Black Mirror

curated by Julia Schwartz
April 8–May 13, 2017
Charlie James Gallery
Los Angeles

PRESS RELEASE
EXHIBITION CATALOG
PRESS: Art + Cake
PRESS: Miss Rosen Presents

from the exhibition announcement:

Charlie James Gallery is pleased to present Black Mirror, a group exhibition curated by Julia Schwartz, with works by Andrea Marie Breiling, Dani Dodge, Kio Griffith, Karl Haendel, Kenyatta AC Hinkle, Cole M James, Elana Mann, Abdul Mazid, Thinh Nguyen, Warren Neidich, Claudia Parducci, Julia Schwartz, and Thaddeus Strode.

In Black Mirror, 13 artists respond to the current political and cultural moment through painting, drawing, installation, photography, and video. The works in this exhibition contend with what it means to live in the age of Trump, Wikileaks, and border walls; an age when the term BlackLivesMatter holds urgent currency, women’s bodies are once again up for grabs and whole segments of the population are obliged to live in a state of erasure. The artists employ disparate approaches in their responses to this historical moment: subversive humor and wit, practical guidance, documentation and conceptual analysis, poignant abstraction, emotional release.

The title, Black Mirror, is taken from the dystopian TV show, which examines the dangerous capacities of technology and social media to shape our thoughts and control our behaviors. Black Mirror refers as well to Claude Glass, small mirrors used by artists that abstract and distort the reflected subject.