12 Notes Viewing Room
12 Notes
Zachary Cahill, Oasa DuVerney, Shahrzad Kamel, Ling-lin Ku,
Allison Malinsky, Alex McQuilkin, Miloslav Moucha, NoN Project,
Pierre Obando, Isis Prager, Wilfried Prager, John Torreano
Curated by: Allison Malinsky
Zona Franca Projects
September 15 - October 6, 2021
12 Notes brings together a group of 12 international artists corresponding to the premise of this show that derives from the number of tones in both the visual and musical chromatic scales. Each scale has twelve foundational colors or musical notes that can be mixed to create infinite expressive combinations. The 25 works in this exhibition by visual and sound artists highlight the artistic individuality and creativity produced from this short range of established units.
The 12 artists in this exhibition are part of a long historical legacy of artists who have been able to use these few fundamental tools to arrive at meaning, something extraordinary and individually theirs—beyond surface color and some variety of technical skills.
Installation of three works by John Torreano and Miloslav Moucha (on right) in the exhibition 12 Notes, 2021
Installation of paintings by Wilfried Prager and Pierre Obando, at right in the exhibition 12 Notes, 2021
Wilfried Prager
Tzimtzum, 2018
Oil on canvas — óleo sobre tela
150cm x 150cm
Wilfried Prager (b. 1964, Paris, France) has in part defined his painting practice by using a wide range of color in his work. For this exhibition, his painting Tzimtzum was chosen because of its luminous brown monochrome that leads us to its vibrating white center. This radiant painting exemplifies Wilfried´s approach to his use of cosmically generated colour and light in his paintings.
Installation of paintings by Pierre Obando in the exhibition 12 Notes, 2021
Pierre Obando
Cohere, 2014
Oil on canvas — óleo sobre tela
30cm x 23cm (12in. x 9 in.)
Pierre Obando (Belize City, Belize) used a variety of paint application processes to build up layers of CMYK pigments, pigments from everyday image reproduction, for these works selected from a larger series. Each painting is an experiment, a release of any pre-determined control over the works and their material, a way to make pigment indistinguishable from image or skill from lack of control.
Installation of works by Pierre Obando, Allison Malinsky, John Torreano, Ling-lin Ku and Miloslav Moucha in the exhibition 12 Notes, 2021
Allison Malinsky
The river (Lethe), 2021
Oil on linen, thread — óleo sobre lino, hilo
103cm x 120cm x 15cm
Allison Malinsky (b. 1980, Canterbury, NH) uses vivid colors in her 3D paintings to understand will and temporality, often abstractly portraying her natural surroundings and mythicized landscapes. The multipoint perspective of the concertina-sewn painting on view, The River (Lethe), addresses the crossing of the river of forgetting to continue a fated trajectory.
Installation of works by John Torreano and Miloslav Moucha in the exhibition 12 Notes, 2021
John Torreano
White with Jonquil Gems, 2021
Acrylic gems, acrylic paint on ½ round wood column — Gemas acrílicas, pintura acrílica, en media columna de madera
71cm x 8cm x 4cm (27in. x 3in. x 1 ½ in.)
on right:
John Torreano
White with Crystal AB´s, 2021
Acrylic gems, acrylic paint on ½ round wood column — Gemas acrílicas, pintura acrílica, en media columna de madera
81cm x 10cm x 5cm (31in. x 4in. x 2in.)
John Torreano (b. 1941, Flint, MI) creates infinitely layered paintings and sculptures embedded with his emblematic plastic gems. On view are three of his sculptural works, one wall ball and two columns, each with many dimensions which ask us to move about them—to experience their deep cosmos these works are inspired by.
Ling-lin Ku
Mute-ation, 2021
Clay, epoxy clay, barbwire, paint — barro, resina epoxy, alambre de púas, pintura
26cm x 43cm x 14cm
Ling-lin Ku (Taiwan) combines disorienting color and contradictory materials, in her often large sculptural installations, to playfully question our understanding between the physical and the digital world. Her wall sculpture on view entitled Mute-ation was made specifically for this exhibition.
Miloslav Moucha
From the Spanish Cycle, 1987
Oil on canvas — óleo sobre tela
130cm x 96cm
Miloslav Moucha (b. 1942, Litvinov, Czech Republic) made the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage in the 1980´s which set off his Spanish Cycle painting series of high contrast primaries painted in the same decade, about which he said, ¨I give the colors back to the light.¨
Installation of works by Allison Malinsky, John Torreano, Ling-lin Ku and Miloslav Moucha, QR code links for musical artists and Zachary Cahill in the exhibition 12 Notes, 2021
Isis Prager, please press play to listen to her track entitled Red Hills
Isis Prager (b. 1996, Paris, France) composes music for films, this work, Red Hills is created as an elliptical meditation that builds from red to purple.
NoN Project, please press play to listen to their track entitled Something Missing
NoN Project combines genres of music to generate unique electro-acoustic soundscapes. This work and their performance at Zona Franca Projects includes voice and electro-sound work by Luisa Rossini (Italy), guitarist Federico Civiello (Italy), and violinist, Abigail Holman (San Francisco, CA).
Installation of eight works and USSA Flower Manifesto by Zachary Cahill in the exhibition 12 Notes, 2021
Zachary Cahill
I Will Never Be Pretty (flower), 2020
Acrylic on paper — pintura acrílica
107cm x 109cm (42in. x 43in.)
Zachary Cahill (Chicago, IL) has an installation of eight large color saturated flowers on view (that come with a manifesto from his ongoing decade long fictional nation, the USSA). These radical flowers help his deft endeavor to detect where, he writes, ¨in a propaganda saturated nation, our self begins.¨
Installation of works by Oasa DuVerney, Shahrzad Kamel and Alex McQuilkin the exhibition 12 Notes, 2021
Oasa DuVerney
The Song That I Sing IS Part of An Echo, 2021
Risograph prints — grabado
72cm x 56cm
Oasa DuVerney (b. 1979, Queens, NY) pushes and pulls color layers in her print quadruple to repeatedly echo the original photograph of her work, that of poets Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, Alice Walker, and June Jordan at the 1979 Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival, of which she writes, ¨made me think about the idea that we who are working towards complete liberation are all singing the same song, throughout time, space, and change.¨
Shahrzad Kamel
Untitled, 2016-2021
Blue toned gelatin silver print, mat board, aluminum frame —
Impresión en gelatina de plata de tono azul, cartón mate, marco de aluminio
33 x 48.2 cm (13in. x 19 in.)
Unique
Shahrzad Kamel (b.1979, San Francisco, CA) creates unique objects from anonymous photographs she searches out or ones she takes herself, either from her travels or generated in her studio; all of them manipulated with layers of color. The resulting prints become complete unique objects when placed in their matte and frame.
Wavebreakers, 2022
Alex McQuilkin
Magic Moments (Technology Transformation Wonder Woman), 2021
Single channel video — video monocanal
2 minutes 30 seconds
Alex McQuilkin applied a pastel pink filter for this video work, Magic Moments (Technology Transformation Wonder Woman), a reflection on gender stereotypes and the impossible, even conflicting, societal demands on women. Her compilation of advertisements show women endlessly spinning, trapped, unable to be released towards the freedom they are aiming to sell.
Installation images
Exhibition Press
For more information on any of the artists or their works, please be in touch.