Frontward Tilt:
Ramsey Alderson, Jeremy Biles, Ryan M Pfeiffer + Rebecca Walz
curated by Collin Pressler
June 7 – July 5, 2015
Reception for the Artists
Sunday, June 7, 4:00 – 7:00 P.M
Fish (Still Life), Édouard Manet, 1864, 28 7/8 x 36 1/4 inches.
Frontward Tilt assembles a group of four artists whose work incites precarity and addresses “the tilt” as both a formal strategy and disruptive symbolic operation. The work of these four artists examines the tilt and its constellation of related terms (lunge, tumble, slip, pitch, slant, lean…) as a function of fractured or collapsed pictorial space and dimensional ambiguity. A shifting body of interconnected references pervades the work and serves this end: voyeur, creeper, spy; bull, bullgod and matador; The Mirror of Tauromachy and the Mademoiselle V. Inspired by a Bataillean meditation on Manet’s “Fish (Still Life)” (1864), Frontward Tilt embraces historically displaced imagery via ulterior reads and freeassociations, and indulges lowness both as a vantage and a practice.
Ramsey Alderson lives and works in Chicago. He has recently had two solo shows at Front Room and DoMus in Chicago. He holds a BFA from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Jeremy Biles, PhD, resides in Chicago, where he teaches on religion, philosophy, and art at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He is the author of the book Ecce Monstrum: Georges Bataille and the Sacrifice of Form (Fordham University Press, 2007).
Ryan M Pfeiffer + Rebecca Walz are collaborators that live and work in Chicago. Drawing from their research into prehistoric & ancient art, historical erotica, and esoteric traditions, their works synthesize concerns about sex, death, myth, transformation, and alchemy. They view the act of collaboration as the dissolution of individual identities and union of oppositions as a new, harmonized whole.
Collin Pressler is a writer and arts organizer living and working in Chicago. He currently serves as Curator at The International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, and previously served as Exhibitions Manager at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Frontward Tilt (from left to right), Ramsey Alderson, “Untitled”, 2015, Photograph; Jeremy Biles, “Ariadne’s Thread”, 2015, digital print with graphite and wax crayon on newsprint with velvet veil; Jeremy Biles, “The Sensation of Time”, 2015, digital print with graphite, colored pencil, and collage on newsprint with velvet veil; Jeremy Biles, 2015, “Mirror of Tauromachy”, digital print with graphite, colored pencil, and semen on newsprint with velvet veil.
Frontward Tilt (from left to right), Jeremy Biles, “Ariadne’s Thread”, 2015, digital print with graphite and wax crayon on newsprint with velvet veil; Jeremy Biles, “The Sensation of Time”, 2015, digital print with graphite, colored pencil, and collage on newsprint with velvet veil; Jeremy Biles, 2015, “Mirror of Tauromachy”, digital print with graphite, colored pencil, and semen on newsprint with velvet veil.
Frontward Tilt (from left to right), Jeremy Biles, “Ariadne’s Thread”, 2015, digital print with graphite and wax crayon on newsprint with velvet veil; Jeremy Biles, “The Sensation of Time”, 2015, digital print with graphite, colored pencil, and collage on newsprint with velvet veil; Jeremy Biles, 2015, “Mirror of Tauromachy”, digital print with graphite, colored pencil, and semen on newsprint with velvet veil; Rebecca Walz + Ryan M. Pfeiffer, 2015, “The Annunciation”, Chalk Lead & Charcoal.
Frontward Tilt (from left to right), Jeremy Biles, “Ariadne’s Thread”, 2015, digital print with graphite and wax crayon on newsprint with velvet veil; Jeremy Biles, “The Sensation of Time”, 2015, digital print with graphite, colored pencil, and collage on newsprint with velvet veil; Jeremy Biles, 2015, “Mirror of Tauromachy”, digital print with graphite, colored pencil, and semen on newsprint with velvet veil; Rebecca Walz + Ryan M. Pfeiffer, 2015, “The Annunciation”, Chalk Lead & Charcoal; Rebecca Walz + Ryan M. Pfeiffer, “The Labyrinth”, 2015, Graphite, Chalk Lead, Colored Pencil, Charcoal, Iron Oxide & Gold Leaf; Rebecca Walz + Ryan M. Pfeiffer, “The Adjustment”, 2015, Graphite, Chalk Lead, Water Color, Colored Pencil, Charcoal & Gold Leaf.
Frontward Tilt (from left to right), Rebecca Walz + Ryan M. Pfeiffer, “The Labyrinth”, 2015, Graphite, Chalk Lead, Colored Pencil, Charcoal, Iron Oxide & Gold Leaf; Rebecca Walz + Ryan M. Pfeiffer, “The Adjustment”, 2015, Graphite, Chalk Lead, Water Color, Colored Pencil, Charcoal & Gold Leaf; Ramsey Alderson, 2015, “Untitled”, Photograph; Ramsey Alderson, 2015, “Untitled”, Photograph.
Frontward Tilt (from left to right), Ramsey Alderson, 2015, “Untitled”, Photograph; Ramsey Alderson, 2015, “Untitled”, Photograph.