Autonomy Exchange Archive
Paul Branca, David Horvitz, and Fawn Krieger
24.04.2014 — 07.06.2014 : Exhibition curated by Paul Branca & Lisa Hayes Williams

Autonomy Exchange Archive presents works and artifacts originating from multi-faceted projects by New York based artists Paul Branca, David Horvitz, and Fawn Krieger. Each artist’s practice is not fixed upon one particular working method but involves a continual refashioning of rules and procedures specific to a given context. Through processes of exchange and intervention upon pre-existing structures or situations, ‘residual’ materials including documents, photographs, and objects are generated. Gathered and preserved, these materials accumulate into archives that in the context of this exhibition, re-animate the history and process of their making.

In 1934, Marcel Duchamp reproduced 94 of his past works as small-scale collotype prints, annotating them and fitting them snugly into a cardboard box lined with green silk. Titled La boîte verte (The green box) and created in an edition of 166, the series circulated Duchamp’s ideas and objectives to a much wider audience. Collected, organized, and presented as such, each boite represents an archive of the artist’s oeuvre, but also a discrete artwork in itself. Working along similar strategies, the actions and projects presented and performed by Branca, Horvitz, and Krieger frequently result in ‘leftovers’, ‘souvenirs’, or collections, reproductions, or anthologies in miniature, be they traditional art works, tangible objects, or meta-data. The production of such documentation is often an anxious procedure, and Autonomy Exchange Archive proposes the notion that such remnants are not dead within the archive or storage but are active agents that can re-perform the work in alternative platforms and permutations.

Combining comic participation within contexts that are at times critical of the art world, Horvitz’s oeuvre addresses the accumulation, exchange, and accessibility of works within institutional, digital, and ephemeral channels. In the tradition of Duchamp’s boîte verte, Horvitz’s Drugstore Beetle (Sitodrepa Paniceum), 2010, engages the preservation and display of an edition of 30 miniature exhibitions of works by 27 artists. Housed in archival boxes and donated to institutional and museum libraries internationally, the individual editions become subject to the rules and regulations of the library archives into which they enter. Horvitz’s Disappearance from Winschoten, 2012; Carry-On, 2010; and other works similarly play with notions of exhibition-as-archive and vice versa. Creating autonomous systems of exchange and distribution, Branca’s works often culminate from the participation and labor of other artists, peers, passers-by, and even studio visits. Inviting fellow artists to contribute painted depictions of fresh produce for his Fruit and Vegetable Stand, a cash-and-carry exhibition that took place in a Queens fruit stand in 2012 and 2013, Branca asked participants to contribute a grisaille version as their ‘archival’ document in lieu of a photograph. Together, the grisailles comprise the project’s material documentation, at West on display for the first time. As in other projects including 24 ore di gatti colorati, 2012 and Promised Paintings, 2010; Branca’s ‘leftover’ paintings complicate the ways in which economic, social, or use values are assigned to artworks. Similarly invested in challenging the economic and cultural value of objects Krieger’s interests are grounded in the fabrication of a sculptural world that mirrors and restructures pre-existing sites of exchange. Ruin Value, 2010, was an exhibition containing ceramic sculptures that were originally sold according to their weight on a first-come-first-serve basis. Addressing the circulation of goods as well as the commodification of leisure sites and activities, Krieger’s National Park, 2009, involved the construction of an immersive sculptural stage-set posing as a fictional American national park, as well as Souvenir ‘take-home’ cast-offs of the original. Often engaging the thematic of tactility, her films, FAULTS, documents a series of material interactions that, in their reference to geological shifts and ruptures, archive the artist’s haptic vocabulary of touch, fracture, impact, and intimacy.

Representing and restaging multiple works by each artist, Autonomy Exchange Archive, too, takes the model of Duchamp’s boite in comprising multiples miniature retrospectives, or archives, in one.

Paul Branca (1974, Bronx NY) received his MFA in painting from Bard College, New York in 2010. Branca’s work has been featured in exhibitions at The Kitchen; SculptureCenter; Scaramouche; Marianne Boesky Gallery, all in New York; Anat Ebgi/The Company, Los Angeles; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Berlin; Golden Parachutes, Berlin; Galeria Sabot, Cluj, Romania; and West, The Hague, Netherlands, among others. The 2nd edition of Branca’s project ‘The Fruit and Vegetable Stand’ showcased work by over 30 artists and took place in Queens, NY in October 2013.
David Horvitz (1981, Los Angeles) completed his MFA at Bard College, New York in 2010. He had solo exhibitions at Recess, New York; Statements, Art Basel 2013, with Chert, Berlin; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; West, Den Haag and group exhibitions at: MoMA Library, New York; Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Reading, PALIAF, Norway; New Galerie, Paris; ISCP, New York; MoMa PS1, New York; Performa 13, New York, amongst others.
Fawn Krieger (1975, New York) received her BFA from Parsons School of Design, and her MFA from Bard College. Her work has been exhibited at The Kitchen, New York; Art in General, New York; Nice & Fit Gallery, Berlin; The Moore Space, Miami; Von Lintel Gallery, New York; the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Boston; Human Resources, Los Angeles; Fleisher Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia; Soloway, NY; and Neon>fdv, Milan, Italy.

Artists participating in AEA: Rory Parks, Guy Ben Ari, Leah Wolff, Lea Cetera, Kate Parnell, Sophy Naess, Arianna Carossa, Pat Palermo, Lumin Wakoa, Jagna Ciuchta, Lukas Geronimas, Fawn Krieger, Munro Galloway, Annette Wehrhahn, Paul Branca, Al Freeman, Roger Carmona, Dylan Chatain, Essye Klempner, Marley Freeman, Dustin Hodges, Manuela Lalic, Ana Cardoso, Emet Sosna, Jaime Chan, Susan Hamburger, Emily Roz, Alisha Kerlin, Jesse Cohen, Halsey Rodman, Cassie Raihl, David Horvitz, Carmelle Safdie, Timothy Hull, Natalie Hausler, TM Davy-Honeydew, Michael Bell-Smith, Colleen Brown, Dylan Chatain, Joanne Cheung and Beau Sievers, Dexter Sinister, Marley Freeman, Marc Handelman, Tim Ridlen, Maxwell Simmer, Ed Steck, Penelope Umbrico, Alvaro Urbano. Kasia Fudakowski, Marley Freeman, Mary Walling Blackburn, John Sisley, Miranda Lichtenstein, Annegret Kellner, Emilie Halpern, Barbara Ess, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Alex Klein, Sarah Rara Anderson, Graham Parker, Suzie Silver, Marijke Appelman, Jon Pestoni, Josh Kit Clayton, Amy Lam, Luke Fischbeck, Michael G. Bauer, Avalon Kalin, John Pena, Santos Vasquez, Zach Houston, Michelle Blade, Graham Anderson, Steve Kado and Ken Ehrlich.

A new publication with essays by Lisa Hayes Williams, Paul Branca and others will accompany the exhibition. We are pleased to invite you to the opening reception of the exhibition on Thursday 24.04.2014 at 7 pm For press photos and more information, you can contact Marie-José Sondeijker: info@west-denhaag.nl