Click on image for enlarged view.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

On Thursday, September 25, 2008 the U.S. Government took over Washington Mutual, selling most of it to JPMorgan Chase.

Roughly a year earlier, at the height of a frenzied economic bubble, Washington Mutual began building a new 1 million dollar branch at 5030 Greenville Avenue, just south of Lovers Lane. Just after its completion, the government seized WaMu, and JPMorgan Chase decided not to occupy the building.

The new building was never opened, never used, and has sat as an empty shell for more than a year.

On February 20, 2010, Modern Ruin-a two-day exhibition organized by Christina Rees and Thomas Feulmer-will open. The two-day exhibition will be the only use for the million-dollar building before the demolition process begins the following week. The bank building is a truly modern ruin – a building that never met its purpose, and only existed as potential activity, potential economy, and hoped-for growth.

Seeking to take advantage of the space-its social and cultural connotations, its materials, and its presence as direct and immediate evidence of the current economic condition-15 artists will create work inspired by and in dialogue with the building. Some artists will alter the building’s materials and corporate interior, while others will stage actions and interventions within, and still others will use the background of the space as context for their work.

Artists in the exhibition :

Frances Bagley
Tim Best
Michael Corris
Thomas Feulmer
Annette Lawrence
M
Margaret Meehan
Tom Orr
Richard Patterson
Cam Schoepp
Noah Simblist
Christoph Trendel
Terri Thornton
Kevin Todora
Jeff Zilm

Please join us for the opening reception/intervention with the artists the night of Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010, 8-11pm. The exhibition will be open to the public on February 20th and 21st, 12-5pm, though in the case of some artists the work left behind will be documentation of the actions that took place the night before.

Click on image to see full size.

Finished images are 34″ x 34″ inches up to 48″ x 48″, mounted on diebond with an aluminum cleat. Five images will be on display at 500x gallery from February 6th to February 28th. Opening reception will be February 6th from 7-10pm.

New works by Tim Best bring together elements of black box theatrics and imagery from dreams to create surreal ‘performance-scapes’.

Shelby Cunningham makes dollhouses shaped like one of her childhood homes that hosts her cute and (sometimes) creepy sleep disorder hallucinations that take over her bedroom at night.

Photography is the central medium in both artists work. However Shelby Cunningham builds dollhouse replicas of her childhood home and Tim Best pushes the boundaries of scale in his large photographic prints.

Show is open from February 6th to February 28th.

I have the most recent posts fixed, but the old ones are not. Thanks for your patience, I will have it fixed in the next week or so.

The New Orleans Photo Alliance portfolio review is coming up on December 12th and 13th. I will be there with 23 of my newest photographic works. I haven’t posted anything lately because I’ve been working on these images. I finally came up with something that is emotionally satisfying as well as visually rewarding for the viewer. I hope you enjoy these images as well! Check out the PhotoNOLA site for more info – http://www.photonola.org…

moment in-between, originally uploaded by timcbest.

This was a test of my flash but I really like how it turned out…