{"article":{"id":12814,"heading":"Democratic Post-Traumatic S11 Art Show At Track-16","author":"Laurie Steele\/William Beccio","created":"2001-11-11 22:27:22","modified":"2005-08-15 00:43:13","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:43:13","article":"

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.



---------------------------

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).



----------------------

Elisabeth Beaird, Admin Dir

The LAB\/2948 16th Street\/SF CA 94103

415-864-8855\/phone

415-864-8860\/fax

www.thelab.org<\/p>\n","contact":"www.track16.com\/newyork\/index.html","link":"","address":"(with IMC Help)","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","summary":"Track 16 Gallery Bergamot Station 2525 Michigan Ave Santa Monica-\r\nOriginally in Soho NY, this show gathered a collection of images after the S11 tragedy and allowed for the audience to continually add the show creating a \"A Democracy of Photographs\". \r\n\r\nThe democratic tradition continues in the LA show.\r\n","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/11\/ny.jpg","filesize":"8.7 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/11\/12814.php","image":{"original":"\/uploads\/2001\/11\/ny.jpg","small":"\/uploads\/2001\/11\/ny.jpgthumb.jpg"}},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}