Caroline Berger from “Art This Week” interviewed John Frost and I at Ro2 Art- Uptown during our exhibit “import“.
“Art this week” Aug. 25, 2011
Reply
Tag Archives: ro2 art
“import”
“import”
Eric Eley, John Frost, and Ryder Richards
Ro2 Art-Uptown, Dallas
3699 McKinney Ave
Aug. 13- 28, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 13th, 6-9 PM.
Artists Talk: Thursday, Sep 1, 6-7 PM.
Ro2 Art hosts “import” featuring recent Dallas imports Eric Eley, John Frost, and Ryder Richards. A similarity of refinement and intellectual consideration unites the drawings and sculptures of the three artists. The works will be on display at Ro2 Art’s new space, 6399 McKinney Ave. in the West Village. Join us for the opening reception Saturday, August 13th from 6-9 PM.
Gallery artist Ryder Richards invites contemporaries Eric Eley and John Frost to exhibit with him. Richards stated that after finding aesthetic commonalities in the works, further conversations revealed biographical commonalities: each artist recently moved-to or returned-to Dallas. “We are all in our thirties, educators, seriously working on an art career and introducing ourselves to the Dallas art community,” says Richards. “As such, the city plays a role in our continued development.”
Ergonomics of Futility: Review
Ergonomics of Futility
Ian F. Thomas and Shreepad Joglekar
coordinated by Ro2 Art and Ryder Richards
Dallas, TX
(ALERT: the reviewer participated in and coordinated this event, therefore he has special insights and vested interests.)
“Ergonomics of Futility” provided a platform for dissension in trust and a spectacle of absurdity based on the most serious of problems: economic disparity and corporate hierarchy. Thomas and Joglekar developed the one-night-only performance at a temporary venue in South Dallas. The event was reminiscent of Gilliam’s “Brazil” as the bizarre, systematic actions undertaken by the performers produced a cyclic system devoid of tangible benefit… except for the possibility of offsetting inflation one dollar at a time.
In this corporate parody ‘art’ was created in the most inefficient manner possible: by developing a business model with management and employees at work in an office setting. Active at ‘work stations’ four performers engaged in tasks such as endlessly transcribing Melville on a loop of paper, hand sawing through books, and singeing ever-devalued dollars, whereupon a ‘worker’ would apply gold leaf and, finally, pin each revalued bill to the wall as a finished ‘product’. The catch is that the ‘workers’ had to earn the dollar bill, which allowed them to continue their ‘job’ of destroying the bill. Executed with all seriousness, these futile actions rewarded mindless repetition and an abundance of sweat over the typically lauded virtues of intellectual aptitude.
Ryder Richards 