FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jonah Freeman and Michael Phelan
This shit was bound to happen...

Opening Thursday 23th October 2008, 6pm-8pm
show runs until 22nd of Novembe

He was in that familiar state – not that the occasion mattered too seriously to him – of incoherent ideas spreading outward without a center, so characteristic of the present, and whose strange arithmetic adds up to a random proliferation of numbers without forming a unit. Finally he dreamed up only impracticable rooms, revolving rooms, kaleidoscopic interiors, adjustable scenery for the soul, and his ideas grew steadily more devoid of content.
  - Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities 

I was chopping down a palm tree 
When a friend dropped by to ask 
If I would feel less lonely 
If he helped me swing the axe. 
I said: No, it's not a case of being lonely 
We have here, 
I've been working on this palm tree 
For eighty seven years 
He said: Go get lost! 
And walked towards his Cadillac. 
I chopped down the palm tree 
And it landed on his back.
  -Neil Young, The Last Trip To Tulsa

How does one define the contemporary landscape? What is the optimal position to perceive where we are? Standing in Arcadian vistas with a digital camera?  Is it in a car driving by a strip mall at 70 mph? Or looking down the atriums of the skyscrapers in Asian mega cities? Is it from the picture window of a two-week-old mansion in a Middle American gated community? From the rubble of Beirut or New Orleans? Perhaps it is in front of a screen gliding through Google earth? Or maybe from a spy satellite? Is it even a strictly material position?  Do we have several imaginary landscapes superimposed on each other? Layers of mediascape in seemingly infinite varieties—String Theory personified?

Jonah Freeman and Michael Phelan's ongoing collaboration could be characterized by their mutual concern with the 'contemporary landscape' and America's absorption and perversion of both Occidental and Eastern historical modes and models.  The exhibition includes mundane and disparate icons of consumerism such as disposable aluminum foil, synthetic carpet printed with images of exotic animals and smashed safety glass vitrines.

Freeman/Phelan present these seemingly everyday/ ordinary objects with an eye towards both art history and the legacy of Middle America ‘life-styling’ within a postmodern aestheticized landscape.  Their appropriations and re-contextualizations create objects that typically blend seamlessly into the field of the commercial contemporary landscape and blur the distinction between high and low while continuously questioning the viewer’s definition and expectation of what one may consider traditional Fine Art. 

The large unique photographs in the series Reynolds Wrap Quality Aluminum Foil are made from scans of crumpled aluminum foil.  These complex abstractions convey both a vastness and emptiness that reflect upon the condition of everyday goods like molded plastic containers, foil wrappers, cardboard boxes and aluminum cans - utilitarian products that make up the many varieties of empty vessels that carry our content.  They are trappings of our cultural landscape with no meaning or use value apart from that which they hold - things meant to be immediately discarded – the bi-products of progress and convenience.  By photographing and presenting this emblem of consumerism Freeman/Phelan also posit a play on a number of art-historical models - ie: the privileging and commodification of painting over other artistic mediums; the impact and power of seriality and repetition such as Warhol's series of Shadow paintings;  and the innovation and precedent of experimental and conceptual photography in the 1970’s  such as James Welling's crumpled photos of fabric and foil. (Unlike Welling however, Freeman/Phelan are using the advanced technology (scanner, computer) as opposed to film - to capture and document a contemporary landscape.)

For the exhibition at Mitterrand Sanz the artists are including their solo work as way to amplify the themes that their individual practices share with their collaborative efforts.

Freeman will show new images from his Franklin Abraham series – A sprawling Chinese box narrative about a mixed use development that has evolved into a hypertrophic urban mess. Presented are several representations of the exterior of the building as it has evolved over its 200 year history. Also included are 3 new wallpaper pieces. The images appear as celestial abstractions but they are in fact high resolution scans of degraded pieces of sheetrock wall panels. These micro representations of the detritus of the built environment are references to the museological practice of cataloging the materials of civilization. 

Phelan's individual works will include a new series of paintings titled Paint It Black, a text piece This Shit Was Bound To Happen, and an editioned custom pigment print Miss HighTimes. Walking the line between high and low (art), design, and commodity, Phelan's works concern the absorption and co-option of historical aesthetics and practices – as reflected within the contemporary American landscape. 

Whereas century old examples of fabric dying such as Batik and Shibori have been found in Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and India–the culmination of tie-dye in the United States occurred during the 1960s’ Hippie movement as a symbol of ‘Peace and Love’, only to be re-appropriated more recently, reemerging as ‘popular’ fashion. Repositioned and repurposed within the context of the gallery, the work calls into question how 'history', once unhinged from it's original contexts, can be reconstituted, redistributed, and seamlessly re-absorbed into the American consumer landscape- "emptied" of it's original historical contexts. Similarly, Phelan's This Shit Was Bound to Happen is lifted from the popularized 'Ideology and Religion Shit List'- in this case, 'Presbyterian: This shit was bound to happen.' "Shit happens" is a common slang phrase, used as a simple existential observation that life is full of imperfections. It is an acknowledgment that bad things happen to people for no particular reason. And finally, Miss High Times is a play on The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue published annually, featuring fashion models wearing swimwear in exotic locales. However, in Phelan's lens, the 'models' are smoking cannabis. High Times was originally modelled on Playboy magazine, except that rather than catering to consumers of recreational sex, it caters to consumers of recreational drugs. Each issue has a centrefold photo, not of a nude woman, but typically of a choice grade of cannabis plant. (Although for a brief period during the late 1970s and early '80s, they featured centrefolds dedicated to cocaine.)

Michael Phelan's work has been widely exhibited throughout the US and Europe including Mary Boone, D'Amelio Terras, Andrew Kreps, John Connelly, Daniel Reich, Leo Koenig, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, The Kitchen, Artists Space, The Sculpture Center, Shane Campbell, Champion Fine Art, and Kantor Feuer. Upcoming exhibitions will include Abstract America: New Paintings from the US, Saatchi Gallery, London, This Shit Was Bound To Happen (Solo) at Samson Projects, Boston, Nice & Fit Gallery, Berlin, and Figge Von Rosen Gallerie, Cologne (Solo). He is an annual subscriber of High Times.

Jonah Freeman's recent exhibitions include Hello Meth Lab In The Sun, 2008 Ballroom Marfa ,The Future As Disruption, The Kitchen, NYC, 2008,    Busan Biennale, 2006 Curated by Manu Park, Busan, South Korea. Intouchable (l’Idéal transparence) Curated by François Piron & Guillaume Désanges, Centre National d’Art Contemporain – Villa Arson, Nice, France and Fountains D’Amelio Terras, New York City. His upcoming exhibitions include Grow Your Own curated by Peter Coffin, Le Palais de Toyko, Paris, France and a solo exhibition at Centre Pour L'image Contemporaine, Geneva, Switzerland.