sub-version curated by Samantha Mae Dorfman artists: Jonathan Allen - Brian Higbee - Vandana Jain - Noah Loesberg - Larilyn Sanchez & Riza Manalo - Arturs Virtmanis - Aaron Yassin CLICK HERE FOR IMAGES OF ARTIST'S WORKS CLICK HERE FOR PROPOSAL ARTIST'S BIOS OR STATEMENTS- (on going) Jonathan Allen - Artist's Statement I make political pop paintings. Over the last two years I have worked on the Currency Project, an ongoing series of paintings that employ iconography from the American dollar bill in an examination of globalization. This examination is by turns satiric, playful, and apocalyptic. By adopting the tropes of pop painting, and using banal visual information, I aim to produce an accessible art where untenable political and social realities can be evoked and interpreted in all of their idiosyncratic wonder. Brian Higbee - Artist's Statement website: www.aapr.net/brianhigbee.html The body of my work is channeled through an organization called the Associated Artists for Propaganda Research. The A.A.P.R was developed as a project to help explore and organize multiple political, philosophical and artistic ideas within one common context. Through this "organization", a framework is established in which many forms of art can be developed under one common title, that of the collective. By distorting traditional notions of personal identity, this restructuring helps loosen the conventional emphasis on a single, personalized aesthetic, instead placing the activity of art within a larger artistic context. The Associated Artists for Propaganda Research has at its roots a critique of the political and economical disinformation distributed by those intent on protecting invested interests. These private tyrannies aim to circumvent democratic processes by misinforming the public through very select, corporate controlled media outlets while continuing to carry out illegal and often state sanctioned acts against popular interests. This elaborate system of control becomes an important tool of the status quo and provides, as "truths", a systemized set of beliefs that can be easily assimilated into the greater society. Propaganda in this way provides an interesting study on how information, and therefore ideas, can be altered by an intricate filtering system intent on subverting intelligent discourse. My projects with the Associated Artists for Propaganda Research generally utilize small scale models, drawings, paintings, text and computer generated images. Most of the A.A.P.R. projects are originally intended for installations but are often scaled down for group and small exhibitions. In April of 2001 I also received a grant to create a website for this project which can be viewed at www.aapr.net. Vandana Jain - Artist's Statement website: www.artcodex.org/vj_gallery/vj_main.html Corporations do more than manufacture product; they manufacture culture. Slogans, brands, and logos, all seep into our everyday lives and become a common point of reference in our conversations. My work visually compares this created culture with the iconography of more traditional belief systems. I often use the form of the circle or mandala to set logos into a sacred or ritualistic context. Also, I use traditional or folk image-making methods like gilding or embroidery to offset the mass-produced nature of the imagery. I want to investigate this "industry of culture" and imbue it with personal meaning Noah Loesberg Larilyn Sanchez & Riza Manalo website: www.bamboocine.com/homebound/ Arturs Virtmanis - Artist's Statement Seems to me that in order to explore and understand the phenomena of corporations we have to look into the history of our civilization. (And perhaps, the evolution of life in general.) As groups were formed to survive and succeed so were the "special interests" and "special powers"… I tend to see the process of subversion as a transcendence of superficial emanations. Paradoxically, there is a permanent bond between inner realities and their outer expressions, and often, the most effective way to reveal the matter is to look at the outer shell. So, here is the group of works- in essence, a grotesque depictions of various defunct social rituals, emblems of power- fetishes of status, order, honor and alike projections of paradigms upon which the social hierarchies are built. Recently I came across the quote from Kazimir Malevich, it’s an inscription on the reverse of one of his paintings and it says: "A complex presentiment 1928-32. The composition is made up of the elements of the sensation of emptiness, loneliness and the hopelessness of life…" Somehow, I feel this to resonate well with the ideas behind my work. I would rephrase it as: "A complex presentiment 2004. The composition is made up of the elements of the sensation of emptiness…" Basically, these works can be perceived as a poetic form of Aikido, where the power of images projecting values and concepts of corporate (power) structures is reversed to reveal a void behind these structures. Aaron Yassin website: www.aaronyassin.com