Curated by Miranda Lash, Curator of Contemporary Art, Speed Art Museum
November 14-December 20, 2014
Crosstown Arts, 422 N. Cleveland, Memphis, TN 38104
Opening Night: Friday, November 14, 6-8 pm
Gallery talk with the artist and curator at 6:30 pm
Roundtable discussion: Saturday, November 15, 11:30 am
Crosstown Arts is pleased to announce Trance, an exhibition of digital media work by Georgia-based artist Derek Larson, opening Friday, November 14. The exhibition is curated by Miranda Lash, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville.
In his practice Larson combines digital media with painting, lights, motors, and projected animations on freestanding screens. For his first solo show in Memphis, Larson is presenting five video projections: three from his series entitled Tantric Wealth from 2012, and two artworks from his most recent body of paintings that include elements of video. Through this constellation of artworks Larson addresses how technology has changed our ways of seeing. Are our ever-present screens and videos luring us into an extended state of passive hypnosis, or perhaps more optimistically, do they allow a more expansive mode of learning, contemplation, and meditation?
The artist and curator will introduce the exhibition at 6:30 pm on Friday, November 14, at the opening reception. Crosstown Arts will host a roundtable discussion and lunch with the artist and curator on Saturday, November 15 at 11:30 am.
About the Artist
Derek G. Larson has participated in a number of national and international exhibitions and residencies, with recent exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Union South Gallery 1308 (Madison), May Gallery (New Orleans) and Vox Populi (Philadelphia). His work is featured in the upcoming issue of New American Painters. Larson received a BFA from the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, and an MFA from the Yale School of Art. He currently lives and works in Statesboro, Georgia.
About the Curator
Miranda Lash is curator of contemporary art at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, where she is overseeing new commissions for the upcoming Elizabeth P. and Frederick K. Cressman Art Park, and organizing the reinstallation of the permanent collection for the new building designed by wHY architecture, which will open in April 2016. Prior to the Speed, Lash was curator of modern and contemporary art the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). She joined NOMA in 2008 as the founder of the museum’s modern and contemporary art department. During her tenure at NOMA, Lash curated over twenty exhibitions, including the traveling retrospective exhibition Mel Chin: Rematch; Rashaad Newsome: King of Arms; Katie Holten: Drawn to the Edge;Swoon: Thalassa, and Camille Henrot: Cities of Ys.
About Crosstown Arts
Crosstown Arts is a contemporary arts organization dedicated to further cultivating the creative community in Memphis. Managing five types of spaces that integrate varying components of exhibition, performance, production, education and retail, Crosstown Arts supports multidisciplinary and collaborative projects that interconnect people and organizations. Crosstown Arts welcomes anyone in the community to join any of our events or projects, regardless of prior experience or expertise with creative interests.
Shop ‘Til You Droop, 2013
Digital video & animation (loop), projection, aluminum composite, wood, epoxy, paint, paper, fluorescent light, black light, electrical, hydrocal, 38 x 24in.
Courtesy of the artist
Media contact: Emily Halpern, emily@crosstownarts.org
Crosstown Arts’ Visiting Artist Series is sponsored by V02 Networx
