Democratic Post-Traumatic S11 Art Show At Track-16

Here Is New York is not a conventional gallery show. It is something new, a
show tailored to the nature of the event and to the response it has
elicited. The exhibition is subtitled "A Democracy of Photographs" because
anyone and everyone who took pictures relating to the tragedy were invited
to bring or email their images to the gallery, where they were digitally
scanned, archivally printed, and displayed on the walls alongside the work
of top photo-jour-nalists and other professional photo-graphers. All of the
prints displayed in Here Is New York are available for purchase at the same
fixed, nominal price, regardless of their provenance. The net proceeds will
go to the Children's Aid Society WTC Relief Fund for the benefit of the
thousands of children who are among the greatest victims of this
catastrophe.

All opening Saturday, November 10, 2001 at
Track 16 Gallery
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave., Bldg. C1
Santa Monica, CA 90404

HERE IS NEW YORK
Images from the Frontline of History: A Democracy of Photographs

FAZAL SHEIKH
When two bulls fight, the leg of the calf is broken

A VIEW WITH A GRAIN OF SAND
Images of RAWA's Projects and the Lives of Afghan Refugees

OVERFLOWING
Lida Abdullah, Gita Khashabi, and Amitis Motevalli

The ALGEBRA OF INFINITE INJUSTICE
Wednesday, November 14 at 7pm
RAWA, The Afghan Women1s Mission and Track 16 Gallery invite you to an
evening of art, music, and words in support of the Revolutionary Association
of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)


Santa Monica -- In response to the World Trade Center
tragedy and the unprecedented flood of images that have resulted from it, a
unique exhibition, Here Is New York, was created in a storefront in SoHo.
The exhibition will now travel to Track 16 Gallery, where it will be
augmented by images from Los Angeles residents.



The causes and effects of the events of September 11 are by no means clear.
What is clear, though, is this: in order to restore our sense of equilibrium
as a nation, as a city, and particularly as a community of individuals, we
need to develop a new way of looking at and thinking about what has
happened, as well as a way of making sense of all the images that have
besieged us.

The organizers of the exhibition are Gilles Peress, a photo-grapher for The
New Yorker; Alice Rose George, a curator and editor; Charles Traub, a
photo-grapher and chairman of the MFA Program in the Photography Department
of the School of Visual Arts, working with SVA's staff and students; and
Michael Shulan.
Here Is New York invited anyone-amateur or professional-who had images
connected to the World Trade Center disaster to make them a part of the
exhibition. In the same spirit, Track 16 Gallery is inviting the Los Angeles
community to bring images that will be included on a wall titled L.A.
Responds. In keeping with Here Is New York's demo-cratic and populist
nature, which we feel is not only appropriate to what has happened but
intrinsic to its under-standing, we are setting only the following
limit-ation on sub-mis-sions: all pictures must relate to the events of
9/11/2001, in the broadest and yet most intimate sense.

When two bulls fight, the leg of the calf is broken is an installation by
Fazal Sheikh, an artist who was born in New York City and has roots in the
Afghan borderlands. This piece, together with the accompanying publication,
reminds us of the human cost of aggression, in all its forms. Fazal Sheikh's
family thread has drawn him across three continents, back to the places
where his father's family and his grandfather's family lived long before he
was born. In the attempt to uncover his own family history, he has been
thrust into the lives and contemporary conflicts of people in Kabul. When
two bulls fight, the leg of the calf is broken resonates with the plight of
the people who live in his grandfather's land as it reveals their daily
existence in the Taliban-held city where a regime of fear is now maintained
in the name of Islam.

The horrible events of September 11 have focused world attention on
Afghanistan, a country that has been dealing with immense social, political,
and economic strife for decades. The photographs in the exhibition A View
with a Grain of Sand are images of the Revolutionary Association of the
Women of Afghanistan's (RAWA) projects and photographs documenting the lives
of Afghan refugees. Steve Penners, president of the Afghan Women's Mission,
and Meena Nanji are among the artists featured in this exhibition. For
Afghan citizens, living in constant fear has been a situation endured not
for a matter of weeks, but for decades. Until a few years ago, RAWA
administered the Malalai Hospital in Quetta, Pakistan. The hospital, one of
the finest in the region, treated up to four hundred people a day, including
landmine victims. Due to lack of funds, the hospital has been forced to shut
down. The current war has only worsened conditions in Afghanistan, paving
the way for a humanitarian disaster. The photographs taken by Steve Penners
will be for sale for a nominal fee to benefit RAWA and the rebuilding of the
Malalai Hospital.

