Touch Move

Work by Bessie Kunath, Emma Spertus, & Richard Zimmerman

Curated by Lisa Rybovich Crallé

August 5 – September 24, 2017

Exhibition Dates: August 5–September 24, 2017
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 5,  7–10pm
Special Event: Wood Pushers: An Artist Talk and Live Chess Game, Saturday, September 16, 6–7:30pm
 
Touch Move presents new work by Bessie Kunath (Los Angeles), Emma Spertus (Oakland), and Richard Zimmerman (New York) and is guest curated by artist Lisa Rybovich Crallé (Oakland). Touch Move is a term borrowed from tournament chess wherein a player is obliged to make a move once their hand touches a piece. The title refers to the long-distance collaboration initiated by the artists, who, in response to each other’s work, play with the logic of meaning between objects, distance, and the built environment. The material-based practices of the artists point to the architectural through manipulations of form, scale-play, and non-functionality. In Touch Move, sculptural objects and architectural intervention work together to reveal an object-image-space-scale vortex that positions materiality as a substrate for cultural interpretation and critique.

 During a one-night-only event entitled Wood Pushers (Saturday, September 16,  6–7:30 pm) a timed chess match will take place inside Royal NoneSuch Gallery. The match will be live animated by artist Richard Zimmerman and broadcast to the street outside (via the gallery window). The chess match will be accompanied by a conversation between artists Emma Spertus, Bessie Kunath, and artist/organizer, Lisa Rybovich Crallé.

Artist Biographies
Bessie Kunath engages in real-time kitsch making, combining non-precious materials (paper, wood, cement, mosaic tiles, denim jeans) as a means to investigate commodity culture. Bessie received her MFA from UC Santa Barbara in 2012. Solo exhibitions include Safety Dance at Eastside International and Free Normcore at Autonomie Projects. Recent group exhibitions include Baker’s Dozen at the Torrance Art Museum, The Garden at TSA Los Angeles, Lazy Susan at Titanki gallerias in Finland andUFOLOGY at Outpost Projects curated by Kio Griffith, I know Everything curated by Iris Hu at Dave Gallery, From Dust Returns at Ichibeicho Gallery in Tokyo, Japan, Demolition Women curated by Young Chung at Chapman University and If Memory Serves, curated by Allyson Unzicker. Kunath is also a member of an artist/ curatorial project called Manual History Machines. www.bessiekunath.com
 
Emma Spertus creates sculptures and architectural interventions that mine the visual language and design of “corporate modernism” — often merging two- and three-dimensional space in constructions that question common forms of representation and utility. Emma lives and works in Oakland.  She is founding director of Real Time & Space. She holds an MFA from Hunter College in New York. She has exhibited at Interface (Oakland), The Lab (San Francisco), Romer Young Gallery (San Francisco), Important Projects (Oakland), Stairwell's (San Francisco), White Columns (New York),  Dorsky Gallery (New York), and City Limits (Oakland). She recently guest curated exhibitions at San Francisco City College Rosenberg Library and Hayes Valley Art Works. www.emmaspertus.com
 
Richard Zimmerman’s constructions play with the language of building and design using domestic and industrial materials (terra cotta planters, textiles, plates, concrete, rebar steel, and bamboo) to create disorienting and sometimes comic interventions in space. Richard lives and works in Ithaca, New York. He received his BFA from Pratt Institute and is currently completing an MFA from Cornell University. He has exhibited work at Artlot (Brooklyn), Werk Gallery (Los Angeles), Center on Contemporary Art (Seattle), and the Trenton Museum of Art (New Jersey). www.richardzimmermanstudio.com

Curator Biography
Lisa Rybovich Crallé is an interdisciplinary artist based in the SF Bay Area. Her installations and collaborative performance projects have been presented in the US and abroad, including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), the Berkeley Art Museum (Berkeley), Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit), Syracuse University (New York), the Manetti Shrem Museum (Davis, CA), Weekend (Los Angeles), Field Projects (New York), and the Dublin City Gallery (Ireland). Lisa received her MFA from UC Davis in 2011. She is a recipient of Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure Award, the Robert Arneson Fellowship, Czech Arts Council award, and Vermont Studio Center fellowship. She has been an Artist in Residence at Arteles (Finland), Bubec (Prague), Ox-Bow (Michigan), the Vermont Studio Center (Vermont), and others. In addition to her studio practice, Lisa also teaches at California College of the Arts, and organizes Heavy Breathing with Sophia Wang - a monthly series of experimental, artist-led movement seminars. For more info visit: www.lisaRcralle.com and www.heavyheavybreathing.com.