All the visible features of an area of countryside or land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal

  











All the visible features of an area of countryside or land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal

The Center Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center
113 West 60th Street
New York, NY 10023
June 10 – July 19, 2013
Reception: Monday, June 10, 6 – 8
Website 

Including:
John Calhoun
Sigrid Jakob
Saul Metnick
Chihiro Nishio
Kota Sake
Daniel Seiple
Eric van Hove

Curator: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock

All the visible features of an area of countryside or land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal brings together seven artists from Belgium, Germany, Japan, and the United States working in different mediums to explore the idea of what a landscape can potentially be. The lengthy title of this exhibition is simply a dictionary definition of the word “landscape;” however, it hints at the complexity of what a landscape is, particularly in regards to the notion of visibility. The artists in this exhibition continually play with this prerequisite of visibility as stated in the dictionary definition and nowhere is this questioning more evident than in the ephemeral space delineated by a rainbow on the exhibition’s invitation. The American author Rebecca Solnit wrote in her book, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, that “A path is a prior interpretation of the best way to traverse a landscape.” In light of this quotation, this exhibition is a landscape without a path, or perhaps seven different paths of varying natures.

John Calhoun’s monumental time-lapse drawing chronicles a period of 77 days in the studio between 2010 and 2013. Examined at the micro level, the drawings resemble psychological Rorschach tests, yet the numerous smaller elements come together to create a much larger image of a lake in northern Germany. The work simultaneously represents both a description of place, in addition to a description of an unfolding process over time.

One Kilometer by Sigrid Jakob is an ongoing forensic investigation into a peripheral area of fields and forest just outside the village of her birth. This area is a prime example of bucolic southern German countryside, and serves a variety of uses such as agriculture, hunting, and recreation. However, vague childhood memories, rumors, and odd apparitions suggest other time periods and other uses. Over the years, Sigrid Jakob has attempted to piece together the full story of this landscape through research, photography, and interviews with witnesses.

The ten black and white images by Saul Metnick are an excerpt from an ongoing exploration of the transitions, in-betweens, and non-spaces encountered during travels in the Southwest. The body of work examines the rapid and recent growth in Colorado and Nevada, particularly focused on the overwhelmingly utilitarian and non-descript aesthetic of the architecture, the perfunctory engineering, and the often overlooked spaces.

A View, by Chihiro Nishio, consists of a drawing and a video documenting the artist in a studio setting as she repeatedly attempts to trace passing vehicles from a projected video. This ongoing activity has been presented in Japan as site-specific work in progress with the drawings made in pencil directly on the wall; however, in this iteration for Fordham University’s Center Gallery the drawings have been translated into vinyl and applied directly to the gallery’s glass walls and doors. What upon first inspection presents itself as decorative filigree, turns out to be directly related to a rigorous, yet absurd endeavor.

Kota Sake’s Menu, is a 48 page, 7” x 7” book containing an assortment of dishes prepared for him at Kagawa, an establishment located in front of his studio in the neighborhood of Araiyakushi in Tokyo, Japan. Kagawa is a small, local izakaya (a type of Japanese drinking establishment which also serves food), so most customers live in the area and come after work. The food at Kagawa is not particularly fancy Japanese food, nor is it instant, fast food. For Sake, going to Kagawa to eat carefully made foods, drink Sapporo beer, and meet with locals is relaxing and provides a sense of home after a long day.

Daniel Seiple’s collaborative project with woodcarver Gavin Smith, Can't see the trees for the wood, takes place at Smith’s home in Corgarff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Guided as much by intuition and instincts as conversation, Seiple walks, drinks, and eats with Smith, then finally clears his barnyard, which is overrun with weeds and littered with large stacks of wood. In order to salvage the boards, they are stacked in the form of a five-ton house inspired by the British Arts & Crafts movement. A tunnel leads to a staircase, which ascends to the roof, from which Smith can overlook his clutter and view the landscape.

Making Sidi Ali Rainbows is a video by Eric van Hove made in Marrakesh in 2011, as well as this exhibition’s invitation image. The artist, standing in an empty pool, repeatedly spits mouthfuls of a popular spring water brand (Sidi Ali) and creates a series of small rainbows. The duration of the event is brief and dictated by the amount of water held by the bottle.

Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock, 2013

Image captions: (top) Making Sidi Ali Rainbows, Eric van Hove, video still, total running time 170 seconds, 2011 (below, left to right) John Calhoun, Sigrid Jakob, Saul Metnick, Chihiro Nishio, Kota Sake, Daniel Seiple

Half-Frames

Half-Frames
The Lipani Gallery
Fordham University at Lincoln Center
113 West 60th Street
New York, NY 10023
June 1 – July 31, 2013
Reception: Wednesday, June 5, 6 – 8 PM
Website

Curators: Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock and Anibal Pella-Woo

Half-Frames brings together twenty-one prints made from the original color transparencies held in the personal archive of J. Joseph Lynch, S.J., a mathematics and seismology professor at Fordham University from 1950 to 1967. He also ran the William Spain Seismological Station at Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus for some 60 years. Through our research at the Fordham University Archive, we were pleased to discover that J. Joseph Lynch, S.J. was an avid photographer, as well as a teacher.

The title Half-Frames refers to the dimensions of the original color transparencies utilized in this exhibition, which are one half the size of a standard 35mm frame. This smaller format was often chosen because it doubled the number of images that one could make from a single roll of 35mm film and was more cost effective. Consequently, it was often used to document topics of a personal nature and was generally utilized in a more casual manner. Our edit from a much larger set of slides made in the 1960s by J. Joseph Lynch, S.J. displays this trend and highlights his spontaneous approach to documenting travels, events, people, and places. Our criteria for image selection stemmed from our mutual enthusiasm for his images, which resonated with contemporary directions in photography from the period such as the snapshot aesthetic and interests in the vernacular within the medium of photography.

We would like to give special thanks to Patrice Kane at the Fordham University Archive housed at the Rose Hill campus’ Walsh Family Library for facilitating this exhibition. Her initial suggestion to look at several photographs of icebergs held in the archive started us on a winding investigation that resulted in the exhibit that you now see before you. Although there are no icebergs in this exhibition, the image of the iceberg, with all its hidden potential, is an appropriate metaphor for an archive – what you see at first is only a small part of the picture.

Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock and Anibal Pella-Woo, 2013

All images courtesy of the Reverend J. Joseph Lynch S.J. Collection of the Fordham University Archives

Memo

Memo, 2012, lead on paper, h 14.76 x w 10.73 (and enlargement)
Exhibited in: Compounds of a Prism, 23 August 2012
another vacant space
Biesentalerstrasse 16
D-13359 Berlin
Germany/ Deutschland
Curator: Adam Nankervis
Website

After flying from Rome, to Tokyo, to New York, a single dot was made with 2mm lead on a sheet of paper from a hotel pad. The mark was made at 113 West 60th Street, New York, NY 10023 USA in sub level room SL24Q on Wednesday August 23, 2012 at approximately 18:11.

The lead holder was red, with aluminum grip, nickel-plated brass fittings, and plastic barrel marked “ITALY KOH-I-NOOR TECNIGRAPH 5611” in silver. The lead advance push button was black.

The sheet of paper was approximately 14.76 cm high by 10.73 cm wide with an off-white coloration hinting towards yellow. The word “MEMO” is written at the top in a light blue. The words “EXCEL HOTEL TOKYU” are at the bottom of the sheet contained in a small blue box with the type knocked out to paper white. The words “TOKYU HOTELS” are directly below in blue. The paper was taken from the Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyu at Haneda Airport, 3-4-2, Hanedakuko, Ota-ku, Tokyo 144-0041 Japan.

"Artists have been invited to contribute work, a refraction from the prism of their process, a kernel of a work, signaling a fragment of change, and metamorphosis. the amputation from a greater field, where the signal is made a seed, a refraction as opposed to a reflection of the intended portent. This focus point/ vanishing point hints to a further whole, contained in an assembly of vitrines through out another vacant space. The vitrine cases measure 40cm/ 50cm.

The essence of this exhibition is to take a microcosmic element of your work, a fragment, a kernel to be installed in a vitrine case within the space. This element may be a sketch, an object, a notation to be exhibited as part of a whole in homage to the artist Kurt Schwitters." — Adam Nankervis

A Chinese Brick

A Chinese Brick

A polystyrene brick was produced in China. It was formed to appear slightly damaged and painted to seem weathered and used. It was then exported to Japan. It was purchased in Tokyo in the Ameyoko, a series of alleys and streets filled with shops that were formerly a black market in postwar occupied Japan, and then was transported to the United States. It was brought back to Japan, then passed through Hong Kong on its way to Italy. It now resides amongst the faux ancient ruins of the Pontifical Irish College at Via dei Santi Quattro, #1 in Rome.

