Sep 7th 2012

Josh Mannis: Fashion

@ Western Exhibitions

845 W Washington Blvd. 2nd Floor Chicago, IL 60607

Opening Friday, September 7th, from 5PM - 8PM

On view through Saturday, October 20th

Western Exhibitions is thrilled to present a new video by Josh Mannis in Gallery 2 in a solo show that will run from September 7 to October 20, 2012, with an opening reception September 7th from 5-8 pm. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm and by appointment.

In Fashion, Mannis performs a repetitive dance to a house music soundtrack wearing a black short sleeve shirt, a pair of Dockers, a windbreaker and a mask. The homemade costume is used as a prop with which, and a space within which choreography are improvised, refined and re-presented. The image of the performance is copied and layered several times over so that several dancers populate the screen in staggered succession; altogether creating varied graphic effects on an all-black background.

In a review of his recent show at Anthony Greaney Gallery in Artforum, Nuit Banai writes:

… Mannis is most impressive in his video work, through which he embraces the simulacral as the very condition of the creative act. . Mannis uses irreverent pastiche to reprocess the ciphers of contemporary experience and carve out an original image zone where new rules might yet be formulated. Yet he is also acutely aware that in an era when “acting out” is a democratic prerogative facilitated by such distribution platforms as You Tube and Tumblr, the gallery still functions as “the law” by sanctioning the name of art.

Josh Mannis’ solo show at Anthony Greaney Gallery, Boston, MA, in spring 2012 was reviewed in Artforum, Art Papers and The Boston Globe. Solo exhibitions include Variations, Thomas Solomon Gallery, Los Angeles (2010); Dawn of Man, 40000, Chicago (2006) and Iron Eagle, Small A Projects, Portland, OR (2006). Mannis was included in No Soul for Sale, with the Suburban (Oak Park, IL) and Milwaukee International (Milwaukee, WI) at the Tate Modern, London (2010); Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock & Roll Since 1967, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, (traveling 2007-09) and For Those About to Rock, the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh (2005). He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005. Mannis lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

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