DFBRL8R is proud to present
Five Steps To Hell With Poverty
featuring performance works by ACRE artists
DAO NGUYEN and TOM FRIEL
opening exhibition: SAT 21 FEB @ 7PM
closing event: SAT 28 FEB @ 7PM
gallery hours: by appointment
ACRE is a residency program that endeavors to provide opportunities for its alumni – in this case, DAO NGUYEN and TOM FRIEL. The opening will include an interactive installation by Nguyen and a live performance by Friel. The closing event will include a performative artist talk by Friel and a performative lecture by Nguyen called bibliologarrhythmia.
Friel engages audiences as costumed characters both on screen and off. His latest multimedia project, To Hell With Poverty, is part of the nomadic collective, Sentient Avatars of Astral Collapse. Fast-paced, incendiary, and satirical, the work suggests solutions for overcoming capitalist oppression.
Nguyen’s Blackbox Magik is an interactive installation at the opening event. Inside a caravan, performer JOSHUA KENT ritually selects and marks each visitor with a tattoo for the night. Artists DASHA FILIPPOVA, JULIE HENSLEE, JANE JERARDI, AYA NAKAMURA, MOKI TANTOCO created tattoo images in response to a system of prompts.
DAO NGUYEN
Her name is a homophone for the Vietnamese word for knife. She is the compact, red Leatherman multi-tool your aunt gave you for Christmas ten years ago. On sale at Marshall’s. Versatility and hidden strength in a small package at a discount. Highly functional and stealthy enough to pass through security checkpoints on three continents on four separate occasions. She can cut, screw, file, saw, and open your beer. Bonus applications include carving miniature graphite figurines, picking locks, and sculpting tofu.
She choreographs thought experiments, play apparatuses, obstacle courses, rituals for mourning, remembering, and transformation, and creates elaborate systems connecting objects, gestures, and bodies, to ask philosophical questions around knowledge and existence. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
photo by KATHERINE TRIMBLE
THOMAS FRIEL is currently based outside of Detroit, MI. He has exhibited his work throughout the United States and internationally. Past exhibitions have included the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI and Art Basel 2011, Basel, Switzerland. He has written art and social criticism for print publications and artist books, as well as caretandsticks.com and wowhuh.com. He is a regular contributor for badatsports.com. “Through performances involving video, sound and commodifiable objects sold as souvenirs, I create temporary environments which subvert the power structures of capitalism in the 21st century. I pour on color to excite the senses, engage the viewer, and create a confusion of space.”
photos by DI WU, PD REARICK
ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions) is a Chicago based volunteer-run non-profit devoted to supporting emerging artists. ACRE was designed to help artists develop, present, and discuss their practices by providing forums for idea exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental projects. ACRE’s residency takes place every summer in rural Southwest Wisconsin with three 12-day sessions hosting 25-30 residents each time. Over the subsequent year ACRE endeavors to provide opportunities and exposure to its alumni. Each resident can become part of an online flat file and offered an exhibition opportunity at ACRE Projects in Pilsen or one of a number of other partner galleries.
