With Theo Michael’s first solo show, AMP is delighted to launch AMP WORKS – a new project space on the first floor of its current location. AW will act as a platform for emerging artists to showcase their work and experiment via a supportive as well as critical environment.With its upcoming projects AW aims to engage in a fluid dialogue with audiences locally and internationally providing the set up for younger artists to participate and hopefully contribute to the development of our complex visual culture.

THEO MICHAEL – SMOKE FROM THE EDGE OF THE KNOWN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

By Dani Admiss*

Theo Michael operates within the layers of history, popular culture and myth making. He weaves together ancient relics, artifacts, popular leitmotifs, and signs of the ancient and modern world to present the viewer with a newly assembled depository of archives and documents. He does this whilst actively resisting the idea of a written and visual history as a fixed thing.
For his first solo exhibition at AMP Michael presents a series of prints and drawings that act as palimpsests on vintage paper. They are shown alongside three dimensional objects and vitrines, which house theatrical props of antediluvian and otherworldly figurines, and prints of bricolaged archives. These depict fictional theological, historical, and cultural milieus. His use of humour combined with an uncanny employment of montage and scene construction draws the viewer into a spectrum of complex worlds and settings

Michaels’ work plays with the inception and annunciation of the archival using the tropes of seventies science fiction, telluric ancient monuments or mythos, and celestial exploration. Through extensive research and databanks of images he creates emergent constellations that combine relics of prehistoric and symbolic cultural memory. These newly composed archives of deeds and cabinets of curiosities, documents and anthropological collections are testimony to the fallacy inherent in the processes of historicization. Simultaneously they include the genres of modern popular culture, political figures, or character-like idols; cultural stereotypes that infer the fetishistic allure of staged representation within human consciousness.

Representation is questioned, as it is shown to be deeply embedded within a substratum of superstitions, or fantasy fictions. Our initial recognition of an iconoclastic scenario is quickly challenged by the seemingly odd, but familiar intervention of an oversized basketball alongside prehistoric reptiles, or a bonafied mummy with a drag car. Rather than using this tactic to jar our sensibilities the results offer a familiar ocularcentric pattern of discovering worlds within worlds, or meaning in metaphor. In other words, the foundation of storytelling, through histories such as mythology are employed and altered by Michael to illustrate that understanding is derived from a prolonged chain of interpretation and assimilation. Space and time collapse, overlap and fold into each other in a variety of overwhelming and visually abundant molecular expressions, and time is represented as a rupture that reveals residual, eternal or otherworldly matter.

Michaels’ use of magnitude and scale relates to his fascination with the spatial model and scale of the cosmos. His cosmos maps are a manifestation of this. A plethora of modern cult images such as gremlins, computers, or Michael Jordan, clutter the canvas. The images float freely on a galactical planes and each artefact shares similarities and differences with its neighbour. The overall composition can be compared to a flow chart or spider web mapping a hierarchy of energy. The result is a series of pictorally exuberant megacosms.

The work of Theo Michael abstains from didactic representation, or any continuation of a history of hermetics, precisely by playing with the enormity and limitations of these ideologies. He questions these methodologies by using mimesis as a type of camouflage. A sense of pleasure traces the artefact through to perverse artifice. Through revealing and concealing the transparent yet, essentialist nature of dogmas, he moves towards a code free communication.

*Dani Admiss is a free-lance curator based in London.

AMP WORKS

EPIKOUROU 26, 1st FLOOR

10553 ATHENS

+ 210 3251881

KATE MOSS RORSHACHS + PROVENCE
(Asher Penn and Tobias Kaspar)
Monday, October 5, 8–10 PM

Three’s Company invites you to the U.S. release of KMR Collage and PROVENCE. Using the publication as throw-away monument, both project draw on themes of celebrity culture, projection, obsessive production, and touch.

K.M.R. Collages is Asher Penn’s 20th book and comprises collages of shapes outlined in broken strips of tape that read, “KATE MOSS RORSHACH #1,” “KATE MOSS RORSHACH #2,” “KATE MOSS RORSHACH #3.” These bits of text reference three books previously published by the artist, wherein he collected photographs of Kate Moss and partially obscured them with symmetrical ink stains; extra materials from those books are incorporated in the spine of the present book. For K.M.R. Collages, Penn reproduces Moss’ name in (and as) a generic script, which itself takes the form of a rorshach. Coinciding with the book launch, Penn exhibits 20 of the constituent collages, irritating a continuous tension of the singular and multiple.

