Conner Contemporary Art The gallery exhibits contemporary fine art in all media. The gallery strives to present a diverse artistic dossier united by a strong conceptual basis.
1358-60 Florida Avenue, NE - Washington, DC 20002 phone: + 202 - 588 - 8750 email: info@connercontemporary.com
Conner Contemporary Family Zoe Charlton War David Levinthal new video Gabriel de la Mora November 14 - January 3 Zoë Charlton presents Family (2008), a new series of large format drawings. Statuesque nude figures drawn from live models portray characteristics of the artist's female cousins, demonstrating diverse personalities within her Florida-based African American family. In these drawings Charlton explores how inherited traits interact with personal choices to define the self. Elaborating naturalistic figural imagery with culturally-laden attributes that reveal individuality, she construes the formation of personal identity as an analog to, or perhaps a model for, artistic creation.
In War David Levinthal juxtaposes Iraq (2008), his latest series of photographs, with selections from his seminal work Hitler Moves East (1977). In grad school at Yale, he and Garry Trudeau recreated the WWII German military invasion of Russia with toy soldiers. This Kodalith film series catalyzed the fabrication movement in photography. Viewers are invited to consider Levinthal's first body of work in relation to his new digital photographs of toy models, which represent the US invasion of Iraq. In conjunction with FOTOWEEK DC, Conner Contemporary will host a gallery talk and champagne reception with the artist on Saturday, November 15, at 11 am.
In his two-channel video, 39-G.M.C.-23.sept.2007, Gabriel de la Mora batters a life-size self-portrait, formed as a Mexican piñata. Instead of candy, colored paper arteries, veins, internal organs and red confetti blood pour out of the artist's Doppelgänger as he strikes it with a stick. The performance culminates with him collecting the remains from the floor and depositing them in an acrylic vitrine reminiscent of reliquary. In this work de la Mora destroys one cliché of popular Mexican culture to bring forth references to other cultural traditions, including surrealist art and relic devotion.
Zoë Charlton Cousin 1: graphite and gouache on paper, 60 x 40 inches
Connor Contemporary New Work Leo Villareal: Recent Work Gallery Artists September 27 - November 9 New large-format digital light sculptures by Leo Villareal: Diamond Matrix, Death Star and Horizon 2. & An exhibition of recent work by Conner Contemporary artists including: Mary Coble's Blood Script performance documentation, Mark Bennett's Mommie Dearest architectural drawing, Erik Sandberg's latest monumental canvas, Kenny Hunter's recent sculpture, Zoë Charlton's figural drawing, Gabriel de la Mora's memento mori drawings, Harry Shearer's latest political videos, and works by Maria Friberg, Julee Holcombe, Dean Kessmann, David Levinthal, Avish Khebrehzadeh, John Kirchner, Jeremy Kost, Brandon Morse, Joe Ovelman, Patricia Piccinini, as well as *gogo art projects artists: Geoffrey Aldridge, Taylor Baldwin, Ryan Carr Johnson, Adam De Boer, Isaac Maiselman, Natalia Panfile, Sabeen Raja, Nathaniel Rogers, Zach Storm, and Matthew Sutton more
Leo Villareal - 2008 - Diamond Matrix (detail)
Press Release August 21:
Leigh Conner and Jamie Smith are delighted to announce the inauguration of 1358-60 Florida Avenue, NE as the new home of Conner Contemporary Art and *gogo art projects with an opening solo exhibition of new work by Leo Villareal and a group exhibition of recent work by Gallery Artists.
Since acquiring the building last July, we have extensively renovated the 7,000 sq ft. ground floor area into two galleries, a dedicated media room and an outdoor exhibition space. During the year of construction, our artists have excelled, showing at venues including the Busan Biennial, South Korea; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; British National Museum, London, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, DC; Kulturhuset, Stockholm and the Anchorage Museum of Art, Anchorage; ARCO International Art Fair, Madrid; NEXT, Chicago; and at the Pulse Art Fairs in Miami, New York, and London. We now look forward to advancing our exhibition program as we participate in the momentous evolution of the historic H Street Corridor/Atlas Arts District.
To inaugurate the new space, Conner Contemporary Art takes great pleasure in presenting new large-format digital light sculptures by Leo Villareal: Diamond Matrix, Death Star and Horizon 2. In conceiving his fourth solo exhibition with the Gallery, the artist responded to interior and exterior exhibition spaces within the new gallery complex. Using the latest LED technology, Villareal explored scale, pattern, color and tonality to create imagery that evokes the generation of new life and suggests the emergence of behavior and personality. With stunning visual impact and kinetic appeal, these pieces stand forth as major works in the increasingly impressive canon of this renowned international artist.
In 2008,Villareal's work has been acquired by the Modern Museum of Art, New York and he has created projects for PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, NY. The artist has permanent installations at the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS.
We are also thrilled to present an exhibition of recent work by Conner Contemporary artists including: Mary Coble's Blood Script performance documentation, Mark Bennett's Mommie Dearest architectural drawing, Erik Sandberg's latest monumental canvas, Kenny Hunter's recent sculpture, Zoë Charlton's figural drawing, Gabriel de la Mora's memento mori drawings, Harry Shearer's latest political videos, and works by Maria Friberg, Julee Holcombe, Dean Kessmann, David Levinthal, Avish Khebrehzadeh, John Kirchner, Jeremy Kost, Brandon Morse, Joe Ovelman, Patricia Piccinini, as well as *gogo art projects artists: Geoffrey Aldridge, Taylor Baldwin, Ryan Carr Johnson, Adam De Boer, Isaac Maiselman, Natalia Panfile, Sabeen Raja, Nathaniel Rogers, Zach Storm, and Matthew Sutton.
