Kara Jefts “ERO GURO NANSENSU”
Flux Factory
This event has ended.
Flux Factory artist-in-residence Kara Jefts re-embodies the work of Mavo artists, an artist group and magazine of the same name active from 1923-1926 in Japan, in order to better understand a body of work from which little material evidence remains. By using practice-based research, Jefts engages with contemporary artists whose work parallels themes of ero guro nansensu (erotic grotesque nonsense), a term used by Japanese mass media to describe counter cultures and the avant-garde from the 1920s to the 1940s.
On view at Flux Factory are works from Jefts’ ongoing research, including photographs and ephemera from her collaboration with artists Leonard Suryajaya, Dave J. Bermingham, and Tongyu Zhao, and the exhibition of new work with the artist Jason Martin to be developed during her Flux residency.
Kara Jefts is a curator, art historian, and artist who received her MA in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago in 2015 and her BA in Art History and Asian Studies from Union College in 2012. Jefts has led and curated exhibitions at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Ballroom Projects, Chicago, IL; Albany Public Library, Albany, NY; Collar Works Gallery, Troy, NY; Union College, Schenectady, NY. Her writing has been published by caa.reviews, Fnews Magazine, and College & Research Libraries News, among others. Her practice is best described as hybrid, where invested art historical research informs her participation in contemporary art practices.
EVENTS:
Artist Talk
Saturday September 12th, 7 pm
Jefts will lead an informal discussion about her experience sharing art historical research in a way that inspires interest, collaboration, and reinterpretation. Jefts questions the reliability of recorded histories, and is interested in understanding the past through imagined experience.
Art History 101: Dance of Death: Mavo artists and Modern Tokyo
Sunday September 13th, 3 pm
Jefts will present on Mavo artists in the context of 1920s Tokyo, explaining the uncertainty of this post-disaster earthquake moment in Japan and the artists’ interest in play and the political.
Media
Schedule
from September 12, 2015 to September 15, 2015
Open Hours: Sunday September 13th, 2-6 pm Monday and Tuesday September 14-15, 4-8 pm
Opening Reception on 2015-09-12 from 18:00 to 21:00