#TRACKSTARS: NEW END – dangerous times
artwork copyright of #TRACKSTARS (Dylan Neuwirth & Jeff Gerber /Raven) photography by Nathaniel Willson design and text by Sarra Scherb & #TRACKSTARS catalog produced by Bherd Studios 2013
DANGEROUS TIMES Naive beginnings or deflated truths A true family portrait Replace the well dressed family in a gold frame The past we choose for these monumental life changing events Eventually fall into a less impressed reality. There is no true beginning Only a new end.
- #TRACKSTARS
Life is like a typographical error: we’re constantly writing and rewriting things over each other. -Bret Easton Ellis
Dylan Neuwirth and Raven (Jeff Gerber) have transformed Bherd Gallery into an immersive environment that brings their glitter-punk aesthetic to life. Under the moniker of #TRACKSTARS they have drawn from diverse interests and influences to present a collection of paintings, glass, sculpture, video and sound. On their own, Neuwirth and Raven each explore themes of abandoned spaces, pop culture, and marginalization to connote the emptiness behind slick veneers of the city. Both artists consider urban space as places where transformation occurs, like alchemy: in these public, liminal spaces filth can turn to gold, and a single step can mean a life redeemed or demolished. New End: Dangerous Times synthesizes these themes, and marks their first major installation together.
Black cardboard and neon-lit glitter. Broken mirror shards and cinderblocks. No natural light, no windows, no sign of the outside world. Welcome to New End: Dangerous Times. New End conjures different moods at each turn: the tattered glamor of punk venues, the desperate aimlessness in a 3am motel room, the meditative air of a temple, the gravity of a burned-out husk, the center of a black hole. Removed from the sound and light of the everyday, New End functions as a place for contemplation, and catharsis. The space exists at the tipping point between destruction and creation: it feels empty and abandoned, yet also full of creative possibility.
Seven black-streaked, glitter-encrusted palettes lean--rather than hang--against the walls , propped on ashy white cinderblocks. “These aren’t paintings,” cautions Neuwirth, “they are objects.” Each began life as something different--covered with collage or other paintings, smaller and built up, larger and hacked down--but all of them undertook a journey that ended with their complete eradication by black paint. “This is about putting aside your ego, covering up what you made--because we don’t really own anything,” say the artists. “There’s so much potential for meaningful communication today--we have the internet, social media--and so much of it is noise. Whatever was once underneath the black paint-whatever meaningful expression--is annihilated by the noise.”
Privacy Settings seven mixed media assemblages on panels, black acrylic, glitter. cinderblocks
Ritual App
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This Becomes You
Diamonds in the rough. Punk studs gone giant. The shining pinnacles of temples. Two fragile beings trying not to break against a harsh surface.
MCMLXVII/MCMLXXVII Blown Glass w/ Silver Mirror, Asphalt, Plexiglass
“Do you know how crazy you can go in a motel room by yourself? Months on end, the sounds, the smell...you just have to get out and walk the streets some nights.�
Motel Installation Acrylic on board, mirrors and glass shards, neon, video loop, audio (street noise: Nashville), painted bottles, chain, found objects
Like ghosts haunting the same house, Neuwirth and Raven worked on the objects at different times of day, rarely seeing each other. The only lingering traces were in the work: huge changes as they built and tore down; or tiny alterations barely perceptible at all.
Those People Acrylic, glitter, chains and charms, speakers, found objects, mixed media
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Raven (Jeff Gerber) mounted an installation at CoCA Belltown in 2012, titled You Will Get Through. The artist recently returned from learning about Hindu and Sikh methods of meditation in India, which has influenced the work in this exhibition. Dylan Neuwirth’s solo work was most recently seen at 2012’s Bumbershoot Festival. His enormous suspended neon sculpture—titled NOW—was his concept of time, memory a nd the future made tangible. He has mounted recent solo exhibitions at Punch Gallery and Urban+ Gallery in Seattle.
ABOUT #TRACKSTARS:
Junkies, prostitutes and artists can traverse between all the levels of society with impunity. No other social role, identity or position in life has such a fluid, vital viscosity and each form the impenetrable backbone of our civilization that few are willing to acknowledge. There is the track and there are track stars. Everything else is just the crowd, the coaches and those placing bets and taking money. The track has, is and will always be there. We are #TRACKSTARS. #TRACKSTARS have traveled extensively internationally and have brought their cultural experiences with temples and meditation into the gallery.
ABOUT THE GALLERY:
Bherd Studios Gallery is an urban and contemporary art gallery featuring emerging and mid-career artists from the Pacific NW. Our mission is to provide these artists with a voice to “bherd� & be seen. We firmly believe that there is a new contemporary art movement taking place in Seattle and we are committed to bringing this movement to the forefront. We are located in the heart of Greenwood. Bherd Studios Urban Contemporary Art Gallery http://www.bherdstudios.com/ 312 N. 85th St. Suite 101 Seattle WA 98103 (206) 234-8348