Emily Roz

Multiples and Editions at Front Room Gallery

The Front Room Presents
Multiples and Editions
curated by Ethan Crenson
January 19th – February 11th, 2007
Reception: Friday Jan. 19th, 7-9
Viewing hours: Fri-Sun 1-6

The Front Room gallery is pleased to present Multiples and Editions a new and ongoing program at the gallery. On January 19th an exhibition inaugurating this program will open with a gala reception. The exhibition will feature work by Edie Winograde, Anne Marie Wies, Piers Watson, Jason Van Anden, Leah Stuhltrager, Anna Stein, Jeremy Slater, David Shapiro, Emily Roz, Tom Rosenthal, Matt Richards, Marshall Reese, Marcin Ramocki, Serge Onnen, Nora Ligorano, David Kramer, Chuck Jones, Cadence Giersbach, Robert Flynt, Celeste Fichter, Glen Einbinder, Paulo Dos Santos, Rik De Boe, Patrick Couder, Heidi Cody, Naval Cassidy, Nelson Bradley, Brian Block and Luca Bertolo. Multiples in the show will inhabit the gallery as merchandise-for-sale permanently, or until supplies run out.

The work in Multiples and Editions engages two major opposing currents of the art market: rarification vs. mass-production in the creation of art. Each artist approaches this dichotomy differently. Some of the artists employ what are considered traditional art methods like etching and bronze casting. Rik De Boe, a Belgian artist, has produced an aquatint etching depicting the engine of mass markets–a television. Other artists turn to new commercial means and materials, like Heidi Cody, whose offset printed toilet paper reproduces cheap ads like those seen in subway cars; and Serge Onnen, who worked with a factory to make wallpaper that reproduces a single drawing as a seamless pattern of art-decor. Some, like David Shapiro, conflate the concept of the “original work” and the “editioned work” by copying and recopying a single drawing by hand, essentially becoming the printing press in the process. Still others turn to new internet businesses that quickly and cheaply produce customized “value added products”. David Kramer has produced an ashtray whose message speaks to the self-destructive leanings of its user; while Nelson Bradley subverts the pleasantries of commercial give-aways with rude messages on so-called “leave behinds”.

The exhibition will feature prototypes, working sketches and other supporting materials that relate to the multiples and editions. For instance, Glen Einbinder shows original sketches from the “Dreamcards, Science Times 2000” series. The multiple is a deck 52 individually silk-screened cards. Each card in the deck is based on a news story that ran in the Science Times section of the New York Times in the year 2000–one card from each week of the year. Edie Winograde, who produced a limited edition book compiling her photographs of reenactment pageants of historical events–from Custer’s Last Stand to Lewis and Clark’s Expedition–shows her original large scale photographs.

A printed catalog of the multiples will be available at the exhibition and all works will be available for purchase in a new online store at: http://www.frontroom.org/editions. The multiples and editions store will occupy a portion of the Front Room gallery permanently and the gallery will actively seek new works to be added over time.

Cannonball Press

The guys at Cannonball Press were kind enough to make a print for me. Hippos are sold out, but Tigers and Dinosaurs are still available. Thanks Mike and Martin!

Death By Mel in Time Out New York

Time Out New York New York ran this piece on Death By Mel:

Die another Day
Mad Mel’s violent tendencies are cataloged for gallerygoers.

As if Mel Gibson didn’t have enough to worry about, here’s another stain on his record: The overgrown altar boy has killed 144 people—on film, at least. Artist Emily Roz knows this because she witnessed them all while compiling images for Death by Mel, an ongoing display of Gibson’s homicidal screen shots at Williamsburg’s Front Room gallery. To assemble this chronologically-ordered exhibit, Roz was obligated to view the vast bulk of Gibson’s oeuvre, from 1977’s Summer City to 2004’s The Passion of the Christ (it’s director Gibson who hammers the stakes into Jesus’ hand). Here are a few facts that probably didn’t show up on the LAPD’s arrest report.—Erin Clements

Number of films Roz watched: 31
Cost of rentals and film: $528
Movie with highest body count: Braveheart (33)
People Mel kills by gunshot: 74
People Mel kills by knife or sword: 26
People Mel kills by head twist: 2
People Mel kills by ax: 2
People Mel kills by spike: 1
People Mel kills by poison: 1
People Mel kills with a piranha: 1
People Mel kills in What Women Want: 0
Times Roz was teased by local video clerks: 8
Times Bird on a Wire was already checked out at store: 3
Times viewers questioned the chronology of the exhibit: 4
Times Roz’s four-year-old son questioned value of project: 144
Months Roz’s husband banned her from using Netflix after project’s completion: 12

Death by Mel can be viewed at the Front Room (frontroom.org), 147 Roebling St in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Friday 18–Sunday 20.

Time Out New York / Issue 568 : Aug 17–23, 2006

Walk of Fame at Front Room Gallery

The Front Room Gallery presents
Walk of Fame
Friday May 12th-June 11th
Reception: Fri. May 12th, 7-9pm
hours: Fri-Sun 1-6pm
http://www.frontroom.org

The Front Room Gallery is proud to present “Walk of Fame,” featuring works by Emily Roz and Philip Simmons. “Walk of Fame” captures the glamour and slickness, the gratuity and sheen, the sex and violence that simultaneously seduces and repels us.

Emily Roz creates large grids of repeated motifs in American Cinema. Using Polaroid film Roz recaptures the look and experience of the image flickering on the screen: the car jumps, explosions, and two-second gratuitous nude scenes. Roz’s work documents and categorizes the reservoir of familiar repeated plot elements in the American cinema. Roz not only calls attention to the formulas of many movie genres, but also pinpoints the minute, titillating cinematographic fragments that make up the blockbuster Hollywood movie spanning multiple eras in American popular culture.

Philip Simmons, through his large, exceedingly glossy and monolithic silhouette sculptures taps into the grandiose archetype of the American Wild West. The sculptures adopt the visual language of western road signs of a bygone era of idealism, much like the famous Mobile gas Pegasus sign that Andy Warhol iconized. Spare, glossy, and minimal – like a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western movie – his works almost demand to be consumed by the viewer in an instant.