Provence, published by Daiga Grantina, Tobias Kaspar, and Hannes Loichinger is a magazine dedicated to the pursuit of hobbies, and to the reader’s interest in the intimate lives of artists. Works by Merlin Carpenter, Cerith Wyn Evans, and Richard Prince are reproduced here, along with original texts and artworks by Soren Engstad, Kaspar Müller, and Hingrid Sachs. The publication’s introductory text by Ben Kinmont concerns the “materialization of life” as represented by conceptual art; the magazine is supported by advertising in the form of business cards from persons working in art institutions. The editors’ ambivalence about the arriviste posture of the artist investigates the artwork as differentiated output.

Editor Tobias Kaspar also presents his film Take I, Take II (Das Leonardo DiCaprio Album (1997, 1998 by Plexus Publishing, Limited, London, 1998 by Ullstein Buchverlag GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin), a hypnotic sequence that shows two disembodied hands flipping through the eponymous, dated fanzine devoted Leonardo Dicaprio.

Three’s Company is an apartment-run exhibition space located at 13 Allen St, #4. It has previously shown work by AIDS-3D, Richard Aldrich, Leigh Ledare, and Lisa Tan. We look forward to seeing you.

Performance 5: Mark Leckey

October 1, 2, and 3, 2009
8:00 PM
The Abrons Art Center at Henry Street Settlement
466 Grand Street, New York, NY

Tickets are $10 and available at: https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/679655

In conjunction with the Museum of Modern Art’s Performance Exhibition Series,
the Abrons hosts Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Leckey’s In the Long Tail (2009).
Part lecture, part monologue, part living sculpture, Leckey considers 20th-century
broadcasting and takes on the “long tail” theory of Internet-based economics,
while speaking from inside an installation that hovers between film set and
three-dimensional manifesto.

The Performance Exhibition Series is made possible by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg
Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation.
Additional generous support for this exhibition is provided by Shane Akeroyd,
Charles Asprey, and Peter and Hilary Rubenstein Hatch.

Lazarides Gallery is pleased to present “Always Almost There” a solo exhibition of all new works by Scott Campbell.

Commemoration is an American pastime. Experiences are for being photographed, emblazoned onto something: a plate, a keychain, a t-shirt, a coccyx. Is forgetting that terrible? Not all memories would seem to be ‘honorable’ anyway. But if we could see these commemorative artifacts en masse, as a folksy symbological cesspool, we might be surprised to find it impossible to resist feeling affectionate. Scott works within that pool. His collages build a palimpsest of old-reliable iconography much of which is rooted in the history of tattooing but which, as it’s presented here, reflects less on tattoos for their own sake and more on the mortal desire to memorialize and the strange, tid-bit narratives that arise from their combination. In his words, these are “the stories of blue collar pirates around nicotine stained unicorns and the price is right fuck the world of it all.”

Scott’s series of dollar bill sculptures make the American-ness of this literal. The designs are painstakingly drawn in individual layers that are then laser-cut into 100 one-dollar bills and glued into a stack. In addition to the clearly subversive implications of using money-as
medium and the formal echo of the design flourishes printed on the bills and those carved out of them, this series (like the collages) appears as a kind of physical manifestation of thousands of histories. Skin touching paper moving the world on its axis – all of this cemented into place like so many victories of what we get to keep.

Scott’s work has been shown at Deitch Projects in New York City, O.H.W.O.W. In Miami, Illeana Contemporary Art Center in Athens, Greece, and The Contemporay Museum in Rome, among others.

Opening Reception:

Thursday, October 1st.
7pm to 10pm

On display through October 30th

8 Greek Street,
Soho,
London W1D 4DG

+44 (0) 203 214 0055 / 0066

Monday – Friday 11am – 7pm and Saturday 12pm – 5pm.

