Artists
• Ted Arnold • David Estes • Harrell Fletcher • Cyprien Gaillard • Emma Hedditch •
• Miranda July • Li Chuhui • Liu Weiwei • Adam Magyar • Frank Plant • Rose Tang •
• Lee Walton • Yang Longhai • Wang Yin • Yan Peijie •  

Getting Along

Getting along is complicated, somewhat determined by our sense of humor, our forgiveness, our touch, and perhaps most important, by our responses as an expression of our willingness, not to conform, but to be ourselves.
With artists from different geographical and artistic backgrounds, Getting Along considers the dynamics of social situations and the condition of belonging. This exhibition hopes to open a wide spectrum of interesting issues and dialogs, lurking within the social condition, and often beyond.
Rose Tang is a social rebel with an attitude, never intending to fit in. Tang explores sexual identity. Her work is subversive, questioning the authenticity of Chinese society today.
The haunting lithographs by Cyprien Gaillard share a similar position but in relation to the architectural monuments of French suburban life. His work reconsiders our idyllic tendencies, exposing the social and geographical dislocation of contemporary existence.
Frank Plant's engraving in stainless steel of a pistol is symbolic of power and the behavior it permits; exaggerated acts of aggression, retribution, self-defense. The consequences suggest social relations gone awry.
Harrell Fletcher's I Been Wanting to Go Home, a transcript of a conversation the artist had with his aunt while visiting her in a nursing home, is uncompromisingly direct. At times repetitious and awkward, it feels entirely real; Fletcher awakens the past with a thread of familiarity and it reminds us of our affections and subsequently, our obligations to one another.
Lee Walton, in The Serial Conversationalist, directs the drama of anticipation by turning the public park bench into a theater of human character, a study wavering within the boundaries of our public and private lives.
David Estes' drawings of quirky non-space situations bring together people who have and will never know each other. In Untitled (Rump), a woman's lower torso and entangled legs, a little child and a diver float, bonded only by their independent endeavors.
Adam Magyar offers formal studies of our idiosyncrasies by exposing how common "non-action" is within our lives.
Miranda July reveals in her unsettling video, Atlanta, the manipulations and insecurities of family relations. Not unlike the suburban dream of rising to Olympic glory, the bond between mother and daughter becomes entirely fictive. "Mother: - Tell them that you love me... you love me. Daughter: - Mom... I love you."
This international group of artists share an ambition, founded in their experiences and observations of themselves and others, to re-represent the social spaces of families, communities, or people in their everyday lives, wondering how we all belong in this world together. Getting Along is the 6th exhibition at ISLAND6. The arts center continues to support young and emerging artists as well as established practitioners who challenge the definitions and boundaries of art, and engage in key issues of contemporary society. [ ↑ ]

Artists

Ted Arnold
Ted Arnold is a painter. Arnold's work always considers how we attempt to organize our impressions of the world and create a self to put into that world. Arnold's most recent paintings are about Marriage and Navigation or Road Maps and Relationships. He has had more than 30 solo shows in several cities in the US, and has work in many collections throughout the world. Arnold lives in Portland, Maine. [ ↑ ]

David Estes
David Estes is a multi-disciplinary artist interested in people and their relations to the world. Estes' most recent work amusingly explores the disparity between who we are and who we want to be. He is currently working on a project about happiness, So Glad You Are Happy to See Me and has recently exhibited his work in New York, San Francisco, and London. Estes lives in Ithaca, New York. [ ↑ ]

Harrell Fletcher
Harrell Fletcher has worked collaboratively and individually on interdisciplinary, site-specific projects that explore the dynamics of social spaces and communities. Along with this work he has developed a series of more personal and idiosyncratic pieces that take various forms: drawings, prints, writings, events, videos, and sculptural objects. Fletcher has exhibited widely, most recently The American War at White Columns (New York) and Walden at Domaine de Kerguehennec Centre d'Art (Bignan, France) and is a recipient of the Alpert Award for Visual Arts (2005). Fletcher lives in Portland, Oregon. [ ↑ ]

Cyprien Gaillard
Cyprien Gaillard (b. 1980) is a multi-disciplinary artist. His most recent work reconsiders our idyllic tendencies, a romantic vision of vandalism in the contemporary landscape. He has shows upcoming at the Laura Bartlett Gallery in London and the Jeu de Paume in Paris. Gaillard lives in Paris. [ ↑ ]

Emma Hedditch
Emma Hedditch is a visual artist and writer.  Hedditch's collaborative projects are circumstantial, often determined by limited resources and informed by Feminist thought.  Her projects include: "A Pattern", an ongoing, collectively shot and edited video, "Now That We Are Persons", an article about maternity for Mute magazine and "Video Home, Come On", a home-video viewing and archive project. She is currently working on an animation, "This Is What We Have Done and This Is What We Are Doing", about some of her friends and the things they do. Hedditch lives in London.
[ ↑ ]

