21 December - 30 December, 2007
Opening Reception: Saturday December 22, 6-8pm
Erik Benjamins, Flora Kao, Jeremiah Schaeffer, Nadja Verena Marcin, Sojung Kwon
Curated by Courtney Shermer
Sojung Kwon, Pet Bag, 2007
PawnShop presents Shelf Life, a group exhibition of five emerging Los Angeles based artists contemplating the importance of the disposable that augments and assists our lives; discarded from the shelf. The artists involved are presented with the quandary of shelf life: a good perceived to no longer be of value or quality and reinterprets the item to function conceptually and be given an artistic rebirth.
“The circle of the return to birth can only remain open, but this is a chance, a sign of life, and a wound.” - Jacques Derrida
Catalogue and text to accompany the exhibition.
Installation view (main gallery), January 2008
Installation view (east gallery), January 2008
Installation view (east gallery), January 2008
Installation view (detail), January 2008
Installation view (detail), January 2008
Installation view (detail), January 2008
Installation view (detail), January 2008
Installation view (detail), January 2008
Installation view (detail), January 2008
Interview with the artists, December 2007
Courtney Shermer: You were asked to perticipate in a show focusing on a ‘recycled everyday object’ notion of art. Have you ever viewed your work in this lens?
Erik Benjamins: Never. It’s something completely new for me. Often the type of photography I’m attracted to is planned and staged. I’ve never thought of my work gravitating to something that is so used from such a literal standpoint. It’s refreshing taking such a new approach to art making.
Flora Kao: A vein of my work is very much about employing mundane materials to create delightful sensory situations. In transforming everyday structures into systems of beauty, I hope to offer a moment of solace from our hectic, daily routines.
Sojung Kwon: Not necessarily, although I do use a lot of found objects such as instructions, gifts, boxes and ants. I change the original functions of these objects into props of my performance.
Nadja Vernea Marcin: This year I did a bank robbery with a banana in Berlin. It was a recycled object that I turned into a weapon. I reuse everyday objects all the time, since their overall presence threatens me. The green cucumbers in the super market, they are an army. Be aware!
Jeremiah Schaeffer: Initially, I would have never seen my work in this way. But the more I htink about it, all artists are fundamentally recyclers of the past– pulling from the discarded to make anew in contemporary context. It’s my responsibility as an artist to make the ordinary extraordinary.
CS: What motivates you in making a work?
EB: Art Historically, I am interested in stroytelling and how many people do that in terms of photography. Conceptually, I am interested in social justice issues that have been gladly shoved down my throat. It’s sort of a weird balance of conceptuality and aestheticism that i find challenging.
FK: Landscape, light, time, flight, skies, shadows, tendrils, architecture, maps and everyday moments. Much of my art is colored by my corporate experience chained to a cubicle. I’m particularly interested in investigating our physical relationship to environment and the intersection of the natural and the urban.
SK: It is different everytime. Somtimes I get ideas from books, a good conversation, silence, a difficulty of language or driving alone.
NVM: I can’t hinder to absorb and love what is around me. If you love something, you will also hate it. This struggle implants thousands of ideas in my head. I need to get rid of them.
JS: Film is by far my biggest inspiration. I see a great movie and have this sudden urge to create something.
CS: Give me the first thing you think of when I say the words: Life, Art, Sex, Trash.
EB: Board game, box, movies, derelict…
FK: Los Angeles!
SK: Myself.
NVM: Four seasons of the year.
JS: Hippies!