In The Backspace /
Curated by Vesna Pavlovic

Controversies of the Common Experience

Uri Aran
Josh Tonsfeldt

November 5–29, 2008

Uri Aran creates an impish reflection on questions and ambitions in a subtle manner. Seemingly oppositional qualities of grief and comedy work in concert to explore both belief and doubt - belief in sentiment and experience, but doubt about the purposes for which they are deployed. In his video projection Harry (2007), Aran depicts slow-motion video of a nighttime road construction site with audio of a narrated love letter. The video is at times soothing, yet uncomfortable; humorous, but sad. The spectator is expecting a resolution, but the feeling of loss remains.

Frequent visits and wanders in nature have provided Josh Tonsfeldt with a setting to explore the act of making pictures. For the Soil exhibition, Tonsfeldt will present a small grouping of photographs. Attacked by bees, Nutria (2006/07), and other photographs from this series at once suggest the haunting and innocent qualities of nature itself. Each of these images were created in parallel with separate video works, but rather than serving the easy role of sketches or stand ins for less tangible products, photography is used to formalize and playfully investigate the points of intersection among the processes and behaviors (among them animal, emotional, and technological) at play in both the work, and everyday lived experience. 

This exhibit runs simultaneously with solo shows of each of the artists in New York this Fall, at Simon Preston Gallery (Tonsfeldt, November) and Rivington Arms (Aran, December).