Zhenesse Staniec Heinemann, Leah Aron + Tymon Mattoszko, Rafael Sanchez May 28, 2010

ZHENESSE STANIEC HEINEMANN

Zhenesse (ny, ny) Zhenesse Staniec Heinemann has created live performative dioramas and short character driven video art in New York City for the past five years in varied spaces such as chashama, John Connelly Presents, Collective:Unconscious, Interart Annex, and the Scope Art Fair NY. Her interest in live art as representational or interactive social experimentation is reflected in both her solo and collaborative shows as well as in her curatorial work such as the eccentrically queer MEAT! in June 2008, and the 40ºPHI project in 2009. Her strong belief in the broad communicative ability of live still visual image and minimal gesture and the exploration of subject through durational performance are explored in work that often interrogates the female figure, cultural means of identity formation, the stability of relations between bodies and objects, and engagement between motivated agents of change. Zhenesse holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from the University of Southern California and an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University and has been the recipient of a Puffin Grant in 2007 and 2009 (for To Be Titled and the 40PHI: Live Art Expedition respectively), a Scope Grant, and multiple chashama space grants.

Zhenesse Staniec Heinemann: http://zhenesse.com/index.html

RAFAEL SANCHEZ

Rafael Sanchez (ny,ny) Rafael Sanchez(b.Newark, New Jersey, 1978) is a performance artist who often takes his work to the streets and other unconventional spaces. In his performances, Sanchez frequently subjects his body to extreme stress and pain to materialize ideas of memory, spirituality and endurance. In an early work titled Back to Africa (2000), Sanchez wandered around New Jersey in white face, carrying a suitcase and waiting for a bus that never arrived. In a more recent work, Calienté/Frio (2007) the artist traced the migration process of two women from Cuba to America during the 1960s. The artist, dressed in a light colored suit and hat and carrying a packed suitcase, submerged himself in a tub of water that alternated between near boiling and below freezing as interviews with the two Cuban women played in the background.

Rafael Sanchez: http://www.exitart.org/site/pub/exhibition_programs/ida_applebroog_award/rafael_sanchez.html

LEAH ARON + TYMON MATTOSZKO

Leah Aron is a performance artist living in New York City. She has a BFA from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, where she studied at the Experimental Theatre Wing, and worked with Karen Finley on independent projects. She has logged many hours in the loving drunken arms of the New York neo-burlesque scene, performing as her alter ego Amber Alert. Past works include: Hotsy Totsy Burlesque (NY Int’l Fringe Festival), Day Job: American Peril, (Chashama 37th St.), screening of Real Naturals, (ApexArt), Like, a Virgin (English Kills Art Gallery), SMS (English Kills Art Gallery).

Leah Aron: http://www.englishkillsartgallery.com/artists/leah-aron.shtml

Curator Peter Dobill [Brooklyn, NY]
Free drinks+ New York artists,
Doors open at 8:30