In the Street

A copy of Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, and James Agee's 1948 film In the Street was brought from New York City, bootlegged in Beijing, then left on a blanket of a man selling copied Louis Vuitton bags on the sidewalk just outside the ancient markets of the Roman Forum. An Italian psychic transmitted this information to everyone participating in a large, open-call exhibition at Shoshanna Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.

Dah Di-dah-dah Dah-dah-dah, Di-dah-di-dit Dah-dah-dah Di-di-di-dah Dit Di-dah-dit Di-di-dit

Dah Di-dah-dah Dah-dah-dah, Di-dah-di-dit Dah-dah-dah Di-di-di-dah Dit Di-dah-dit Di-di-dit, 1985 (approx.) – 2011, h 20 cm x w 13 cm (h 8” x w 5”), 82 page pocket book, black and white text pages printed on 60-pound (90g/m2) cream-colored paper, 4-color front and back cover. Project for Markers 8, International Artists’ Museum Artura/Projective, ArtLife for the World Contemporary Art Space, Venice, Italy.

Translate the long and short signals of Morse code contained in this pocket book into English and you will have detailed walking directions generated by Google Maps from the Venice, Italy gallery in which you are standing to a specific location.

The Google Maps algorithm will bring you on some rather mysterious and seemingly pointless detours along the way, including two segments of the journey by ship; nevertheless, the instructions will eventually get you from point A to point B. Follow this walking route for approximately three days and eleven hours – 2,180 km – and you will arrive at a corner where two lovers used to meet in a black and white film from 1962.

On top of a pedestrian handrail at the intersection you will find a yellow key for a small locker in the Ueno train station in Tokyo, Japan. When you try to use this key to open locker number 6107 it will no longer work because by now the three hundred Yen locker fee has long since ran out, the contents have been taken to the lost and found, and the lock has been changed. So, present the key to the station’s lost and found department and they will hand you a Maxell UR 90 Tinted Oval Window Cassette Shell / POSITION•NORMAL / JAPAN•JAPON cassette.

There are no labels or distinguishing features on the cassette itself. Nor is there any label, or information on the cassette case, save for the fact that the cassette case spine is completely blacked out with marker pen. This is your prize. It is the most valuable thing that I can give to you. You hold my future in your hands.

This cassette tape was fabricated in Japan sometime during the mid-80s, exported to the United States, and purchased in the New York region. The tape was subsequently used to record a conversation between a family member and a psychic. It was, amongst other things, about the possible directions that my life would take. However, after the family member’s death in 2005, and prior to having the opportunity to listen to the tape, the cassette was erased.

In 2009 the erased cassette was brought back to Japan from the United States and presented to a diminutive Japanese psychic who can consistently be found at the corner of Kuyakusho Dōri and Yasukuni Dōri in Shinjuku, Tokyo. After a careful investigation of the tape, the Japanese psychic stated that since the erased recording was originally in English, a language that she didn’t understand, she was not able to decipher it, whereas had the erased recording been in Japanese she would have been able to.

After an improvised ceremony, I quietly placed the cassette in locker 6107, locked it, and walked away with the locker's yellow key. The Maxell UR 90 Tinted Oval Window Cassette Shell / POSITION•NORMAL / JAPAN•JAPON cassette sat in the darkness of the locker until my three hundred Yen ran out and a station attendant took the locker’s solitary object to the lost and found. It now waits for you there, our futures interlocked as the erased tape predicted.

A dangerous letter sent in the spirit of friendship

A dangerous letter sent in the spirit of friendship, 2011, h 11” x w 8.5”, 1 page letter, black and white text, sand

The letter reads:

113 West 60th Street, RM 423
New York, NY 10023

Saturday, December 9, 2010

An Exchange with Sol LeWitt
c/o Cabinet 300 Nevins Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217

Dear Ms. Basha

Please find enclosed sand from Tottori, Japan where Hiroshi Teshigahara filmed his 1964 film Woman in the Dunes. If you have seen this film, then you understand how dangerous this sand can be. Accordingly, I have included only a small amount with this letter.