Miranda July
Miranda July is a filmmaker, performing artist and writer. In July's modern world, the mundane is transcendent and everyday people become radiant characters who speak their innermost thoughts and act on secret impulses. Her work has been recently presented at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and in the 2002 and 2004 Whitney Biennials. She recently wrote, directed and starred in her first feature-length film, "Me and You and Everyone We Know" (2005), which won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. A collection of her short fiction is forthcoming from Scribner in spring 2007. July currently lives in Los Angeles. [ ↑ ]

Li Chuhui
Li Chuhui (Gaomi, Shandong Province, China) lives and works in Shanghai. His practice includes sculpture, photography, drawing and site specific installation. Li has shown extensively in China. Recent shows include, "Jiangnanchunxiao__ born in da'70s", 55 gallery (Shanghai 2006), "Hybridism in Chinese contemporary art", DDM Warehouse (Shanghai 2005) and the third Shanghai Youth Biennial. Li also curates exhibition, such as "Memory Space___ and then…" and "Guilinshanshui". Li is the head of the sculpture department of East China Normal University. [ ↑ ]

Lui Weiwei
Liu Wei Wei (born in Anshun of Guizhou province, China 1982), graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 2006. Weiwei is a painter who has participated in the "Vanguard Art Exhibit 04 Chinese builders" in Chongqing, China. In 2003, Anthony Gormley produced his piece "Land".
[ ↑ ]

Adam Magyar
Adam Magyar (Debrecen, Hungary 1972) is a graphic designer. Recently, Magyar has been experimenting with the concept of urban people depicted in confined spaces such as taxicabs, waiting rooms and elevators where there is nothing special that they can do. His projects consist of photogaphs shot from strictly geometrical perspectives, and show how common and frequent non-action is in our lives. Magyar has had several exhibitions in Budapest like Kashi Vishwanath Express, TaxiJam and Comearound. [ ↑ ]

Frank Plant
Frank Plant (Baltimore, Maryland, US, 1969 - lives in Barcelona) is primarily involved in creating drawings out of welded steel. These are simple and direct studies of the forms and compositions of everyday objects and patterns both natural and man-made. Welded steel has always been the principal medium for Plant's work, whether in his two-dimensional pieces such as his fingerprints series or his earlier three-dimensional kinetic metal sculptures that incorporate found objects. [ ↑ ]

Rose Tang
Rose Tang was born twice; first as a boy on the beautiful hills surrounding Taichung (Taiwan) in 1967, and then, in Shanghai, at the turn of this century as the most promising Chinese artist of her generation. Rose is extravagant, rebellious and fearless, and she indiscriminately touches on all aspects of Chinese culture. In Daddy (2006) and Aunties (2006), Rose tries to understand the impact and influence that culture, relationships and family values had on the development of her sexual identity. Rose Tang's work captures much of the essence and uniqueness of her identity journey by presenting a delicate balance of sociological analysis, social perception, facts, style and history. [ ↑ ]

Lee Walton
Lee Walton (Walnut Creek, CA, USA 1974 - lives between Brooklyn and San Francisco) is an Experientialist whose projects and performances are full of humor, detailed planning, and interaction with the outside world. Serendipitous combinations of rule and chance, Walton's projects are always playful, precisely calibrated, conceptually on-target and deeply attentive to the everyday patterns and rhythms of contemporary city life.
Walton has exhibited at numerous venues both nationally and internationally, most recently at the Museum of Contemporary Art Berlin and Clubs Project Inc., Australia. He has been invited to lecture and lead projects at various institutions, including the Reykjavik Museum in Iceland and the Psy-Geo-Conflux in New York. [ ↑ ]

Yang Longhai
Yang Longhai, (Born in 1978, Guizhou, China), graduated from the Guizhou Institute of the Arts in 2000. Longhai has been collaborating on the organization of 4 contemporary art exhibitions for Island6 Arts Center. In the beginning of 2006, he founded the Chinese contemporary Art Files Project (CCAFP) [ ↑ ]

Wang Yin
Wang Yin (Shanghai 1986) is a young and emerging sculptor. Wang Yin received a B.A in sculpture from East China Normal University under the supervision of Li Chuhui. He recently participated in a collaborative sculpture exhibition entitled "Gui Lin Shan Shui". Wang Yin is currently researching through his sculpture the idea of multiples, or individuals as part of a larger whole, to create site-specific installations. [ ↑ ]

Yan Peijie
Yan Pijie (born 1981 inQingdao, Shandong Province, China) lives and works in Shanghai. He received a Bachelors degree in Sculpture from Shanghai Normal University. Yan has shown extensively all around China in Art institutions and international galleries, some of his exhibitions include "Gui Lin Shan Shui Sculpture Exhibition" (Shanghai Sculpture Space 2006), "We Are Doing" Modern Art Exhibition (Duolun Art Gallery, F6, 2005), and "Say Me, I Say" Sculpture Exhibition (Immateriality Art Gallery 2002). [ ↑ ]

Special thanks to all who have helped to make this exhibition a reality.
Especially: Christopher Charveriat, Charline Genet, Zheng Guoyang, Kang Jingfang, Wang Junfeng, Yang Longhai, Yasmin Sabet, Mélanie Trinquart, Nadia Wagner, Yu Wei, Zhu Yumei, friends and families.