ATOM space reception in Hartford Friday

ATOM Space @ Chinatown
55 Pratt St., Hartford, (860) 944-1665
As It Ever Was
May 4—26, 2012.
Opening Reception: Fri., May 4, 6—9 p.m.

Press release

ATOM space is pleased to announce its second exhibition, As It Ever Was, a group exhibition of contemporary art with work by Anne Cubberly (Web), Howard el-Yasin, Gene Gort (Web), Barbara Hocker (Web), Carol Padberg (Web), Nina Salazar, Patrick Schmidt (Web), Gil Scullion (Web) and Dave Sinaguglia (Web).

The exhibition will run from May 4 through May 26, with an opening reception on Fri., May 4 from 6 to 9 p.m.

Gallery hours are Thursday through Saturday from 12 noon to 5 p.m., or by appointment.

The exhibition As It Ever Was will feature artwork that takes a more organic and nature-based approach. The human form, animals, vegetation and trees inspire drawing, sculpture, video and installation for this group. Patrick Schmidt of Pittsburgh, will create a site-specific tape drawing on the front window glass of the gallery.

ATOM space is an ongoing project of Hartford artists David Borawski and Anne Cubberly. Inspired last year by an empty bank ATM lobby at the corner of Trumbull and Pearl streets, Borawski and Cubberly secured the use of the space to mount unique installations that were viewed through the surrounding glass windows. Only one exhibition was mounted before the space was leased, putting ATOM space on hold.

ATOM space is located in the former Chinatown Jewelry at 55 Pratt Street in downtown Hartford. Use of the storefront was generously provided by Jonathan Cohen of Cohen Realty, and presented with the support of Real Art Ways. Mr. Cohen has been working to reinvigorate the downtown area, and saw the ATOM space project as interesting venture to attract visitors to Hartford in general, and Pratt Street in particular.

In the late 90’s, David Borawski mounted five pop-up exhibitions in and around Hartford, and curated three exhibitions for Real Art Ways.

Opening reception Saturday at Gallery at Still River Editions

The Gallery at Still River Editions
128 East Liberty St., Danbury, (203) 791-1474
Gene Gort: Intellectual Property
Through June 29, 2012.
Opening Reception: Sat., Apr. 21, 4—6 p.m.

Press release

The exhibition Intellectual Property at the Gallery at Still River Editions features archival digital print editions of new work by multi-disciplinary artist Gene Gort. His new series reveals a hidden beauty that emerges from his interaction with the technology meant to keep people from illegally copying movies. Some of the prints have elements that look familiar, while others are pure geometric abstracts.

Gort says of the project in his artist's statement:

Intellectual Property focuses on the visual noise generated from attempting to extract video from copyright encrypted commercial DVD's. As an educator who uses video clips as a mainstay of my classroom practice, I am always showing samples from various sources.

Recently, while attempting to extract sequences from mainstream movies, I was struck by the endless variation of intentional visual noise this process generates in order to keep me and everyone else from illegally copying movies. Through various encoding and decoding software, I found that the variability and randomness of the encryption algorithms produced remarkably unpredictable distortions and abstractions of the images. So much so that it was nearly impossible to get the same results twice.

The images in this series are screen-grabs from this process; a kind of performance that I do responding to the real-time events I am watching on screen. The titles are an ironic pairing of 'intellectual property' and the film title, like 'Stolen', 'Catch Me If You Can', 'Precious', 'Babel' or 'Gone with the Wind'. The work has nothing to do with plot or characters depicted in the movies nor do they mimic any of the imagery or scenes.

Gene Gort is a visual artist whose artistic practice is concerned with making the ordinary significant. He is keenly aware of the role of whatever medium he uses in this process be it video production, installation, digital printmaking or multi-media performance.


The exhibition will be on display through June 29. There will be an artist's reception on Sat., Apr. 21, from 4—6 p.m.