Syndicate: "Full Message"

[lfg@thing.net (Lance Fung Gallery 537 Broadway NYC)]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                       Contact Lance Fung: (212) 334 6242
July 1998

                             J O S H U A  S E L M A N

                                  "Full Message"

                        V i d e o  I n s t a l l a t i o n

                              July 6 - July 17, 1998

                          RECEPTION WEDNESDAY JULY 8, 6-8

                             Curated by Lauren Amazeen

        Full Message, an installation of video, action and process based
work by Joshua Selman opens Monday July 6th at Lance Fung Gallery. This is
the artist's second solo exhibition with the gallery since 1996. Full
Message includes a large video projection of New York City's municipal
forces removing an avenue of paper-waste left behind by a ticker tape
parade which honored the city's own baseball heroes. Filmed at Wall Street
the video features men in uniform, orange tractors, sanitation trucks,
white collar pedestrians, snow blowers, industrial brooms and wind,
clashing with tons of accumulated white paper. The video combines with
sculptural works built around mounted paper shredders. Mr. Selman's exhibit
is a meditation upon the action of moving paper across desks, through the
streets, through the world and through peoples lives.
        Guest curator Lauren Amazeen, best known from her long term
contribution as Director of The Kitchen, feels "Full Message evokes
intelligence, beauty and bite. It's the type of piece we can experience as
viewer or participant. It can move us in and out of (day)dream time and
real time, contemplation and action." Mr. Selman spends each day of the
installation in the gallery shredding paper, packaging it into mailings
and, with the help of the public, mailing it out.
        Conceptually the paper shredders, the video and the action are
linked by a focus on the psychological and emotional aspects of
accumulation and distribution. About his footage Mr. Selman says "Over the
course of the video I don't see anyone else filming, it's the only record
like it of the clean-up." The video uses a beautiful continuous-motion,
capturing every detail of the paper falling over the uniformed forces as it
is poured by mechanical paws into sanitation trucks. The periodic
mechanical whine of real paper shredders unites with all the elements in
the gallery in the context of a remarkable one man show.
        Mr. Selman is previously known for his meta work Personal Effects,
first seen at Emily Harvey Gallery in March 1994.  For that project he
screen printed each piece of his clothing including toothbrush, eye glasses
and laundry bag. "I had nothing at home, everyday I went to the gallery to
change, taking pieces from the wall of the gallery to wear to a day job or
standing on line at the bank. Each day different pieces were missing from
the walls. The next day I re-hung them and took others. In public
situations people asked about the prints, when I told them about the
project it seemed to do something for them."

The exhibition runs through July 17, gallery summer hours 12-6.




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