The Armory Center for the Arts is proud to present THEMODELINGAGENCY: TEKTITE –reflux, an exhibition of new works by THEMODELINGAGENCY, a collaboration between artists Nick Herman and Christopher James.
Conflating experimental art with scientific method, the drawings, paintings, sculptures, and video displayed here utilize the environment of the lab and strategies familiar to field work to produce alternative results to an existing body of scientific research. In doing so, these objects and images (re)frame the oppositional relationship between utility and art, the objective and subjective, and aesthetics and knowledge. The exhibition is on view in the Armory’s Mezzanine Galleries from June 5 through September 11, 2016. A reception, free and open to the public, will take place on Saturday, June 4, 2016 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The exhibition has been organized by Irene Tsatsos, the Armory’s Gallery Director/Chief Curator, with generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
During the Spring of 2013, THEMODELINGAGENCY took up residence at the Virgin Islands Ecological Research Station (VIERS), located on the remote south side of the island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The facilities there had been built to support the 1969 project Tektite, a NASA experiment in undersea living and working envisioned as a model for the feasibility of conducting research in space. While at VIERS, THEMODELINGAGENCY investigated both the research undertaken by the marine scientists occupying the undersea habitat as well as the concurrent NASA-funded behavioral study conducted on the submariner scientists from above. Enacting a kind of aesthetic reproduction of these tiered projects and utilizing methodologies and materials employed in conducting the original research, THEMODELINGAGENCY offers a consideration of the context and contingencies of how knowledge is produced.
About the Artists
Nick Herman is an artist and writer and publisher of the imprint anteprojects. He has an MFA in sculpture from Yale University and a BA in religious studies from Macalester College. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally at The Museum of Modern Art, Antwerp, The Sculpture Center, Peter Blum Gallery, LA><ART, 356 Mission, Artist Curated Projects (ACP), and Public Fiction, among others. He was an artist-in-residence at The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas in 2011.
Christopher James is an artist, writer, and curator. He has been published in The Believer, Cabinet, artUS, and X-TRA Journal of Contemporary Art, where he has written about the unique conditions of art production in Southern California. His artwork has been exhibited in New York at The Kitchen, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney at Altria, SAUCE; Internationally at the Museo San Telmo, San Sebastian; Magasin 3, Stockholm; and Gasworks, London as well as numerous sites and galleries in Los Angeles. He was educated at Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, and the San Francisco Art Institute and was awarded a Joan Mitchell grant to attend the residency program at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. In 2010 he produced artwork as a guest of the Hotchalpine Forschungsstation Jungfraujoch, a high altitude research station located at 11,400 feet in the Swiss Alps.
About the Armory
Armory Center for the Arts, in Pasadena, believes that an understanding and appreciation of the arts is essential for a well-rounded human experience and a healthy civic community. Founded in 1989, the Armory builds on the power of art to transform lives and communities through presenting, creating, teaching, and discussing contemporary visual art. The organization’s department of exhibitions offers diverse programs at its main facility and in locations throughout the region. In addition, the Armory offers studio art classes and a variety of educational programs to more than fifty schools and community sites in the greater Los Angeles area.
Parking is available on the street or in the Marriott garage directly north of the Armory for free for 90 minutes. The Armory is off the Gold Line at Memorial Park – walk one half block east to Raymond and one half block north to the Armory. For more information please visit www.armoryarts.org.
