EJ HILL and DAVID BELL [LOS ANGELES]
MIAO JIAXIN [NEW YORK/CHINA]
RAFAEL SANCHEZ
EJ HILL [LOS ANGELES, CA]
EJ HILL [LOS ANGELES, CA]
EJ Hill is a Los Angeles-based artist known for his durational, physically demanding performances. Hill's performances often possess an element of institutional critique or are direct in their address of politics around constructed identity and the body in gendered, racial and sexualized terms. Hill graduated from the New Genres program at UCLA in 2013 and obtained his BFA from Columbia College in Chicago. He has presented solo and group exhibitions at Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles; Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles; Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn; RAID Projects, Los Angeles; NEXT Fair, Chicago; and A+D Gallery, Chicago
DAVID BELL [LOS ANGELES, CA]
David Bell’s work aims to problematize human relationships with support structures that can be both physically and mentally obtrusive, By investigating the precarious nature of contemporary lifestyle through an oftentimes awkward program of honest and inclusive collaboration, Bell attempts to share and develop a positive understanding of life’s difficulties. His most recent interactions have taken place at The Orange County Museum of Art, The Smart Museum in Chicago and The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles California. For the past four years Bell has run Dave Gallery, a performance based project space, currently located in Downtown Los Angeles.
MIAO JAIXIN [NYC/CHINA]
From his early practice, starting as a street photographer tracking Shanghai prostitutes to the development of a pseudo-transvestite web celebrity, Miao Jiaxin has evolved an edgy and protean practice. Beginning in Shanghai, Miao then immigrated to New York, expanding his view of urban streets towards a more conceptual public stage, where his works travel across different media. He often documents his performances and installations, then converting the documentation into photographs and videos that stand on their own as works. Initiated from universal themes of existentialism, Miao's works tend to be politically participating in contemporary events, yet still expressing the universal theme of urban angst. Among his performative practices, he has blended his naked body into the bleak streets of a midnight New York City, traveled inside a suitcase hauled by his mother through urban crowds, did live-feed erotic performances on an interactive pornographic broadcasting website, and dressed as a Chinese businessman for a year when working towards his MFA at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Miao's works often express the ambivalent and sometimes antagonistic tension that always exists between the individual and governing or cultural authorities, questioning assumptions about power in relation to individual identity, race, gender, sexuality and social class. He posits the artist's nature as one who transgresses boundaries, challenges consensus, and stays distance from authorities.
Miao JaixinRAFAEL SANCHEZ [NYC]
Rafael Sanchez, (b.Newark, New Jersey, 1978) is a performance artist who often takes his work to the streets and other unconventional spaces. In his performances, Sanchez frequently subjects his body to extreme stress and pain to materialize ideas of memory, spirituality and endurance. In deceivingly simple gestures and epic endurance feats, Sanchez uses his body to carry ideas about the performative conditions of daily life in the city and how it is inscribed with desire, pain, musical rhythms, absurdity and poetry. Sanchez demands that viewers make a psycho-educational commitment to enhancing his or her own perception of reality. He is the recipient of the first annual 2008 Ida Applebroog Award at Exit Art, and he currently works as a teacher and counselor at a high school in Newark, New Jersey.
Rafael Sanchez performance video:www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFL9Z7v7YXQ
ABOUT GRACE EXHIBITION SPACE
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GRACE:
Grace, n. - simple elegance or refinement of movement
Grace Period - an extended period granted as a special favor
The Three Graces (Greek Mythology) - charm, grace, and beauty
Opened in 2006, Grace Exhibition Space is devoted exclusively to Performance Art. We offer an opportunity to experience visceral and challenging works by the current generation of international performance artists whether emerging, mid-career or established. Our events are presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer. This is how performance art is meant to be experienced and our mission is the glorification of performance art.
Grace Exhibition Space presents over 30 curated live performance art exhibitions each year, showcasing new work by more than 400 performance artists from across the United States and the world since 2006.
Grace Exhibition Space for International Performance Art Space IRS tax-exempt 501(c)3 status in 2015.
Grace Exhibition Space follows the We Have a Voice Collectives Code of Conduct to Promote Safe(r) Workplaces in the Performing Arts For more information and resources, visit: www.wehavevoice.org