FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 26th, 2006
Adam Janes: “the squirrelly business of outbuilding incommunicado”
March 18th – April 22 rd, 2006
Solo Projects
177 South Sycamore Ave
Los Angeles, California 90036
310-428-2964
Solo Projects is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Los Angeles artist Adam Janes. The exhibition is titled “the squirrelly business of outbuilding incommunicado”. “The squirrelly business of outbuilding incommunicado” is a single sculpture using wood and various other components to describe the fallacies and limitations of a two-person conversation. The sculpture consists of three main parts. The first, the pedigree pillory is a mobile device, somewhere between a wheelbarrow and a coffin, this device allows a certain freedom of expression for the hands and forearms. The pedigree pillory docks into the dunderhead. The dunderhead is for viewing and encouraging the hands of the pedigree pillory. The dunderhead, which is based on deep-sea diving suits, is designed with limited visibility to focus in on the movement of the exposed hands of the pedigree pillory. The final element is an interchangeable part called the push and plunge. The push and plunge is the single element of contact between the dunderhead and the pedigree pillory. Housed inside the pillory, the push and plunge reveals itself as a plunger headpiece to be worn on the crown of the person inside the pedigree pillory. Once docked in the dunderhead, the push and plunge is a large button that when activated “stimulates” activity inside the pillory. Thus, what ensues is a limited and humorous dialogue between the mobile hands of the pillory and the eyes of the dunderhead. The sculpture examine themes of communication and its frustrations, psycho-sexual layers of release and fulfillment, and the playful and sinister ways which we dig into childhood memories that haunt and effect us. Adam Janes’s exhibition bridges and extends the personal and complex inner worlds related to artists such as James Lee Byers, Matthew Barney, Jim Shaw, Paul Thek, and H.C. Westermann. The ironic and sublime are key elements in Adam Janes’s work as well as an ongoing discussion of the American dream and its twisted meaning. There is a subversive quality to this sculpture displayed through the fun house/horror house edge. The reversed body/mind game that the sculpture holds the viewer and the participant in simultaneously duel zones each related and intertwined between the squirrelly business/pleasure of each other’s needs. The sculpture has the look of a scientific experiment/silent movie slapstick prop/chamber of horror tool that pushes deeper into human interplay of childhood fantasy and adult tensions. As if Wilhelm Reich’s “orgon energy” were released within the pedigree pillory, and the deep-sea creatures of the adventures of Jacques Cousteau’s investigations, the sculpture engages the viewer as an object of mystery wrought with fears and delights.
ADAM JANES
Born Dallas, TX
Resides Los Angeles, CA
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2008 “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff at 50%” Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles, CA
2007 “the unbeatable handy poor los manos” Galerie Vallois, Paris, France
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2007 “SIZE” Circus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2006 “Do Not Stack” Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles, CA
“The Squirrelly Business of Outbidding Incommunicado” Solo Projects, Los Angeles, CA
“Panic Our Older Brother” ALM, Munich, Germany
2005 “comfyheadchoppingblockheadwasher” Bucketrider Gallery, Chicago, IL
“Aufs Architecture/In the Outhouse” Rental Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
“bigmouthviciouscycle” Bucketrider Gallery, Chicago, IL
“Mika Caden-Narami” Paths of Moons and Planets, Los Angeles, CA
2004 “Of Gods and Monsters” Diannepruess, Los Angeles, CA
“Group Show” Diannepruess, Los Angeles, CA
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles