G.B. Jones and Paul P. “Born Yesterday”

Participant Inc.

poster for G.B. Jones and Paul P. “Born Yesterday”
[Image: G.B. Jones "Black Candy #3" (2011) graphite on paper, 12 x 9 in. Courtesy of the artist]

This event has ended.

Born Yesterday is a project by G.B. two artists have collaborated intermittently, combined image banks. This exhibition collects these collages with a selection of new drawings by Jones alongside works made over the past decade. To this, P. has added works in watercolor and design that are emblematic of Jones.

Jones and P. are interested in ungovernable sexualities and genders, and in the history of aesthetics forged by those who were compelled to communicate and represent themselves through innuendo and codes. In their collaborative work, as in their individual figurative practices, the subjects Jones and P. reproduce are often symbols of manipulation within a world of manipulation.

Jones’ portraits from 2003-04 are of a cast of young people – teenagers and teenage artists – all protagonists who, by turns of fate pertaining to criminalized sexuality, were ensnared in morbid and often terminal circumstances. These works appear alongside her portentous and precise drawings from 2011-12 depicting the side of a barn, a smoking ashtray, and hard candy; dark iterations of the landscape, still life, and pop art genres, respectively. Jones’ drawings from 2016, rendered in a looser intuitive manner, portray witches, both real and from film. Jones’ subjects span the last century, and it is important to note that her images are always revised images from those found in the media.

Finally, the exhibition includes P.’s small, full-length portraits of Jones done in the manner of Whistler – her carmine hair set in contrast to a grey background – along with a pair of slender patinated brass tables as an allusion to dandyism, having an allegorical function similar to the other works in the exhibition.

Active since the early ‘80s, Jones has acquired the status of an underground icon and polymath; for her super-8 films, her seminal ‘zine J.D.’s, and as a member of the Riot Grrrl band, Fifth Column, which are internationally acclaimed milestones in independent film, publishing, and art rock, respectively; and furthermore as primary sources for what became known as Queercore. Concurrently, Jones has always been a dedicated visual artist in the métiers of drawing and collage, who is best known for her female reprises of Tom of Finland drawings: by a simple twist, hers are images of liberation, freed of the fascist tendencies at work in gay male culture. Paul P., who first came to attention in the early 2000s, has developed a wide-ranging practice centered on a series of drawings and paintings of young men appropriated from pre-AIDS gay erotica, often repositioned within a beaux-art context.

G. B. Jones is an artist, filmmaker, musician, and publisher of ‘zines based in Toronto. Solo exhibitions include Past Present Future, 2011, Lexander, LA; La-bas, 2008, La Centrale Galerie, Montreal; Rise Up Thou Earth, 2007, Sunday, NY; Good. Bad. G.B. Jones, 1996, Or Gallery, Vancouver, curated by Reid Shier; Girly Pictures, 1994, Mercer Union, Toronto, curated by Shonagh Adelman; and Feature, Inc., 1991, NY. Group exhibitions include Coming to Power: 25 Years of Sexually X-Plicit Art by Women, 2016, Maccarone, NY, organized by Pati Hertling and Julie Tolentino; This Will Have Been: Art, Love and Politics in the 1990s, 2012, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, and ICA, Boston, curated by Helen Molesworth; IN NUMBERS: Serial Publications by Artists since 1955, 2010, X Initiative, NY, curated by Andrew Roth and Phil Aarons; Tom of Finland and then some, 2010, Feature, Inc., NY; Smell It!, 2009, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, curated by Dietmar Schwarzler; Ad Memoriam, 2008, Exile, Berlin, curated by Joel Gibb; Shared Women, 2007, LA Contemporary Exhibitions, curated by Eve Fowler, Emily Roysdon, A.L. Steiner; Wear Me Out, 2005, One Archives, LA, curated by Tania Hammidi; Pink Steam: Artists Respond To Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy, 2004, SF Public Library, curated by Colter Jacobson; Practice More Failure, 2004, Art In General, curated by LTTR; Drawing: The End Of The Line, 2003, Ecole Municipale de Dessin, Paris; The J.D.s Years, 1999, Art Metropole, Toronto, curated by Luis Jacob; Sugar, Sex, Magik, 1998, Brasilica, Berlin; Fictions, 1996, Guido Carbone, Turin, curated by Marcella Beccaria; Beauty #2, 1995, The Power Plant, Toronto, curated by Philip Monk; In A Different Light, 1995, University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, curated by Larry Rinder and Nayland Blake; Stonewall 25, 1984, White Columns, NY, curated by Bill Arning; (Tiny) SHOES, 1994, New Langton Arts, SF, curated by D-L Alvarez; The Use Of Pleasure, 1994, Terrain, SF, curated by Bob Nickas; Tom of Finland, G.B. Jones, 1993, Daniel Buchholz, Cologne; Eau de Cologne 1983-1993, 1993, Monica Spruth, Cologne; Coming To Power: 25 Years Of Sexually X- plicit Art By Women, 1993, David Zwirner, NY, curated by Ellen Cantor; Part Fantasy, 1992, Trial Balloon 2, NY, curated by Nicola Tyson; Drawings, 1992, Stuart Regen, LA; Stephen Dillemuth and Joseph Strau, 1992, Forum Stadtpark, Graz, Austria; Situation, 1991, New Langton Arts, SF, curated by Pam Gregg and Nayland Blake; and All But The Obvious, LA Contemporary Exhibitions, 1990.

