Embroid, Embroil and Ass on the Street will be featured in the group exhibit:

Storefront Video
October 29 – December 4, 2011
Transformer Gallery
1404 P Street NW Washington, DC 20005 | 202.483.1102 | www.transformerdc.org

Nearly a year after Transformer’s December 1, 2010 storefront screening of an edited version of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly, screened in a direct response to the Smithsonian Institution’s censorship of a similar work from the National Portrait Gallery’s Hide/Seek exhibition, Transformer revisits the use of our storefront space as a way to interact with audiences through the sidewalk presentation & viewing of video.  

Working in collaboration with a diverse range of artists and organizations in the development of this program, Transformer launches Storefront Video with works from the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum’s ARTLAB+ program, a design studio for teens (www.artlabplus.si.edu).  ARTLAB+ guest filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu, curator of the ARTLAB+ Film Forum program, has guest curated a special selection of Film Forum videos especially for Transformer’s Storefront Video exhibition.  

Storefront Video launches at noon on Saturday, October 29 with Cameltooth Curtain, 2005 and Whip What Stat, 2009 by CamLAB (a Jemima Wyman and Anna Mayer Collaboration), as well as Untitled, 2009 by Akosua Adoma Owusu. This screening will run continuously through to 11:59am on Monday, October 31.  

Additional works from the ARTLAB+ Film Forum program, as well as works by teen participants of ARTLAB+ will screen each weekend throughout the run of Storefront Video. Participating Artists include: Iram Parveen Bilal, Laura Bouza, Julia Brown, CamLab, Diana-Sofia Estrada, Kevin Jerome Everson, Charles Fairbanks, Lindsay Foster, Victoria Fu, Hong Huynh, Eliza Hittman, Caroline Key, Assia Lakhlif, Elana Mann, Kirthi Nath, Natasha Ngaiza, Julie Orser, Stephanie Owens, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Ali Prosch, Dinorah de Jesus Rodriguez, Elleni Sclavenitis, April Totten, Carlin Wing, Zina Saro-Wiwa, & Michiko Yao.

In tandem with these ARTLAB+ artists, Storefront Video will also feature works by:  Forest Allread, Wilson Butterworth, Micaela Durand, Billy Friebele, Felicia Glidden, Travis Hallenbeck, Michael Dax Iacovone, Carolina Mayorga, William McKenna, Kendall Nordin, Bart O’Reilly, Jordan Swartz, Lisa Marie Thalhammer and more!

Transformer will close out Storefront Video December 1-4, 2011with a special screening of Untitled, a new video work by Jim Hodges, Carlos Marques da Cruz, and Encke King. Marking World AIDS Day / Day With(out) Art 2011, Untitled is a non-linear montage of archival and pop footage recalling the passionate activism sparked by the early years of the AIDS crisis. Un-spooling at multiple levels, the narrative flies between scenes of tragic brutality to kitschy humor, arch clips of laughter and ironic surprises while shredding traditional chronology. Many references - the title, short excerpts from Golden Girls and Dynasty, popular songs, and contemporary issues - nod towards Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ oeuvre, but the film is not an attempt to portray the artist; rather, it places the viewer “in his room.” In this way, the framing of the artist becomes a means to project any number of people, endlessly.  This video is present courtesy of Visual AIDS: http://visualaids.blogspot.com/

Storefront Video Exhibition Hours:  Works will be on view 24 hours a day, 7 days a week beginning Saturday, October 29 at noon.  New works will screen Mon – Saturday at noon.  A full schedule will be released weekly on Transformer’s new website www.transformerdc.org & our facebook page. ArtLab is a dynamic and dedicated community space in the Hirshhorn Museum’s Sculpture Garden. It gives DC area teens access to up-to-date technology, the support of artist-mentors, and access to the vast physical and virtual resources of the Smithsonian. The space has a sound booth, gaming area, and DropZone - a regular afterschool program with weekend hours. Teens can drop in to play video games, socialize with friends, access equipment, meet with mentors or in clubs, plan productions or take a workshop. They create their own experience and the museum supports them with resources to build & realize their own projects. Regular workshops with artist experts draw inspiration from the collection, current exhibitions or the DC community. Many of the projects teens create through ARTLAB+ programs are challenge-based with real world applications to the museum or their communities. 

Film Forum is a component of ARTLAB+ where teens and guest filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu curate a festival of experimental film and video shorts from 6-7pm on Wednesday nights.  Film Forum exposes teens to a range of filmmaking styles and subjects, giving them a forum to discuss and influence each other’s views on film and video. This event is ongoing, free and open to any teen interested in dropping in. Akosua Adoma Owusu is a US born filmmaker and artist of Ghanaian descent.  She received her MFA in film, media and art at CalArts and BA at the University of Virginia. Owusu's films are richly informed by traditions in avant-garde filmmaking, cultural identity, and African storytelling. Her films and installations have exhibited worldwide including MoMA, The National Gallery of Art, Rotterdam Film Festival, Viennale, and London Film Festival. Shortly after graduating from CalArts, she became the youngest of 42 black conceptual artists featured in the group exhibition, 30 Seconds Off an Inch, at the famed Studio Museum in Harlem, where she also exhibited solo video projects. Owusu’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington City Paper, SF Weekly, and was selected in ArtForum's Top 10 in 2010. Her critically acclaimed film, ME BRONI BA (My White Baby) was honored with screenings at over 60 international film festivals worldwide.  She was a featured artist at the 56th Robert Flaherty Film Seminar and teaches in film and video at ARTLAB+ in the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum. 

A full programming schedule for ARTLAB+ can be found at: artlabplus.si.edu.  A virtual tour created by Will Beaman, ARTLAB+ teen communications intern can be found at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tzaW_Wb9ok.

t r a n s f o r m e r  is a Washington, DC based 501 (c) 3 artist-centered non-profit visual arts organization, providing a consistent, supportive, and professional platform for emerging artists to explore and present experimental artistic concepts, build audiences for their work, and advance their careers.  A catalyst and advocate for contemporary artists and emergent expression in the visual arts, Transformer connects and promotes emerging visual artists within regional, national and international contexts through exhibition and programs partnerships with artists, curators, commercial galleries, museums and other cultural institutions.  

Transformer's 2011/12 exhibition series and programs are supported by:  The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The CrossCurrents Foundation, The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities/NEA, The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, The Robert Lehman Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts’ Access to Artistic Excellence award, and The Visionary Friends of Transformer – individual donors & sponsors of our Annual Auction & Collector’s View series.