GONZOVILLE TONIGHT: EXPERIENCE Art Project and Interactive Display @ OPEN Art Gallery

TONIGHT: Come out to see the opening reception for “EXPERIENCE” a group show by artists Mark James, John Faughender, Adam Brock, Erin Yohey, Ryan Case, and PJ Doll.

2801 S Floyd st

“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.”

-Aristotle

EXPERIENCE: Expose people to ideas through shared involvement and personal narrative.

Every artist forces themselves into new experiences daily- collecting, observing, and re-arranging their worlds. Their found objects, photographs, and performances vicariously illustrate activities from rally car racing to urban exploration*; launching an investigation into their cultural, historical, and biographical landscape**.

We are aiming to immerse the audiences into our worlds, the gallery becomes an environment where you can physically engage in another’s life experiences through interactive sculpture and environment transformation.

Gonzo Installation.

Starts at 6:00 Doors at 7:00

This show will be appearing at several other locations in the region after the July 18th date. More information and artists to be announced.

OPENING TONIGHT!!!

OPEN Art Gallery
Saturday July 18th, 2015
7:00 pm – Midnight
2801 S Floyd st

also on:

September 25th 2015
@Exposure/13 Gallery
Cincinnati Ohio
126 E 13th Street

Exposure/13 is a student run gallery curated and managed by Art Academy of Cincinnati students John Faughender and Dani Tellez.

The gallery is AAC’s first ever off-site contemporary space

Two examples of Gonzo Installations in the show:

JOHN FAUGHENDER DRIVE- As part of my artistic process, I put myself in new and uncomfortable situations and often collect things, journal, take photos, and blog about the process. This has been anything from climbing rooftops of abandoned buildings for 21 days straight, searching for four leaf clovers in a field for 8 hours straight, or hitchhiking everyday for a week. I will be forced myself to hitchhike at least once a day for 7 days straight, setting all sorts of guidelines and restrictions to make the process more fun, competitive, and interesting. after each day is complete I and recorded as much info about the experience as possible: personal info about the drivers, their vehicles, and the way I felt around them. From there I give a copy of one of the days to performers with vehicles and it will then be up to them to use their talent as a performer to put the audience in the same shoes as me. How you ask? Well people interested in experiencing the piece instead of just looking at my photos can sign a waver ( and possibly pay a small fee) to randomly enter one of the performers vehicles and have a 15 minute drive, in which the driver is allowed to do anything they need to do to replicate the journal you were given. John also has a variety of collage and ready made sculpture in the show

ERIN YOHEY

Creating a 6 x 7 foot cubicle full of her thoughts, Erin Yohey from Cincinnati aims to let people into her mind.
Erin spent 4 – 6 months recording random thoughts, and a lot of what she thinks about before she goes to bed. In this space, the walls are covered from floor to ceiling with these thoughts surrounding a bed in which you can lay down and look at several objects hanging from the ceiling. This gonzo installation is a dark step into Erin’s mind and lets the viewer lay in Erin’s position with all the thoughts and memories overwhelming them from all around, the text covers subjects from personal relationships & drug usage to random, terrifying thoughts and reoccurring nightmares.

*Urban exploration is the investigation of man-made structures, usually abandoned ruins or not usually seen components of the man-made environment. Photography and historical interest/documentation are heavily featured in the hobby and, although it may sometimes involve trespassing onto private property, this is not always the case.
**(Hunter is payed homage in the first image, THE GONZO PAPERS VOL 1 is inside the breifcase in John Faughender’s piece “Mom always used to make me wear dresses” Gonzo is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, with the reporter’s experiences as a first-person narrative.