“Lost Cause” Exhibition

TSA

[Image: Sophia Chai "Camera Grid, Peeling" (2016) Fuji Instant Film, 4 x 5 in.]

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TSA NY presents Lost Cause, a group exhibition featuring work that has been made with impossible or near-impossible parameters by Alex Arzt, Sophia Chai, Jeff Fichera, Mark Lombardi, Rod Malin, Andrew Prayzner, Mia Rosenthal, and Curtis Wallen. Jeff Fichera and Andrew Prayzner are both showing work that pushes the boundaries of perceptual painting. Fichera paints sections of holographic shopping bags from life, while Prayzner’s Nocturnes are painted blind outdoors in the darkness of the night with no natural lighting.

With Smell Space, Alex Arzt has attempted to recreate the smell of space using earthbound materials. The scent is based off of research and interviews with astronauts that talk about the experience of smelling space indirectly, since it is impossible to smell in a vacuum. Mia Rosenthal will be showing Nothing to See Here, a drawing that also deals with perception. It is a drawing of invisible things, including gamma rays, deleted files, E-Z Pass payments, and the Tooth Fairy. This drawing is part of an ongoing series of drawings inspired by invisible phenomena such as particle physics and Dark Matter.

Rod Malin has sent a letter of non-participation which outlines his self-imposed rules on exhibiting. One of those rules is that he cannot show his artwork in a group show setting, but instead must send a non-art object.

Curtis Wallen and Mark Lombardi offer more political interpretations of this theme. Mark Lombardi’s diagrams document the alleged financial and political connections between global power brokers, while Curtis Wallen will be exhibiting a project that explores how to make an untraceable cellphone call.

Sophia Chai is interested in the space between the monocular camera lens and our own binocular vision, often employing anamorphic perspective in her photographs. She will be exhibiting a Polaroid that documents her attempt to use tape and yarn in her studio to mimic the grid of a viewfinder. This slippage between the two types of vision becomes a metaphor for her experience as an immigrant navigating two distinct cultures and languages while never really fitting into either.