1 April – 28 May

Opening reception: Friday, 1 April, from 6:00pm – 11:00pm

Marginal Utility Gallery is proud to present A LARGER REFRIGERATOR, an exhibition of new work by Richard Harrod.

-Our ideal constructions are bleak but comfortable.

In Harrod’s project for Marginal Utility, one finds evocative prints that depict the imbroglio of man versus nature. With a film-noir sensibility and wry wit, these images address the absurdity of the human condition. The unknown and unsayable pervades the most familiar objects such as a shower, a window shade, and a staircase. These everyday objects that are wrought through a mixture of sculpture and digital prints engender an awareness of the uncanny in the domestic scene. Stringing these deceptively banal objects together are a series of retina-burn drawings that consist of light, reflections, images from memory, and the impression of the filament burnt into the viewer’s retina that float in multiples across a screen of paint and paper.

Richard Harrod was born in Buffalo, NY. He was a 1997 recipient of the Pew Charitable Trusts Artists Fellowship Award. His work has been shown in Philadelphia, New York, and Europe.

download Richard Harrod review, Art Papers 07/2011 (3.3 MB)

RETHINKING THE POLITICS OF ART: The Machete Group at Slought

Saturday 19 March, 8-10pm
Slought Foundation
4017 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA

In an era in which many have declared the failure of the avant-garde and neo-avant-garde attempts to link art and politics, the Machete Group proposes to revisit this general problematic by emphasizing the need to reconfigure the conceptual matrix used to think the politics of art. Through an exploration of contemporary artistic strategies, the institutional framework of the arts, and the central role of systems of production, distribution and reception, we examine–from motley perspectives–a crucial question for contemporary aesthetic practice: “In order to rethink the relationship between art and politics in the current conjuncture, is it necessary to break with the essentialist assumption that ‘art’ and ‘politics’ are separate entities in need of a privileged point of connection?”

01. Brecht, ‘Five Difficulties’ (80 KB)

02. Rochlitz,’Subversion-Subsidy’ (964 KB)

03. Rochlitz, ‘Subversion Subsidy Preface’ (328 KB)

04. Saunders ‘Modern Art CIA CLEAN’ (68 KB)

05. Sontag, ‘Notes on Camp’ (60 KB)

06. Krebber, ‘ical krbbr prodly prsnts’ (4.8 MB)

ABOUT THE MACHETE GROUP
The Machete Group is an international consortium of artists and intellectuals based at the Marginal Utility Gallery in Philadelphia that organizes workshops, mini-seminars, screenings and other events open to the public. The guiding proposition of the Machete Group is that practice without theory is empty and theory without practice is blind. The goal of their work is to engender a rigorous and open atmosphere outside a strictly academic context that encourages autodidacticism, a willingness to question all forms of mastery and specialization, and the desire to think critically about artistic practice in an historically, socially and politically astute manner.

The Machete Group seminar at Slought will be run, like the other monthly seminars, by Avi Alpert, Alexi Kukuljevic and Gabriel Rockhill.

Download machete 14 March (1.6 MB)

SEAN PAUL, Good Morning/ AVI ALPERT, Revolution or Bust/ JAMES HYDE, Art Front/ LUDWIG FISCHER, On Assignment…/ MIKE VASS, Dollar-Book Void/ JUSTIN MATHERLY, Artist Response/ MIKE OLSON, What is the End of Art?/ SEAN PAUL, Good Night