Honor Fraser Gallery Presents Glenn Kaino's Bring Me the Hands of Piri Reis

Honor Fraser Gallery is set to present Bring Me The Hands of Piri Reis, an exhibition of new works by Glenn Kaino.

Conceiving his process of working as "conceptual kitbashing," akin to a model-maker's method of appropriating parts of commercial model kits in order to construct a unique custom model, Kaino engineers objects, performances, and ephemera using fragments and concepts mobilized in other creative disciplines. Drawing from his undergraduate training in computer science; his involvement in comic books and animation; his engagements in the music industry; his professional experience in digital media technology; and most recently, his rigorous training in magic, Kaino catalyzes formal and conceptual slippages through site and situation-specific works that blur the boundaries between art and other modalities of cultural production. This gives Kaino's work the ability to forge new relationships between materials and ideas-unveiling new possibilities for the production and circulation of contemporary art.

For this exhibition, Kaino takes cartographic systems as a point of departure to interrogate the ways in which map-making functions as a hegemonic paradigm of knowledge recording and organization. Mapping, since the days of early world exploration, emerged as a method to inscribe the unknown, to give rationalization and order to obscure variables and unseen terrains. Accompanied by technological advancement, mapping soon expanded beyond its geographically-based disciplinary confines, setting in place a myriad of discursive tools and symbolic systems to analyze and chart multiple bodies of knowledge. Achieving this level of functional perfection, mapping has emptied the promises of new discovery and creativity-placing at our fingertips a pristine and complete picture of the world. Mobilizing his training in magic, Kaino intervenes into the realm of map-making by introducing secrets and random variables into a series of works that resist cartographic logic. Mistakes according to Kaino "are subversions into the imagined future of an idealized outcome, and by their very nature, create a heterogeneous circumstance that unlocks an infinite progress." Through formal and material manipulations, Kaino introduces error and chance into a rigid epistemic system-generating works that redefine the relationship between art and audience while simultaneously reinvigorating our belief in the creative gesture.

Glenn Kaino (b. 1972, Los Angeles) received his BFA from the University of California, Irvine, in 1993 and his MFA from the University of California, San Diego, in 1996. His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including Glenn Kaino: Safe|Vanish, LA><ART, Los Angeles (2011); Honor Among Thieves, Performa09, in collaboration with Creative Time, New York (2010); Transformer: The Work of Glenn Kaino, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (2008); The Burning Boards, The Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York (2007); Laws Were Made For Rogues, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California (2006); and Bounce: Glenn Kaino and Mark Bradford, Gallery at REDCAT, Los Angeles, (2004) amongst others. Kaino's work has also been included in group exhibitions at institutions around the world, including Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2011); Role Model- Role Playing, Museum der Moderne Mochsberg, Salzburg, Germany (2011); The Artists' Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2010); Disorderly Conduct: Recent Art in Tumultuous Times, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California (2008); Blackbelt, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2004); and One Planet under a Groove, Bronx Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2001) amongst others. In 2004, his work was included in the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art and the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In addition to his studio practice, Kaino has been involved in various projects that established experimental platforms for the production and dissemination of contemporary art. In 1997, Kaino cofounded Deep River, an artist-run gallery in Los Angeles that was active through 2002, staging solo shows with some of Los Angeles's most important emerging artists. Most recently, he cofounded The Mistake Room, an itinerant platform for exhibitions, publications, and situation-specific artist projects.

Honor Fraser Gallery
2622 South La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA.

Glenn Kaino Exhibit
Saturday, January 07 - Saturday, February 18, 2012

Opening Reception
January 07, 2012
6:00 - 8:00 PM