The Sublime of the Mundane

Jisun Beak - Mallory Cain Breiner - Florine Demosthene -
C. Finley - Dominika Ksel - Shellyne Rodriguez - Chandra -
Keith McCormick - AnonymousB 

Curated by Jasmine Murrell 

on view: july 19 – August 23, 2015 

Opening reception: Sunday, July, 19, 5–8pm
Performance: Saturday, August 15, 7pm 

FiveMyles is pleased to announce this group exhibition presenting five weeks of interactive installations and performances. The exhibition rejects the notion that our culture rapidly and inevitably takes us further and further away from real interactions with each other and with our environment. The curator Jasmine Murrell has chosen work that allows for the non-commodifiable elements in art to remind us of the connections between us and our world. This interactive work directly engages the viewer, both visually and through sound and touch. It invites conversations between strangers; the activities in the space are enjoyed and shared.  

The Sublime of the Mundane brings together international and U.S. artists; together they will transform the gallery space into a fantastical landscape of tactile, auditory and visual experiences.  

Evening of Performances and Video: Ginseng and Juice, August 15, 7pm 
Performers: Rufus Tureen, Maya Jeffereis, Andre Springer, Shani Peters, Jason Gregory Isaacs, Kiran Chandra, Patricia Dominguez, Tiana Marenah, Kelsey lu and That Detroit Brotha

Outside the gallery C. Finley’s functional, but lovingly wallpapered dumpster points out that even waste collecting objects can be beautiful. The artist says: “If we see dumpsters as works of art, we have raised our consciousness.” Dominika Ksel’s interactive tuning chamber transforms and activates the body, of the participant who enters, through sound and vibration.  

Korean artist Jisun Beak’s large-scale installation is to be entered and to be confused in. This work let’s the artist look at society’s ironic and absurd rules, and how we struggle to live by them. Shellyne Rodriguez installs an altar for offerings of desires, longings and discontent. Mallory Cain Breiner creates an absurd and unsettling sculptural space of leisure. 

Collaborators Chandra and Keith McCormik, whose work was shown at the 2015 Venice Biennale, will present photos of their rich New Orleans culture. The floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina act as a third party in the creation of their work. Haitian artist Florine Demosthene’s mixed-media works, textural mélanges of paint, ink, graphite and charcoal, depict voluptuous female figures amist a strange world of decay and destruction.  

Artist AnonymousB contributes Perceived Obsolescence, an installation of mundane objects for the public to handle, and letting the viewer contemplate on the personal and historical memories that are embedded in the thingness of an object. The installation questions authorship and the incongruity of the commodification of art.   

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

FiveMyles is in part supported by the New York State Council for the Arts, Public Funds from the New York City Dept. of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Council Member Laurie Cumbo, the Greenwich Collection, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, and Humanities NY.