e-flux Chac Mool Gallery Andres Serrano, America (Chloe Sevigny), 2002, Edition 1/7 ANDRES SERRANO AMERICA January 17 – February 28, 2003 ARTIST’S RECEPTION: Friday, January 17, 2003 6-9PM Chac Mool Gallery 8920 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, 90069 Phone 310.550.6792 Fax 310.550.6872 Chacmool@earthlink.net http://artnet.com/ChacMool.html Chac Mool Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of thirteen works from Andres Serrano’s latest series, AMERICA. The exhibition opens Friday, January 17 and runs through February 28, 2003. The artist will be present at the opening on Friday evening from 6:00-9:00 in the evening. Born in 1950 in New York, Serrano, who during the last two decades, has jarred and continues to awaken a collective public and intellectual consciousness with his photographs, may well be remembered for his Piss Christ, which created a controversy about federal funding of works of art and about the role of censorship and the right of artistic expression. But the work produced during the last twenty years -searing and incisive in its direct confrontation with contemporary reality- is evidence in itself that this artist’s primary purpose is simply to photograph people, to reclaim their humanity. Thus, controversy is a necessary and sometimes unwelcome by-product of the work itself. Serrano seeks the aesthetic distance of the photograph, which allows his subjects a new space and dimension. Simultaneously, they become symbols of our time, icons to be reinterpreted by the viewer. AMERICA is a case in point. Focusing, as Serrano has, on the “unseen,” overlooked and bypassed by the ordinary gaze, these thirteen works (Cibachrome, silicone, Plexiglas, wood frame) embody a fresh commentary on the significance of AMERICA. A response to 9/11, to the question of who we are as Americans and what we are, the series celebrates an AMERICA of equality and diversity. Thus, William Nelson, Heroin Addict is as “American” as Chloe Sevigny, Actress, as Snoop Dog and as Firefighter, Darrell Dunbar. Larger than life, in quasi heroic stances and dimensions (45 1/4 x 37 5/8 in.) they stand next to Thomas Buda, Hazmat Chemical Biological Weapons Response Team, Lucas Suarez, Homeless, and Jill Hardy, Powhatan Renape Nation, who represents a recurring theme in Serrano’s work and also, the “real” origin of AMERICA. The Gallery is located at 8920 Melrose Avenue (at Almont Drive), West Hollywood. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday from 10:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M., Saturdays 11:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. and by appointment. For further information, photographs, and interviews, please call the Gallery at 310-550-6792.