Sep 24th 2010

RON ARTIST: MVP (Malleability vs. Preservation)

@ Noble and Superior Projects

1418 W Superior St, 2R, Chicago, IL 60642

Opening Friday, September 24th, from 8PM - 11PM

On view through Saturday, October 23rd

Featuring the work of Lindsay Apatow, Ben Balcom, April Behnke, Luis Miguel Bendaña, Joey Carr, Emilie Crewe, Matt Cummings, Lori Felker, Yasi Ghanbari, Samuel Gove, Jordan Grimes, Jeriah Hildwine, Randy Sterling Hunter, Seth Hunter, Tom McCormack, Ross Meckfessel, Josh Sampson, Kristen Stokes, Vincent Uribe and Corrine Webb.

Previous to the opening of the gallery exhibition, Noble & Superior Projects will be hosting a legendary basketball tournament: Two games played by opposing teams of five as PAINTING vs PHOTOGRAPHY and FILM vs VIDEO. Each team has been carefully curated and selected based on the artists’ work and commitment to their medium. The exhibition in general is a satire, poking fun at the medium-specific wars that have waged in galleries, museums and critical writing for the past 100 years. We plan to settle the argument once and for all, on the court. The game will be followed by a ceremonial exhibition at Noble & Superior Projects with the losing team in each game showing their work upside down.

As painting was the only medium for recreating the world until the early-19th century, some claimed that the invention of photography has since rendered it as obsolete. Painting’s defenders claim that the purpose was never to literally reproduce reality but to emphasize its ineffable characteristics. Lovers of photography decry its relegation to a mere method of documentation, advocating instead its profound aesthetic possibilities as its most essential purpose. The two have competed for nearly two centuries for dominance in landscape and portraiture. On Friday September 24th, a winner will be declared.

Film was the most widely produced moving image medium for most of the 20th century, dominating culture with documents of places unseen and injecting unprecedented spectacle into traditional storytelling. Commercial video was introduced to artists by the likes of Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik as a democratic vehicle for immediate communication. Artists could make moving images anywhere, creating candid movies from inside their studios or homes, making motion picture production easier than ever before. Filmmakers declared the medium as pedestrian while those working with video claimed film’s pretentiousness. Most citizens of industrialized nations now have access to video in every device they touch, while some claim that it has allowed for the ubiquitous surveillance of the state. Young filmmakers dedicate themselves to reviving ancient equipment and researching methods of production as many pronounce the medium as dead. RON ARTIST: MVP gives the two camps the chance to claim dominance once and for all.

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