EL MUSEO DEL GHETTO / G Fine Art Presents

Jefferson Pinder and José Ruiz At G Fine Art, Washington DC

Jefferson Pinder, José Ruiz, Roulette, video, 2009

September 26 – October 24 20009
Opening reception September 26, 2009, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm

Curated by Christopher K. Ho

@ 625-27 E Street NW
Washington DC 20004

(G Fine Art) El Museo del Ghetto is pleased to present new, major collaborative and individual works by Jefferson Pinder and Jose Ruiz at its temporary location on 625-27 E Street, NW, Washington, DC. El Museo del Ghetto at once deepens and exceeds the constellation of issues—about history, narrative, and identity—explored with various intensity in Pinder’s 2006 solo show at G Fine Art, and subjects them to the sly, deadpan humor evident in Ruiz’s own previous solo shows, in 2005 and 2007.

Perhaps the signal piece is Roulette, a collaborative video projected in the main space, Pinder puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger. Ruiz responds by taking a different kind of shot—of tequila. The initial set up—a simple alternation, registered by the camera’s back and forth movement—engenders radically divergent, even contradictory, narrative structures. The anxious anticipation of watching Pinder’s game of Russian roulette eventually softens into staccato rhythm, while Ruiz becomes increasingly incapacitated by alcohol. That Pinder is African American and Ruiz is Latin American adds yet another layer.

Open Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm

G FINE ART
Tel: 202 462 1601
www.gfineartdc.com
info[at]gfineartdc[dot]com

IPSO FACTO at DCAC

Paintings and Drawings by Jerome Spinner
March 28 - April 27
Opening Reception: March 28, 7-9pm

curated by Jefferson Pinder, Karen Joan Topping and B Stanley Painting over the anonymous with the obvious is the dialogue Jerome Spinner is entering into with anyone that looks at his work. To answer your question before you ask it; to exert a kind of meaningful control over what you should consider is important. Stenciling the title, media, size and year in block letters onto art works he gets at flea markets, yard sales and thrift shops the label becomes the work. It seems a blatant and simple critique of the relationship most viewers have with a work of art or artifact –the six seconds it takes to read the label. Except it’s not that simple.

DC Arts Center
2438 18th St. NW
Washington, DC 20009
202.462.7833

“RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture”

February 8 through October 26, 2008

Since its inception in the 1970s, hip hop has been arguably the most influential and popular musical form in America. Its popularity extends beyond the urban centers of its inception and pervades youth culture throughout the world. Images of hip hop stars are as pervasive as the music itself, and the National Portrait Gallery is featuring the work of artists who have explored this phenomenon. David Scheinbaum has been photographing hip hop artists since 2000, Two Washington, D.C–based graffiti artists, Tim Conlon & Dave Hupp, created four portrait murals to be installed in a hallway that connects the galleries. Jefferson Pinder created three video self-portraits that will be included in the installation. Curators for the exhibition are Frank A. Goodyear III, assistant curator of photographs and Brandon B. Fortune curator of paintings; Jobyl A. Boone, a Smithsonian predoctoral fellow is the guest curator.

All exhibitions are held at the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, located at Eighth and F streets N.W., Washington, D.C. For public information, call (202) 633-8300. The National Portrait Gallery is open every day (except December 25th) from 11:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Iona Rozeal Brown and Jefferson Pinder

G Fine Art
New works by gallery artists.

December 17 – January 5, 2008

Iona rozeal brown will be showing two new pieces. “You opened my eyes man, thought I had a man, but how could I eye scan.” A print triptych based on a painting triptych of the same name from her show, Blending Lines. And a new painting, Midnight in the…Den of Good and Weavin’, (after Kuniyoshi’s ‘The Orphan Star Amid the Stars of Earth.)

Brown is the recent recipient of a Tiffany Grant and a Joan Mitchell Award.

Jefferson Pinder’s new work, Shoeshine Variation, 2007, both glorifies and archives a service that is quickly disappearing from our fast-paced culture. This diptych video provides a glimpse into the grace and beauty of the shoeshine, while delving into the symbolism wrapped up in the task. As master shine man Ego Brown builds the shine, Jermaine Washington, social provocateur, deconstructs. This narrative guides the viewer through the process of a shoeshine variation that drifts in and out of reality, asking the viewer to actually focus on the multiple interpretations of the act itself.