Erika Vogt: Motor Post Motor Band Disband

OPENING: SATURDAY, MAY 10, 2008 7PM

Daniel Hug presents Motor Post Motor Band Disband, the first solo exhibition by Erika Vogt.

In this exhibition, Vogt inhabits a mediated space where the studio, the machine, the body and the object are brought together as a means of interrogation. The show begins with images from the series I Arrive When I Am Foreign. Set in the studio and adopting the uniform of the American artist as icon (black t-shirt and blue jeans), Vogt performs a series of ritualized actions with objects that make historical reference to notions of progress. In Centennial Tin, 2006, for example, Vogt acquired and opened a one hundred-year-old can of peas chosen both for its symbolic resonance as a model of invention (first sanitary can) and also for its embedded relationship to time travel. After emptying the can’s contents, a mush pile of green peas, Vogt exposed the interior and exterior surfaces of the can to a still camera and a video camera. The result is an image that was made in two parts and which itself is a reflection and embodiment of an expanded recording of time.

The seven short videos that comprise Motor Post Motor Band Disband are part of a collection of works that in part take the screen and projector as their subject. In Screen Talk, for example, two iconic images, that of a motor part and that of a music man find themselves exchanging information. Both images reverberate on the screen. The motor pulsates under the light and motion of a film projector and Vogt whirls as an offset shadow, generating music that is deafened by the sounds of the film machine. Each piece in the collection Motor Post Motor Band Disband was taped, re-taped, filmed, and re-filmed. The result is a raucous collection of animated works that is both celebratory and mournful.

Also on view will be a suite of drawings from the series Up Your Wall Forever. These works take on an economy of exchange. Made over a long period of time, the pieces become live documents of layered actions, revealing both the artist's hand, via Vogt's smudges and markings, and the physical effects of time.

Erika Vogt has exhibited her film and video work at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2006), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2006), The Artists Cinema at Frieze Art Fair, London, UK (2006). Works have also been exhibited at The Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (2006). In the coming year Erika Vogt will be included in the 2008 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art, Laguna Beach, California. She lives and works in Los Angeles.

The exhibition continues until June 7th, 2008.

Erika Vogt
Motor Post Motor Band Disband