Working On It - Part Two
Indira Martina Morre and Farley Gwazda

March 7 – April 19, 2014
 

Exhibition Dates: March 7 - April 19, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, March 7, 7-10pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays and Sundays, 1-4pm

Royal NoneSuch Gallery and the Martina  }{ Johnston Gallery are pleased to announce Working On It, a two-part exchange exhibition in which the artists who run these alternative spaces create work about each other and their multiple roles as artists, gallerists, curators, educators, arts administrators (list continues indefinitely), and display the results in each other’s spaces. The new body of work created by each of the five artists represent widely variant responses to the initial prompt, yet they have in common portraiture, both abstract and literal, as well as various structured collaborations and methods of observation.

Indira Martina Morre’s recent investigation is concerned with evidence of contemporary artists’ multifaceted contributions to the local and global art arena. Expanding their roles ad infinitum into many adjacent professional spheres, contemporary artists still manage to keep their art production practices alive and meaningful. For Working On It, Morre asked other participating artists to share their “to do” lists, calendars, reminders, and hand-written or computer documents. She traced these private documents in overlapping layers on gessoed panel to create configurations that function both as a record of a dizzying schedule of social engagements and the most personal data portraits.

Farley Gwazda presents two new projects that re-present artworks by all of the other participants in the exhibition and address the process whereby the cultural value of art is assessed. Processing Structures is an interactive installation consisting of a series of desks and frames in which viewers copy images of the work of Elizabeth Bernstein, Carey Lin, Indira Martina Morre, and Adam Thorman. Critical Reducer displays semi-sensical, computer-generated strings of words from a corpus consisting of announcements, artist statements, and critical responses to exhibitions at Royal NoneSuch Gallery and Martina }{ Johnston.

Artist Bios
Indira Martina Morre is a practicing artist, educator, and curator interested in contributing to the understanding and appreciation of contemporary art. She is teaching painting and drawing classes at the UC Berkeley Department of Art Practice, and co-directs the alternative gallery space Martina }{ Johnston Gallery in Berkeley.

Farley Gwazda is an artist and curator who is the Co-Director of Martina }{ Johnston Gallery, and the Interim Director of the Worth Ryder Art Gallery at UC Berkeley.