ID this Press Release
Opening of “ID this” exhibition at Munch Gallery
New works by Max Langhurst and Amos Mac
May 27-June 26, 2011
Opening reception May 27, 2011, 7-10 pm
Contact: Lillan Munch, 212.228.1600, info@munchgallery.com
New York, NY, May 18, 2011 – Munch Gallery is very proud to present the exhibition ‘ID this’, featuring Amos Mac’s photographic works and Max Langhurst’s installations. The exhibition explores the various levels and needs of identification. How do we identify ourselves within a group – both as an individual – and as a group member. When and how do we belong? Is ‘belonging’ essential for all forms of self-identification? Max Langhurst and Amos Mac question the many aspects of identification; audience and performer, sexuality and gender, race and culture, trust and fear, home and away. The exhibition will be up from May 27 through June 26.
Max Langhurst Artist Statement:
In ‘ID this’, Langhurst has created three new installations involving seminal collections, computer etching, and neon light, Langhurst presents the indelible act of association between the physical and the perceived self. Materials such as plastic, and glass are molded into identifiable abbreviations of the artists genetically unreplicable mark as well as shedding light on underlying social ideologies. Forensic techniques, durational theories, and written word are all used to explain the various means in which the artist attempts to realize personal life.
In Fuktank the artist uses his own ejaculatory fluid as a kind of sacrificial fragrance. The payload is placed in a classically styled aromatizer further expressing the functionality of the contents involved. Accompanying the bottle is a cooling apparatus expanding upon the act of self-preservation and permanence. The placement of the two objects together form an association sustained only by the viewers own comparative opinions on the importance of sexual acceptance.
For Finger Me Like You Love Me, Langhurst utilizes the physical properties of his own fingerprint in order to explore the transformation of pictorial data into detailed drawing. By combining computerized draftsmanship with sculptural relief, the artist joins patterns of cast shadow and light. Each penetrative groove reveals an important raceway made up of arches and loops that feed the growing construction for natural identification.
Turning the attention away from himself, Langhurst’s Miscegenation attempts to reconnect ethnophaulisms to form an intermixture of racial terminology. Langhurst augments traditional typeset spacing compiling alternative punctuation, while simultaneously exposing the undesirable fears rooted in each word. It is this welding of grammatical form that comments upon the discourse trapped in the growing need for pyramidal belongingness. The result is an accumulation of ancestral pejoratives, though undesirable in their meaning, possess a tangible reality to the dismemberment of American acculturation.
Max Langhurst lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His Recent exhibitions include W/------ Gallery in Chinatown, and Pool Art Fair 2010. His work is also featured in private collections throughout New York.
Amos Mac Artist Statement:
In ‘ID this’, Amos Mac turns the camera on the trans male figure, concentrating on self-identification while creating visibility for an under-represented community of human beings. As a transsexual artist, Mac holds a strong commitment and responsibility to photograph other people of trans experience in a truthful, intimate way. By documenting transgender and transsexual people in their own spaces with an insider’s perspective, it counters traditional out-siders’ representations of trans people which tend toward the exotic, fetishistic, debased and false.
In 2008, Amos Mac began documenting trans men within the San Francisco community he lived in, pairing the photographs up with interviews of the models so that they had a platform to share their story. This project quickly led to his creation of Original Plumbing magazine, the highly celebrated quarterly print magazine showcasing the culture, art and lives of female-to-male trans people. Contrary to mainstream media’s representation of transsexuals, Mac documents his subjects by concentrating on their personal stories beyond “sex change” surgeries, hormone use or non-use. Mac’s photography proves that there is no right or wrong way to be a trans person, there is no “trans enough” or “trans too little,” only a wide spectrum that blurs the lines into self acceptance. Within ‘ID this’, Amos Mac’s work is a collaboration between two trans people, artist and subject, in which both parties are free to be vulnerable, and the resulting work is an intimate conversation between two othered outsiders.
Amos Mac lives in Brooklyn, NY. He has shown his work internationally, most recently at Leslie-Lohman Gallery in Manhattan.