CHAIN LETTER
July 23 - August 25, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 23, 6 - 8 pm
 
Shoshana Wayne Gallery is pleased to present a summer group show curated by Christian Cummings and Doug Harvey.
 
Chain Letter is a group exhibition based on admiration.  Initially conceived by Christian Cummings and Doug Harvey in 2006, inclusion in the exhibition is based on invitation by someone who admires your work.  Each artist invited then invites ten other artists whom they admire, and so on.  This email invite will circulate for thirty days, at the end of which each artist will install their own work on the floor at Shoshana Wayne Gallery. 
 
This exhibition is rooted in the ideals of inclusion, and highlights the social nature of the art world.  It is the hope of the curators that the response will be vast and that the artists represented will be an exponential representation of all artists that are currently working and admired by their peers.
 
Chain Letter mimics communication today; and the way in which information is passed.  The outcome will be a testament to the power of connectivity within society at present.
 
Other cities worldwide will be participating in the Chain Letter exhibition including New York City, London, Paris, Johannesburg, Philadelphia, Boston, Seoul.  For more information, please visit the gallery website at: www.shoshanawayne.com, or email marichris@shoshanawayne.com.
 
Born in Los Angeles (1979),  Christian Cummings is known for his collaborations with ghosts (Spectral Psychographs 2004-2009), which have shown extensively in Los Angeles and abroad. Since receiving his MFA (2009) from USC, he describes his work as “self portraits of my channel-surfing consciousness”, a self he views as a spontaneous other with whom he shares a body. He’s also a self described “living room minstrel”, a home-recording artist and founding member of the bands Flugeldar, Carnivorous Birds, Baker and Able, and curator for WFMU’s Free Music Archive project. Preparing for a solo exhibition at Steve Turner Contemporary in October of this year, Cummings currently resides in Los Angeles.
 
Since graduating with an MFA in painting from UCLA in 1994, Doug Harvey has written extensively about the Los Angeles and International art scenes and other aspects of popular culture, primarily as the main art critic for LA WEEKLY for 13 years. His writing has also appeared in Art issues, Art in America, The New York Times, The Nation, Modern Painter, ArtReview, and numerous other publications. He has written museum and gallery catalogue essays for Jim Shaw, Jeffrey Vallance, Tim Hawkinson, Marnie Weber, Lari Pittman, Georganne Deen, Gary Panter, Margaret Keane, Thomas Kinkade, and many others. His curatorial projects have ranged from many traditional gallery exhibitions (including the short-lived Annual LA Weekly Biennials, 2008’s Aspects of Mel’s Hole: Artists Respond to a Paranormal Land Event Occurring in Radiospace and Arataland! A Mid career Survey of Artworks by Michael Arata at Beacon Arts Building in Spring of 2011) to CD compilations of sound art, programs of found and experimental films, performance events, experimental radio, artist’s comic books and zines, and an LA solo gallery exhibit determined by raffle. Mr. Harvey also continues to maintain an active art career, exhibiting his visual art (painting-based multimedia) locally and internationally. AiA critic Constance Mallinson said of his October 2010 solo painting show at Jancar Gallery “Harvey’s work reeks of rot and decay.” He lives and works in Los Angeles and maintains a blog at www.dougharvey.blogspot.com and a website at www.dougharvey.la