Overflowing is intended to give voice to three contemporary Islamic artists,
Lida Abdullah, Gita Khashabi, and Amitis Motevalli, who share their visions
of Western culture. At a time when people, traditions, and images of Central
Asia are being closely scrutinized and examined, it is essential to
understand the image that Western societies traditionally have had of this
part of the world and its citizens. All three artists are independent and
rebellious as they seek to combat political misconceptions and
Western-imposed stereotypes, although they do share commonalties in artistic
perspective and aesthetic sensibilities.

Born in Afghanistan, Lida Abdullah works with appropriated images of Middle
Eastern Islam in Western art history and critical theory. Through film,
video, and performance she confronts the idea of "otherness" and the
discounting of non-European history within the dialogue of contemporary art.
Having lived both "beneath the veil" in the Islamic Republic of Iran and
without the veil in Europe and the U.S., Gita Khashabi reflects on
similarities in both lifestyles. "Topless if I wish to, faceless if I have
to," she affirms her independence of thought and actions, clarifying choices
and their repercussions. Amitis Motevalli left Iran in 1977 before the
revolution. In Amitis's work, she uses a metaphorical mirror to present an
American equivalent to each critique of the East. Islamic design and pattern
painted over Western icons act as a form of subversion as she reminds
Americans of the human injustices that are carried out within its own
borders.

On November 14 at 7 P.M., Track 16 Gallery will host a fund-raising event
for RAWA and the reopening of Malalai Hospital. It will be an evening of art
and information featuring a RAWA member, as well as poetry and music. We are
suggesting a $100 donation at the door, but everyone is welcome, and we will
gladly accept any donations at the door.



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The LAB presents in San Francisco

even the birds were on fire
A performance by Marshall Weber and the Booklyn Artists Alliance

Tuesday, November 13, gallery hours 10 AM to 5 PM, performance at 7 PM
The LAB, 2948-16th Street at Capp, San Francisco
$7 - $10 sliding scale admission at all times
For information and reservations call The LAB at (415) 864-8855

even the birds were on fire is an abject meditation on the bombing and its
spoken and unspoken forces. The title of the performance is borrowed from
the observations of a child who had unknowingly watched people jumping out
of the burning World Trade Center. Reconstructing a disparate narrative
from elementary school letters, personal email, and street texts found in
the aftermath of September 11, the piece goes beyond the fatalities,
casualties and physical damage of the bombing to evoke the specters and
passions raised by the incursion on the territory and psyche of the United
States of America. Proximity is the shared issue. What can be spoken and
what cannot be spoken of such an event? How does Primo Levi's proscription,
"There is no poetry after Auschwitz" weigh in here? Is there performance
art after the World Trade Center bombing?

Prior to the evening performance Weber will open The LAB's gallery at dawn
for a sunrise to sunset ritual to contemplate the concept that "all anger
is suffering." Visitors are encouraged to bring memorial offerings for
quiet meditation and engage in preparations for the evening performance.
After the performance, Weber will host an open dialogue with audience
members and special invited guests to discuss the concepts of peace and
revenge, and the question of whether to honor the dead with either peace or
war.

Marshall Weber is an artist and teacher currently living in New York. He
was a co-founder of Artists Television Access in San Francisco and recently
co-founded the Booklyn Artists Alliance in New York City. Weber has spent
the last decade working on a body of public artworks that evoke the
tensions between theological and political identities. The Booklyn Artists
Alliance is a national artist run, non-profit organization that publishes,
distributes, and curates exhibitions of artists' books and related
installation and performance art work. Weber's appearance at The LAB is
co-sponsored by the Visual Arts Criticism Graduate Program of the
California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC).


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Elisabeth Beaird, Admin Dir
The LAB/2948 16th Street/SF CA 94103
415-864-8855/phone
415-864-8860/fax
www.thelab.org