• Hot Chicks Picking Up Dog Shit
  Thanks Haley H.
• Warzone on Regis and Kathy Lee 1986 NYxHC!
  Thanks Jeff Rokose
• Reed School for Nervous and Backward Children (1906)

SO I WAS TEXTING MY DUDE SAM AND HE TOLD ME THAT RACHEL TOLD HIM THAT ALEX TOLD MARK THAT KEISHA TOLD SEAN THAT ROB TOLD CARLOS THAT SHELLY TOLD LIZ WHO TOLD BIANCA WHO TOLD CHRIS WHO TOLD SCOTT WHO TOLD ASHLEY WHO TOLD BLAKE WHO TOLD DEAN WHO TOLD ANGEL WHO TOLD JAMAL WHO TOLD STEVEN WHO TOLD OLIVER WHO TOLD PENELOPE WHO TOLD MARIAH WHO TOLD KYLE WHO TOLD DAVID WHO TOLD KIRSTY WHO TOLD NICK WHO TOLD JUSTIN WHO TOLD MAGGIE WHO TOLD BECCA WHO TOLD STEVE WHO TOLD RYAN WHO TOLD BENNY WHO TOLD DEVIN WHO TOLD LUCIEN WHO TOLD MIKEY THAT THEIRS A

PARTY SUNDAY

CHECK IT, TELL YOUR FRIENDS, TO GET WITH MY FRIENDS AND WE CAN BE FRIENDS

SHIT WE CAN DO THIS EVERY WEEKEND

AIGHT? IS THAT AIGHT WITH YOU?

YEAH… KEEP BANGIN

see you their

It ain’t hard work if you make it look good. These flannels are tough enough for people on the go, not for show.

For clean cut kids who like to fuck shit up. Street smart, sophistocated and on a negative trip. Clean and obscene. Bad with a touch of class.

The big apple in 2010. Still nothing sweet so don’t fuck around. ‘09 was fine, but its gonna be a perfect 10.

Not your average snapback, flannel and suede go together like whiskey and coke. Soft and tough, smooth and rough.

available via store@anewyorkthing.com

Smoke a spliff and eat fish tacos downtown. Who doesn’t enjoy weed and eating out? Exotic and hot, like that book by Kurt Vonnegut.

So seductive, so sick. For the loner with a boner. Never horny and corny. Low budget and nasty. Spit, smile or swallow. Too fucked 4 love.

Optical invasion. This tee is effortless fresh, just like you. leave ‘em looking crosseyed. If you stare, I don’t care.

When clean lines just don’t cut it, finally, a logo tee that gets aggressive. Too cruel for cool. We’re out to get you.

• Hold on to your hearts: It’s deep-fried butter!
• 2nd prize stories – World Press Photo – Boxers Before and After Fights
• MONKEY PICKED TEA
• In praise of the sci-fi corridor

• Michael Richards (aka "Cosmo Kramer"): Freemason, Shriner, Racist
  Thanks Patric Egan

THE BUSTER BALLOON SHOW

SEPTEMBER 8, 6-8 PM

HALF GALLERY

208 FORSYTH STREET
NY, NY 10002

* Sorry Guys No Photo’s to “buffer” aNYthing, Can u handle just writing?

I could write a whole Sartrean dissertation but my homeboy merriam webster did all the work for me.

• Main Entry: ¹par·ty
  
• Pronunciation: \ˈpär-tē\
• Function: noun

1 : a person or group taking one side of a question, dispute, or contest
2 : a group of persons organized for the purpose of directing the policies of a government
3 : a person or group participating in an action or affair

• Main Entry: ¹tame
  
• Pronunciation: \ˈtām\
• Function: adjective

1 : reduced from a state of native wildness especially so as to be tractable and useful to humans :domesticated <tame animals>
2 : made docile and submissive : subdued
3 : lacking spirit, zest, interest, or the cap

• Main Entry: bor·ing
  
• Pronunciation: \ˈbȯr-iŋ\
• Function: adjective
• Date: 1785

: causing boredom : tiresome <a boring lecture>

• Main Entry: scene
  
• Pronunciation: \ˈsēn\
• Function: noun

3 : the place of an occurrence or action : locale <scene of the crime>
4 : an exhibition of anger or indecorous behavior <make a scene>- HA
5 a : sphere of activity <the drug scene> b : situation <a bad scene>- HA

• Main Entry: ass·hole
  
• Pronunciation: \ˈas-ˌ(h)ōl\
• Function: noun
• Date: 14th century

1 usually vulgar : anus
2 a usually vulgar : a stupid, incompetent, or detestable person b usually vulgar : the worst place —used in phrases like asshole of the world

• a : a strong desire to achieve something high or great b : an object of such desire synonyms see ambition