Opening Reception for Christoph Draeger and Reuben Lorch-Miller April 26, 2008

In his new body of work Christoph Draeger employs installation, photography, drawing, audio and video, neon, and even traditional hand-stitched textile design to explore the ways in which the political and cultural turbulence of the 1960s has continued to have resonating effects on the current social landscape. The title of his solo exhibition, Music is the Healing Force of the Universe, is taken from Albert Ayler's last album made one year before his drowning death in the East River in 1970. This title references not only Draeger’s personal preoccupation with the cathartic abilities of music, but it also runs a loose thread through the various interconnected artworks created specifically for this exhibition. LIVE/DEAD, an installation combining more than 100 live recording albums performed by artists who have all perished, invites gallery visitors to play music of their own choosing in the gallery and consider the peculiar dichotomy of listening to “live” performances that have outlived the artists themselves. In the video project room, Draeger presents his newest film, The Hippie Movie (2008), part three of his trilogy The End of the Remake (2006-2008), a video installation in which the artist re-staged moments of cultural significance from the era of his own birth (1965), including a scene from filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow up (1966), The Who’s performance of “My Generation” at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and San Francisco’s 1967 Summer of Love. Swiss-born Christoph Draeger has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Kunsthalle Fri-Art (Fribourg, Switzerland), Kunsthaus Zurich and Centre de Cultura Contemporània (Barcelona, Spain). His work was recently included in the 2007 Moscow Biennial (Moscow, Russia) and Museum as a Hub at the new New Museum (New York, New York). This is Christoph Draeger’s second solo exhibition at Catharine Clark Gallery. He lives and works in New York.
For his fourth solo exhibition at Catharine Clark Gallery, Memory Eternal, Reuben Lorch-Miller delves into the conceptual framework of the meta-physical and draws on a range of artistic interests such as abstraction, minimalism, perceptual phenomena, and sacred geometry. Additionally, the work is informed by the writings of horror and science fiction writers H.P. Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick. Intrinsic to Lorch-Miller’s practice is the belief that art making itself is a form of self-discovery and that the viewer may yield the similar benefits through a thoughtful experience of the work. As with Draeger’s work, Lorch-Miller’s new work is also influenced by psychedelic imagery and the idea of the psychedelic experience as both revelatory and transitional. A new video, The Beginning of the Way (Generator), flashes frames of solid colors in a meditative sequence and integrated into a sculptural form. Visitors will be invited to sit down to view the video through the end of the sculpture. Another work, a large hexagonal wooden sculpture, with the eponymous title of the exhibition, functions as an object for contemplation and as a portal through which the viewer may derive their own interpretations of the work. Reuben Lorch-Miller’s work has been included in exhibitions at White Box (New York, New York), 21c Museum (Louisville, Kentucky) and the Frye Museum (Seattle, Washington). Critical reviews of his work have been featured in Art in America, Flash Art, and Artforum, among other publications. He lives and works in New York.

Official Website: http://www.cclarkgallery.com