March 17, 2008

CONNER CONTEMPORARY ART 
@ PULSE New York 2008, Contemporary Art Fair 
March 27-30, 2008

Booth E-01

Conner Contemporary Art is very pleased to exhibit at Pulse New York 2008 in our most ambitious presentation to date. We will exhibit new works by the following gallery artists:

> LEO VILLAREAL – lively, color digital sculptures created specifically for PULSE New York
> MARIA FRIBERG – the premier of two monumentally scaled photographs, commoncauseand still lives #11.
> JULEE HOLCOMBE – new photographs from the China Scroll series. 
> ZOЁ CHARLTON – large-scale, signature drawings from Suburb

Recent Cyclepup sculpture by Patricia Piccinini, paintings from Avish Khebrehzadeh's Theatre series and the complete cycle of Star Wars drawings by Mark Bennett will also be on view. Jeremy Kost will exhibit colorful portraits from the underground New York party scene. A special section will be devoted to emerging artists from our *gogo art projects roster: Geoffrey Aldridge, Zach Storm, Ryan Carr Johnson and Nathaniel Rogers.

We are also pleased to announce that Maria Friberg's latest videos commoncause and embedded have been chosen by curator Bill Arning for rotation in the video section, PULSE Play.

Mary Coble: Blood Script 
Performance
at PULSE New York, Contemporary Art Fair
Friday, March 28th and Saturday, March 29th 2008: 1-6pm.

Conner Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the performance of Blood Script by Mary Coble at the 3rd annual PULSE New York, Contemporary Art Fair, Friday, March 28th and Saturday, March 29th from 1-6pm. 

In the performances MARKER NEW YORK, (2006) MARKER DC, (2007) and MARKER MADRID (2008), Mary Coble stood silently for three hours while viewers were invited to write in marker on her body derogatory words that had been spoken against them, or slurs that they had used, or had heard used against others. 

Coble meticulously documented the MARKER inscriptions and compiled a list of over 200 hateful words and phrases which viewers wrote on her in various languages. The artist will now have over 75 of the most common words tattooed onto her skin, without ink, in a very ornate script. Using decorative letters, Coble will create a dichotomy between the beautiful visual form of the words and the ugly meanings they convey semantically. 

The words will appear in blood as the tattooing needles penetrate Coble's skin. Contact prints will be made of each word by immediately pressing watercolor paper against the fresh incisions. The mirror image of the word will be imprinted on the paper in blood. As each blood contact-print is created, it will be pinned to a wall during the performance. The number of prints on the wall will expand proportionately as the artist's skin becomes increasingly infused with hateful epithets.

The elaborate script will initially engage viewers in the optical challenge of identifying each tattooed insult. The recognition of each word will then stimulate viewers to reflect upon the significance of what that word means to them. This dynamic process will mediate a silent dialogue between the artist and her audience as the performance progresses. 

In a previous related performance, Note to Self (2005), Coble had the first names of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans-gendered hate-crime murder victims tattooed in block letters over her entire body without ink. A blood impression of each name was made on paper. These prints and the documentation of the performance are in the collection of The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. 

Pulse Fair will take place March 27-30, 2008 at Pier 40, West Side Highway at West Houston, New York, NY. Hours are March 27-29, noon to 8pm and Sunday March 30th from noon to 5pm.

Conner Contemporary Art is located in Washington, DC. Our gallery is open by appointment (Winter 2008) while we renovate our newly acquired 12,000 sq ft gallery complex. In the meantime, gallery news and art fair participation is updated frequently on our website.

For further information or appointment, please reach us at: +202-588-8750 / info@connercontemporary.com.