Terrance Graven : TEMPVS
Lukas Beyeler : Selected Works
July 2 – August 1, 2009 | Opening Reception July 2, 6 – 9pm with Live Performance by Terrance Graven at 8pm
DCP Project Space – 1928 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Open Thursday – Saturday, Noon-6pm
DCP (David Cunningham Projects) is pleased to announce concurrent solo shows by Lukas Beyeler and Terrance Graven.
Lukas Beyeler : Selected Works will feature three recent video works by Lukas Beyeler (Zurich, Switzerland).
San Francisco based artist Terrance Graven will debut TEMPVS, a new installation featuring sculpture, live performance, sound, photography and drawing. Graven will perform TEMPVS live at the opening reception on July 2nd.
Lukas Beyeler : Selected Works
DCP is pleased to present three video works by Lukas Beyeler:- ‘Versailles no bara’ (2005), ‘Nugase ! Panik Mahjong’ (2003). and ‘Hit Machine’ (2003). Beyeler’s work frequently takes the conceit of ‘entertainment’ and the found ‘structures’ of gaming and applies strategies of mirroring/ twinning/ pairing to subvert the normative, in the process creating heterotopic spaces for displaced desire. Referencing Japanese Manga, Anime, and Nugase (video games in which winning players are rewarded with short flashes of erotic imagery) Beyeler re-writes the rules by ‘gaming the system’. In ‘Versailles no bara’ he shares a secret with himself. In ‘Nugase ! Panik Mahjong’ frequent Beyeler collaborators Massimo and Pierce (of Black Sun Productions) a couple in real life, play against each other and are rewarded with images of their own shared love. ‘Hit Machine’ absurdly and hilariously recasts a Swiss Police car as a mobile disco/ jukebox, lights flashing in sync with a frenetic dance track deftly conflating contradictions found in famously orderly Swiss (and Japanese) society and the hyper-masculinized tropes of mainstream gay culture.
Terrance Graven : TEMPVS
Terrance Graven’s installations integrate sculptural elements, live performance, costume, sound, and theatrical lighting. His principle subject is the fragility of the body and the frailty of life. Using sculpture, drawing and live performance to explore his personal anxieties about mortality and the universal experience of living precariously in a body made of flesh and bone his work aims “not to appease and comfort, but rather to agitate and illuminate places that are usually left unexplored”.
Lukas Beyeler was born in Lausanne (Switzerland) in 1980. He graduated in Visual Arts from the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL) and was awarded the Prix de la Fondation Ernest Manganel in 2005. His practice is strongly collaborative and he has worked with a diverse range of artists including Pipilotti Rist (as photographer on ‘Pepperminta’, 2008), and Bruce LaBruce (providing live visuals and stage design for Bruce LaBruce’s live performance ‘Macho Family Romance’ at the Theater Neumarkt, Zurich in 2009). Recently he has been assisting photographer Walter Pfeiffer on several projects. Fellow artists Fabrice Gygi, John Armleder and Karim Noureldin among others have participated in his works. He is currently collaborating with Daniel McKernan on a new video work for Black Sun Productions. His work was included in ‘New Art from Switzerland’ at the Essl Collection in Vienna and his films have been screened at Outfest (Los Angeles) The Mix (NYC) and The Horse Hospital (London). He lives and works in Zurich. This is his first exhibition with DCP.
Terrance Graven is an interdisciplinary artist based in San Francisco. He studied Art at Indiana University and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Francisco State University (Honors Program/ Painting). In 1990, he was a principle performer for Harupin-Ha, the first Bay Area Butoh troupe, headed by Koichi and Hiroko Tamano. He also trained with Yumiko Yoshioka, Akira Kasai, Anzu Furukawa, Yuri Nagaoka, and Diego Pinon. In 1992 he formed the COLLAPSINGsilence performance troupe, which was active for thirteen years. He has been a guest lecturer/ instructor at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Douglas and Sturgess, Jon Sims Center for the Arts, Yugen Theater, and the Harvey Milk Institute. He has exhibited widely in the Bay area including solo shows at Luscombe Gallery, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 111 Minna and others. This is his first exhibition with DCP.
