Get the Led Out
SHO Gallery and Team Lab present:
Get the Led Out at The Loading Dock.
Curated by Erik Hougen, Tony Ingrisano, and Julie McKim
September 19th – 26th, 2009
Artists:
Justin Amrhein
Sarah Bostwick
Sonya Blesofsky
Helen Denis
Sarrita Hunn
Bill Lohre
Jessica Mein
Pete Watts
Get the Led Out brings together a group of artists who use ordinary materials to create precise and meticulous objects. Employing ink, paper, video, aluminum foil, and various other mediums, they produce work that is fastidious in execution and detailed in result. Repetition, planning, patience, concentration, rules formed by the use of simple tools, and a driving need to master their chosen craft attribute to the astonishment of their work. Often their subject matter mirrors their process, exploring systems, structures, and environments that exist only in their specific renderings.
When choosing a name for this show, the legendary account of the naming of Led Zeppelin was presented. According to myth, Keith Moon and John Entwistle of The Who offered the name when the idea of forming a possible group containing themselves, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck was suggested – saying it would go over like a “lead zeppelin”. The line up eventually changed, but the name stayed with the purposeful misspelling of “led,” so people wouldn’t mispronounce it “lead” (as in the word “leader”). They named their band as if it was destined to fail.
We included Led in the name of the show, not because we think the show is destined to fail, but from thinking about the practice of art and its place in our culture. Often times it feels like choosing to pursue art is akin to choosing a path that is destined to fail. Hard economic times, layoffs, galleries closing, grant money drying up, the list of adversities stretches long. We know them, live them, confront them, and we decide to make it work regardless. Using limited materials, sparse opportunities, and seemingly minimal possibilities, options are rethought and understandings examined and restructured.
Working from within these parameters, which are visible in both the work and the artistic process of the artists we have selected, this show was built. A non-traditional space presented itself, a phone call was made, and we came together, aware of the numerous obstacles before us and armed only with the mandate that we wanted to take this opportunity to present work that we believed in. Get the Led Out is the inaugural show of the newly formed art collaborative Team Lab.