Thank you for your consideration,

Stephanie Francis

Pin pricks on white A4 size paper alternately viewed in front of a light source and underneath it, August 22 2010

Pin pricks on white A4 size paper alternately viewed in front of a light source and underneath it, Sunday, August 22, 2010, Japan Standard Time
Black Stars on a White Sky
September 4 2010 Chateau de Sacy 1 rue Verte 60190 Sacy-le Petit France
Museum MAN-Chateau de Sacy Picardy France July 2010
Jean Cocteau Notre Dame de France altar London May 1 201
Curator: Adam Nankervis

Tomorrow I will leave the house, or more appropriately "the home," for the first time in ten days. I will walk out the front door, wait for the crossing light to change from red, to yellow, to green, look both ways, cross the street, turn right and walk approximately fifteen steps down the street to the post office here on the island of Hikoshima in Shimonoseki, Japan. I will mail you a white sheet of A4 size paper. There is nothing written on the piece of paper; however, I sat with a pin and made hundreds of small pin pricks in the paper. Each pin prick was accompanied with a clearly spoken "ow." It seemed to be a miniature trip out into the farthest possible reaches of the galaxy, or was it a journey deep into the complexities of a molecular system?

As You Wish

As You Wish (Project for KUNSTrePUBLIK's Angst hat grosse Augen, [Fear has Big Eyes] Angst in Form/Art in Public Space), 2010, four one-color, offset printed posters wheat paste glued in varying configurations throughout Halle, Germany, individual poster dimensions h 84.1 centimeters (33.1 inches) x w 59.4 centimeters (23.4 inches). Installation and installation images by Daniel Seiple, 2010

Poster #1 translation: 10,000 Marks Reward. Who is the murderer? Since Monday, 11th June this year, the following have disappeared: the school-children Klaus Klawitsky and his sister Klara, who live at 470 Müller Street. Various evidence leads us to believe that the children were victims of a similar crime to that committed last autumn against the Doering sisters.

Poster #2 translation: particularly serious case of theft, theft from kindergarten, theft from parking meter, unknown perpetrators broke violently into a gazebo, a tv was stolen and probably drinks, theft of potting soil, theft of camping furniture, chainsaws stolen, screwdriver stolen, wallet stolen, two trees, two peonies and several carnations plants stolen, two trees stolen, two peonies stolen, several carnations stolen, kitchen appliances stolen, unknown perpetrators stole a chopper and solar lamps, photographic technology stolen, car headlight stolen, drinks were stolen, drill stolen, a hair-cutting machine was stolen, garden equipment stolen, chain saws and cordless screwdrivers stolen, diesel drained, unknown perpetrators broke violently into a gazebo and a tool shed and stole a drill, a screwdriver, a saw, a brush cutter, five solar lights, a tent, a fountain pump, and a garden gnome, saw stolen, brush cutter stolen, five solar lights stolen, tent stolen, garden gnome stolen, fountain pump stolen, fish dead, mailbox destroyed, a gazebo on fire.

Poster #3 translation: Puzzle title: ...but the foreigner didn't want to commit crimes, use your welfare system, ask difficult questions, cause anxiety, bring disease, crowd your cities, be insensitive to cultural differences, steal your jobs, dilute ethnic purity, contaminate the homeland, murder Klaus Klawitsky, his sister Klara and the Doering sisters, or steal your plants and potting soil.
Please try to understand and fill in the blanks! Answer: On Tuesday a foreigner came to Germany from New York through Madrid and made posters about angst.

Poster #4 translation: Then I can't remember anything. And afterwards I see those posters and read what I've done. And read and read. Did I do that?

The following essay was written by Daniel Seiple in 2010 for the Angst hat grosse Augen exhibition catalog:

Upon looking at the art of Stephan Apicella Hitchcock, one walks into a contortion of time between real and fictional narratives in which the artist interweaves his own travels with the history and structure of films, art history, people, and places. In the last year alone he has tick tacked around the globe from New York to Cairo, Beirut, Tokyo, Madrid, Berlin, and Italy. At each location a work has been created, an image shot, or souvenir taken. I am a detective retracing his steps, picking up the static images in order to recompose time, and piling into his writings that were left behind as if by a criminal teasing his pursuers.

In June of this year a cryptic advertisement was distributed in Halle, Germany which became the impetus for my writing. A text on the top half is littered with blank spaces like a MadLib, and on the bottom half answers are provided: “Warning! Very soon a person will be coming to Germany/The Czech Republic from a foreign country through Madrid.” Months earlier, Hitchcock had submitted a proposal to KUNSTrePUBLIK to make a series of posters for the Angst exhibition that played upon fears caused by the welfare crisis, local unemployment, and the outsourcing of jobs. The advertisement continued: “Foreign _________ are often blamed for ________ during difficult economic times. (…) On that note does it help to ________ another _________ artist?” The blanks appear to lead to a personal reflection: When this foreigner, presumably Hitchcock himself, visits Halle for the first time, what angst will he find? Will he experience xenophobic suspicions at the shop that prints his posters? Is his proposal already complicated by his identity as a foreign worker, a tourist, or an imported artist? What business does he have trying to voice local concerns for a place he’s never been to, anyway?

