Lane Relyea curates

06.27.09
Chelsea Culp and Ben Foch

07.18.09
Terence Hannum
Irena Knezevic

08.22.09
Joe Grimm and Ben Russell

09.19..09
Lane Relyea curates

Group Show for Daniel Pink,
former chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore, inspired by his line in the December 1997 issue of Fast Company: "What's one thing that all free agents need? Copies!"

featuring Curt Bozif and Matthew Metzger
with Amy Adler, Conrad Bakker, Vince Leo and Sharon Lockhart
curated by Lane Relyea

The copy has been redeemed, no longer the illegitimate usurper, counterfeit, no longer the naysayer, critic of authenticity, depriver of aura. That was long ago, during the age of spectacle, ideology, institutional critique, unionism, a middle class, before narrowcasting, prosumers, Readymade magazine, the home office, being your own boss (albeit with increased working hours and no health care or job security). Before the rise of what Daniel Pink calls Free Agent Nation. (And what group of professionals best fits the profile of today's free agents? Artists, of course. As Mr. Pink, author of the famous "The MFA is the New MBA" article, himself argues.) In this new era the copy becomes a facilitator of agency, it enhances communication and distribution. The offspring of conceptual art and its shift away from heavily anchored objects toward fast-moving information and publicity, the copy now reaches beyond gray bureaucracies and big institutions to embrace diverse communities and networks. It helps artists and artworks be gregarious, make the rounds, work the scene. Praise Xerox. But there's another task that the copy has been pressed into the service of. Think witness photography, forensics, archive fever. Here the orientation is retrospective, drawn toward unseemly and unmanageable aftermath, its gaze by turns fascinated, traumatized, melancholic. Just look at the artworks gathered in this show. More dumbstruck than mobile. More fixated than free. Less DIY. More CSI.

About the participants:

Born in 1982 in St. Louis, Missouri to a working class family, Curt Bozif studied painting and art history at the Kansas City Art Institute and received his BFA in 2006. In 2008 Bozif earned his MFA from the department of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University. Currently Bozif resides in Chicago where he keeps a studio.

Matthew Metzger was raised in Houston, Texas and studied painting at The University of North Texas. Upon completing his MFA degree at The University of Chicago, he went on to attend the Skowhegan Artist Residency program. He currently lives and works in Chicago.

Amy Adler teaches at University of California San Diego and shows at ACME in Los Angeles; Conrad Bakker teaches at the University of Illinois; Vince Leo teaches at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design; Sharon Lockhart teaches at the University of Southern California and shows at Blum & Poe in Los Angeles.

Lane Relyea is a critic and teaches art at Northwestern University.

Curt Bozif - My Father Reading Marx for the First Time (2008)

Curt Bozif