Show #34:
risky behavior
Curated by: TSA LA
Participating Artists: Carl Baratta, Loren Britton, Vanessa Chow, Alexis Granwell, Erin Harmon, David Humphrey, Julian Kreimer, Sheila Pepe, Brian Porray, Jonathan Ryan, Laurel Shear, and Christopher Ulivo
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 15th, 6-8pm
Dates: September 15th - October 29th
Field Projects and TSA LA are pleased to present Risky Behavior, a group exhibition that threads together artists from each coast to create a lively visual soirée.
Tiberio Fiorillio was the boisterous son of an actor famous for his lewd rendition of the violent stock clown Punchinello. Sometime around the 1620’s, Tiberio created a new character, the cad Scaramouche. He was invented from remnants of Il Capitano, the boastful soldier and Zanni, the untrustworthy servant. Scaramouche crooned and swooned women away from their jealous husbands. He knew how to hide in a closet or under a bed whenever one came home earlier than expected. Sometimes he made it off without a hitch and sometimes he was clubbed while scrambling down a trellis. A loveable opportunist and a coward, he made fools and he was a fool.
Freddy Mercury calls him out in “Bohemian Rhapsody”: “I see a little silhouetto of a man, Scaramouch, Scaramouch will you do the fandango?" Then, “Thunderbolts and lightning”, followed by Brian May’s anthemic solo. Someone, I imagine, is left picking up the pieces behind Scaramouche, little people! Confidence without reason, confidence with cowardice, cowardice with talent.
How to caricature the collaboration of Field Projects and Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles? Both spaces are superficially similar operations, forthright and scrappy artist-run, curator-driven galleries. Perhaps a balding Dennis The Menace crossed with an injured Laura Ingles? The match should be fruitful.
The artists in Risky Behavior each in their own way incorporate, embody or feign trouble, doubt and uncertainty. They seek to give something and sure as hell are trying to get away with something.
Tiger Strikes Asteroid is a network of artist-run spaces with locations in Philadelphia, New York, and Los Angeles. Each space is independently operated and focuses on presenting a varied program of emerging and mid-career artists. Their goal is to collectively bring people together, expand connections, and build community through artist-initiated exhibitions, projects, and curatorial opportunities. For more information visit their website at http://www.tigerstrikesasteroid.com/.