Several years ago a series of photos surfaces that document every step from the pitcher’s mound to the dugout of the Encino Little League Baseball Field, in Encino California – where the character Stacy from the movie, Fast Times in Ridgemont High (1982), loses her virginity. In 2009, the photos are presented at a gallery in Berlin as the artwork of Stephan Apicella Hitchcock. Although the photographer never reveals himself in the photos, his presence is eerily felt as the viewer is invited to step into his shoes. Furthermore, the visitors are invited to take one of the photos home, until no more remain. Over the course of the opening the work transforms from unified to fragmented to gone. The evidence of Hitchcock’s walk to the dugout is now dispersed as a series of clues, creating an invisible line forever connecting those who took the photos.

Three years after the first appearance of the Encino photos, I watch a short film by Hitchcock, which focuses on the grave of moviemaker, Yasujiro Ozu, in Kita-Kamakura, Japan. The image jitters and colors undulate, betraying the construction as a contrived, not-so-singular moment. Fleetingly, the images do come together and perhaps the untrained eye might suspect faulty playback equipment or improperly exposed film. But upon traveling to Japan myself, I realize it would be next to impossible for crows, which are generally heard in autumn, to sing with cicadas that only chirp in summer – as it is recorded on the soundtrack. As I deconstruct the work, it becomes evident that Hitchcock shot the grave three times with each take filtered in a different primary color. In what becomes Nonsynchronous Five Times (2007-08), Hitchcock superimposes each sequence in order to create the impression of one singular, color take. As I ponder the potential reasons for this elaborate construction, I recall Ozu’s own methodical nature and use of a fixed camera.

And then, just as I have the feeling of coming closer to Hitchcock’s world, of which I only describe but a few artworks, a profile for the man appears on Facebook which announces the sale of all of the artist’s works that are “still in his possession, as well as the ownership rights to works that were generated, but destroyed.” The various lots reflect a prolific production. They are offered free of charge, first come first serve. At the conclusion of the auction, all descriptions, negotiations, transactions, correspondences as well as the artist’s friends are deleted leaving little evidence to substantiate any exchange (Part Tool, Part Trap, 2009) or artwork at all. Although I would imagine that with a little bit of digging, one could find evidence of the auction on the buyers’ profiles, or deep in Facebook’s servers. Everything leaves a trace.

In summer 2010 in Halle, four posters are spotted around town, conspicuously written in an old German script. The first is a poster of a poster, a screen grab of a film still from Fritz Lang’s dramatic thriller, M, when Hans Bekert (played by Peter Lorre), a murdering pedophile, steps into the frame and casts a shadow over a his own wanted poster. If the poster is by Hitchcock, it is a trademark move of setting his personal and artistic process within a cinematic narrative. Not quite an attempt of Wellsian (non)fictional drama, he dangles a bit of his own cultural research and presents a typographic parallel with the street signs in Halle.

The next poster to catch my eye is a crossword puzzle. I scribble it down in my notebook and take it to the coffee shop to decipher. The answers confirm my hunch and Hitchcock’s message in the advertisement: A foreigner has indeed arrived and made posters about Angst! On the poster next to this, a word search presents the local police blotter concurrent to the week that Hitchcock has visited Halle. In contrast to the serial murders by Bekert, the crimes in Halle portray a more or less blue-collar town with either desperate or juvenile criminals thieving items like potting soil and brush cutters as well as smashing mailboxes. But rather than finding the criminals, the poster sets up the game of finding the crimes, and with a spirit similar to Bekert’s letter announcing his deeds to the newspaper.

On the fourth poster, again in the old script, I read what appears to be a self-referential and cryptic admission. I follow up the first poster later that night by watching M. The movie is haunting, not just because of the convincing story, but because of the ease at which the populace is moved to mob rule after the wanted poster stirs up public angst, paranoia, and vigilantism. Beckert eludes the authorities, but is eventually captured and tried by the local mafia. In front of this kangaroo court, as a wide-eyed and crazed Beckert gives his impassioned plea to the criminals who will have his head, I hear the words written on that final poster: Then I can't remember anything. And afterwards I see those posters and read what I've done. And read and read. Did I do that?