Paul P. is an artist based in Toronto. Solo exhibitions include Civilization (inverted), 2017, Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver, curated by Lee Plested; The Rex Prisms, 2016, Maureen Paley, London; Civilization Coordinates, 2015, Scrap Metal, Toronto, curated by Rui Amaral; The Homosexual Lovers Throughout the Ages Party, 2014, Broadway 1602, NY, Escritoire Nancy, 2013, Andrew Roth, NY; Doe Ye Nexte Thynge, 2013, The Suburban, Oak Park, IL; Something Cloudy, Something Clear, 2012, Illingworth Kerr, Calgary, AB; The ‘X’Factor in Beholding, 2012, Tempo Rubato, Tel Aviv; Dry Neptune, 2011, Massimo Minini, Brescia, IT; Sherbert in Demascus, 2010, Daniel Reich, NY; The Radiant Guest (with Scott Treleaven), 2010, The Fireplace Project, East Hampton, NY; Three Parts Glass, 2009, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg; Inclinations, 2008, Daniel Reich, NY; Dusks, Lamplights, 2007, The Power Plant, Toronto, curated by Helena Rickett; Place Names, the Place, 2007 and Last Flowers, 2003, Daniel Reich, NY. Group Exhibitions include Heartbreak Hotel, 2017, Invisible Exports, NY; Whitney Biennial, 2014, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, curated by Anthony Elms; Quarrantanni Massimo Minini 1973-2013, 2013, Triennale di Milano; Invitation to the Voyage, 2011, Algus Greenspon, NY; Compass in Hand, 2009, MOMA, NY, curated by Christian Rattemeyer; Male, 2008, White Columns, NY / Presentation House, Vancouver, curated by Vince Aletti; Crack the Sky, Biennale de Montreal, Montreal, curated by Wayne Baerwaldt; Painting as Fact-Fact as Fiction, de Pury and Luxembourg, Zurich, curated by Bob Nickas; Image Is Gone, 2006, Galerie Lisa Ruyter, Vienna; This Hard, Gem-Like Flame, 2005, Angstrom Gallery, Dallas, curated by Joseph Wolin; Heavenly Creatures, 2004, Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, Salzburg; Happy Times Are Here Again, 2004, David Zwirner, NY; Republic of Love, 2004, The Power Plant, Toronto, curated by Xandra Eden; Now is a Good Time, 2004, Andrea Rosen, NY; and Karaoke Death Machine, 2003, Daniel Reich, NY.

Media

Schedule

from November 12, 2017 to December 17, 2017

Opening Reception on 2017-11-12 from 19:00 to 21:00

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