Robbie Conal Exhibit Closes Nov 22 + POUNDING NAILS IN THE FLOOR WITH MY FOREHEAD
Friday and Saturday...
POUNDING NAILS IN THE FLOOR WITH MY FOREHEAD
Written by Eric Bogosian
Directed by Martin Papazian
Performances Friday and Saturday November 21 and 22
8 PM, $10, purchase tickets at http://www.smartartpress.com
Doors open at 7:30.
In conjunction with Robbie Conal’s career retrospective, “No Spitting, No Kidding,” Track 16 Gallery presents a two-performance-only staging of Eric Bogosian’s “Pounding Nails in the Floor with my Forehead” directed by Martin Papazian.
“. . . Eric Bogosian again aims scorching social commentary at the contemporary urban and suburban scene—from subway panhandlers to barbecue-crazed millionaires. Bogosain reveals the hidden humor, fear, hypocrisy and rage of Americans...With this seductive element of self-revelation, he heightens the disturbing connections between his characters and, by extension, between us and the people we try not to see-and not to be-every day.”
Martin Papazian has directed a number of plays at Track 16 Gallery in conjunction with certain pertinent exhibitions (Tall Tales: Play #6 in the Kentucky Cycle [with Coal Hollow: photographs by Ken Light], The Back Home Set [with Troubles at Home: paintings by Michelle Rogers, and The Exonerated [with Premeditated: Meditations on Capital Punishmnent by Malaquias Montoya]). Papazian also acts in film and in television.
Cast includes Zibby Allen, Christopher Amitrano, Ronnie Blevins, Peter Breitmayer, Jim Dowd, Shawn Duke, John Forest, Martin Papazian, Bonnie Piesse, and Kelleia Sheerin.
Robbie Conal’s exhibition “No Spitting, No Kidding” will be on view through November 22, 2008.
TRACK 16 GALLERY
BERGAMOT STATION C1
2525 MICHIGAN AVENUE
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA 90404
P 310.264.4678 F 310.264.4682
reception@track16.com
www.track16.com
Directions: http://www.track16.com/directions.html
Robbie Conal Exhibition Opening Oct 18 at TRACK 16
NO SPITTING NO KIDDING
Robbie Conal, one of today's most influential artists and political commentators, will be hosted by Track 16 Gallery with Opening Reception on October 18, 2008 from 6-9pm. NO SPITTING NO KIDDING features over 100 paintings, sketches, posters and other media, spanning Robbie's remarkable career.
View LA TIMES ARTICLE on Robbie.
ROBBIE CONAL: NO SPITTING NO KIDDING
OCTOBER 18 — NOVEMBER 22, 2008
OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 6-9 PM
His [Conal] art is outrageous, unsparing, and constitutes a welcome
offering to the struggles of Americans against war and injustice . . .
his art is therefore to be celebrated by all who see the marriage of
art and politics as playing a vital role in the movement toward a just
society.
—Howard Zinn
My paintings are intended as satirical counterinfotainment. If they
tickle people into thinking along with me about social and political
issues, I’m a happy man.
—Robbie Conal
Santa Monica, CA––In celebration of Robbie Conal’s career as both artist and activist, Track16 Gallery is pleased to present, NO SPITTING NO KIDDING, a monumental retrospective of his work. The exhibition opens on Saturday, October 18, just prior to this year’s history-making Presidential election.
The opening reception is on October 18, from 6 to 9 P.M., and the show runs through Saturday, November 22. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, from 11 to 6 P.M.
This extensive survey dating from the 1970s through the present traces Conal’s evolution as one of the most important artists and political commentators of our time. He has consistently confronted us with his political fervor, his unrelenting desire to express and dissent, and his biting humor.
The entire gallery space will be filled with Conal’s work. From his early turbulent, ghostly figure paintings based on a baseball pitcher’s throwing motion to the charcoal-on-canvas drawings and oil paintings made for his signature posters, the show brings his work into a gallery setting juxtaposing works found plastered on construction site walls, traffic light switching boxes, freeway underpasses and bus shelters with refined paintings that pack a visual and political punch. Featuring paintings—including his magnum opus: a series of seven large satirical history paintings chronicling the
ironic intersection of politics and popular culture over five decades— and drawings culled from museums, private collections from around the US and Robbie’s personal archive, this exhibition is the most comprehensive Conal survey ever presented to the public.
Conal received an MFA degree from Stanford University in 1978. He taught painting and drawing at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Fine Arts for 12 years. He was a participant in the www.droppingknowledge.org “Table of Free Voices” event in East Berlin on Sept. 9th, 2006. His postering raids have been featured in major newspapers: the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and national periodicals: Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, People, Interview, BOMB., I.D., Print, Beautiful/Decay, as well as CBS’s This Morning, Charlie Rose, The Bill Maher Show, Life & Times on KCET and MTV News. He was the subject of the 1992 documentary, Post No Bills. He has also written two books, Art Attack: The Midnight Politics Of A Guerrilla Artist and ARTBURN, a collection of his work published in the alternative newspaper L.A.Weekly. Conal will be included in the portfolio Line Drive, published by Hamilton Press in October, 2008. This limited edition portfolio of 13 hand pulled lithographs celebrates the participating artists’ love of baseball; artists include R.B. Kitaj, Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Michael C. McMillen, and Raymond Pettibon among others. Conal has been awarded grants by th National Endowment for the Arts, The City of Los Angeles (“COLA” grant), and the Getty Trust.
He lives and works in Mar Vista, CA.