FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT
Lorraine Molina, Director
213.621.4055
BANK
125 W. 4th St. Los Angeles, CA 90013
Gallery Hours: TUES. – SAT. 11am-5pm
lorraine@bank-art.com
http://www.bank-art.com
BANK REOPENS Inaugural exhibition
Osman Khan: Unviewed
Project room: Martin Durazo, Bigger Than
June 6 - July 10. 15, 2005
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 10, 6 – 9PM
BANK is proud to announce that it will reopen its doors June 6 at it's new location at 125 W. 4th St. in Downtown LA. Opening Reception for its inaugural show will take place Saturday June 10.
Oman Khan's work centers around the use of technology to construct interactive installations and site-specific interventions for social criticism and aesthetic expression. His work explores certain themes to see how technology fabricates as well as subverts our understanding of identity, communication, and public space. For his first solo show at Bank, Khan creates an interactive text based piece that exposes how our newly adopted dependencies on digital devices have transformed notions of communication, privilege and mediation.
For Unviewed, Khan creates an 8(H) x 4(W) x 2(D) ft. infrared LED screen. The screen, appearing as a large black monolith, is devoid of any aesthetic and requires discovery. It is poised as an omnipotent structure emitting messages and images that cycle every few minutes, yet is invisible to the naked eye. The only way to see this information is through a device that is infrared enabled as are all 'digital eyes'; digital camera, camcorder or camera cell phone; the ubiquity of which has become common place. As such, the piece privileges its image over the real. Not unlike how other mediating apparatuses like radio, TV and the web have played a role in the way we experience and believe the world around us. The piece also points to notions of another privilege, the privilege of experience. If you posses a 'seeing'; device you are part of a select group that can view the piece, without it you are excluded from the tech savvy masses and left staring into black emptiness..
Osman Khan is a Los Angeles based artist, working primarily in digital media. He has received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University in 1995, and has recently completed his MFA at UCLA's Department of Design/Media Arts. Khan has exhibited his work nationally and internationally at noted venues such the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Ars Electronica, LACMA Lab, and the International Rotterdam Film Festival. He has been selected for the 2006 Shanghai Biennial and has recently received a professorship at Carnegie Mellon University.
Project Room: Known for his large-scale installations constructed from everyday objects,
Durazo's work often challenges our preexisting notions of the everyday
and our response to them. With ideas stemming from pornography, drugs
or fringe society, Durazo aims to address or reflect our existence in
a larger social context.
For Bigger Than, Durazo questions behaviors detrimental
to health and ideas of mortality. Addressing ideas of why some of us engage
or are seduced by acts of self-destructive behavior. In a new series of
combines and readymades, Durazo selects objects used in illicit drug cultures,
combined with revolving light pedestals and magnifying loops. These small
constructions suggest the allure of glamour, warmth and escape. Presented
in a darkened space, further suggests feelings of isolation and mystery
of the unknown. The work is not making a statement or judgment but raising
questions, fostering contemplation, and promoting consciousness in the
value of life or how it can be jeopardized. Perhaps it is by jeopardizing
something one becomes closer to seeing it for what it is, something to
appreciate or something else.