Playing Dumb

Brandon Andrew

Tyler Calkin

Abel Baker Gutierrez

Laura Marchetti

Zac Monday

Nathan Lam Vuong

Playing Dumb Back Room Salon

Playing Dumb
Organized by
Abel Baker Gutierrez & Zac Monday

Saturdays from 7-10pm
September 18 through October 9, 2010
Amy Adler’s Echo Park Studio
1296 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Brandon Andrew
Tyler Calkin
Abel Baker Gutierrez
Laura Marchetti
Zac Monday
Nathan Lam Vuong

Free admission
Free beer (you bring, OK?)

Friends and strangers alike are invited to a month-long exploration of literal and metaphoric applications of the term “Playing Dumb” through visual and performance art programming. Once again providing a site for experimentation, community building, participation and dialogue, Amy Adler offers her studio to up-and-coming artists whose unique visions need a temporary home and a chance to play.

September 18
Musical chairs + DJ sets by Brandon Andrew

September 25
Storytime with Laura Marchetti + DJ performance by Abel Baker Gutierrez

October 2
Playtime with Tyler Calkin + DJ sets with Abel Baker Gutierrez

October 9
Tarot readings by Zac Monday & Friends
CD listening party: Tarot of the Witches by Tomek Fior
‘Zine release party: Playing Dumb by the Playing Dumb artists (limited edition!)

Playing Dumb - the 'zine!

Brandon Andrew (1982) is speaking in the third person about himself and trying to define who and what he is through the objects he produces in an altermodern dialect to sound more contemporaneous and institutionally structured. Sadly, much like his work, he fails at accomplishing said act and just lets it all fall apart in a big ol’ WAH WAH but hey cheer up, you can pop the balloons at the end of the show. Brandon defines himself as the looped version of the Song That Never Ends by Lamb Chop on a record player with dying batteries. His interest, production, and execution lie within those last four minutes of battery life. He received his BFA in 2010 and works predominantly in sculptural movement.

Tyler Calkin uses participatory sculpture, performance, and video to investigate the relationships between social expectation and physical awareness. A California native but a newcomer to Los Angeles, Tyler has exhibited his work in the United States and Canada. He received his bachelor’s degree from Whitman College in 2009, and is currently an MFA candidate at the California Institute of the Arts.tylercalkin.com

Abel Gutierrez was born and raised in Southern California. Finding inspiration in subjects ranging from rock music's aesthetic trends to Internet subcultures to old master paintings, Gutierrez experiments with art materials and photography to create portraits and installations that reflect our obsession with youth culture and explore issues of 'growing up'. Abel will graduate with an MFA from CalArts in Spring 2011.abelgutierrez.com

Laura Marchetti was raised in Ocoee, Florida, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She makes paintings and sculptures about growing up steeped in Southern Baptist rituals and lexicon, asking the viewer to consider the residual aspects of indoctrination. Her latest series of paintings and comic books were created at the Hambidge Artist Residency Program after researching abroad in Cluj, Romania. She binds books, curates shows, and makes comics. She graduated from California Institute of the Arts in May 2009, with a BFA in Art and is currently the Director of Education at Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock.

Zac Monday (1985) is an MFA student at University of California in San Diego. He received his BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007, while an active participant in the Richmond art community. His crochet work and drawings are animated through emotional rituals and mystical experiences that dictate how a viewer and the maker interact with work. The constant question of comfortability is etched into figures that exist and should not exist; they are an accumulation of fantasies but must reside in reality.

Nathan Lam Vuong was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi to Vietnamese refugees. His videos, photography, watercolors, karaoke works, installations, and performances deal with Asian-American culture and the nuances of loneliness and confusion in dating. A graduate of the University of Miami, he trekked from Florida to California to pursue an MFA at CalArts. In 2009, he performed with the group J-Lep for Machine Projects at LACMA. Recently he has been producing a weekly comic strip, Post-Ironic, for TheHeatLightning.com. He is usually playing violin, reading comics, or waiting by the refreshments table for people to hit on him. nailsbyasians.com