery space. Blurring the boundaries between painting and graphic design, these works present a series of pre modern-era paintings that have been re-interpreted through an illustrative sensibility. “Linear representation is the de facto language of our culture” says Phillips. “Although it does not exist anywhere in nature, it has become fully ingrained within the western mind.” Phillip’s uses a traditional technique known as forced perspective to distort the original painting and states, “I am trying to expand and dimensionalize the painting, so the viewer can look beyond its two dimensional frame and into a deeper, more meaningful space.”
Press Release: http://www.artleaguehouston.org/pastexhibitions.pdf
