SATURDAY: Blaque Lyte Art Show At ADA Gallery!

On Saturday June 9, the ADA Gallery, located at 228 W. Broad St., will present an exhibition entitled Blaque Lyte. Chicago artists Chris Kerr and Paul Nudd, who have been working together on various projects since 2007, initially unveiled this curated art show in Chicago last fall. Featuring work from over 30 artists, Kerr and Nudd solicited work that would react with the titular shade of ultraviolet light, attempting to make an almost cliched invention usually associated with posters on dorm room walls and body-painted ravers wielding glowsticks, seem new and innovative again. After a successful run in Chicago, they've now brought the collection to Richmond, to blow our minds with work that goes beyond the cliched associations of "black light."

WHAT: Blaque Lyte Richmo'
WHO: Curated by Chris Kerr and Paul Nudd. Artists include Hanna Andersson, Mike Andrews, Able Brown, Lilli Carré, Bruce Conkle, Anya Davidson, Jo Dery, Michael Dumontier, Edie Fake, Neil Farber, Casey William Farnum, Sanya Glisic, Leif Goldberg, Keith Herzik, Brandon Heuser, Céline Hudréaux, Laurent Impeduglia, Klara Kristalova, Eric Lebofsky, David Leggett, Thomas Mazzarella, Benton Moss, Joakim Ojanen, Onsmith, Paintallica, Kristen Romaniszak, Marie Rosen, DeeDee Scacci, Seth Scriver, David Shrigley, Edra Soto, Ben Stone, Michael Swaney, Giselind von Wurmb, Michelle Wasson, and Andrew Jeffrey Wright.
WHERE: ADA Gallery, 228 W. Broad St.
WHEN: Opens Saturday, June 9, 6-9 PM

Eric Lebofsky

STATEMENT & RATIONALE

The term "black light" makes no sense; like all pure abstractions, it escapes possibilty. It's a beautiful term, though - contradictory and wonderfully descriptive. A black light's desired result is the creation of an altered perceptual environment. The recreational effects of black light are well known: makeshift dorm room trip incubators, Jimi Hendrix and Iron Maiden posters, stoner wallpaper, goopy body-paint gyration parties, raves, Jr. High dances, Halloween, etc. Other uses are also weird and gushy. In forensics, they are used to scour a dubious location for semen, blood and other murderous delights. In backyards, they are instrumental in zapping bugs. Sometimes, just looking at someone's teeth and eyes are enough to become a believer!

It would be nice to revive this seemingly dead and trivial medium. The possibilities seem interesting. What happens when you optically alter an environment and fill it with art work that attempts to do the same thing? In Blaque Lyte, we are recontextualizing various forms of contemporary visual art in an attempt to transcend the mere novelty and self-indulgent nature of traditional black light props. From top to bottom, our goal is to create an overwhelming and visually jarring environment, one that is essential in offering the viewer an exclusive experience, namely a weird and hyper-sensitized orgy of inversely illuminated odd-ball artworks . We are not attempting to recreate a haunted house through a fog of juvenile nostalgia. We feel we can offer a doubly altered series of optical rifts. All the work in Blaque Lyte will be specifically made to be seen under these unconventional and experimental conditions.

Benton Moss