FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Standard is pleased to present “Learning from Seedbed ” - an installation by L.A. based sound artist, Brandon LaBelle.

Vito Acconci’s 1972 project "Seedbed" was an installation that utilized the body by housing it under a constructed wooden ramp. Exhibited at Sonnabend Gallery in New York, the ramp rose up from the gallery floor to end against a side wall, running approximately 22 feet wide, 16 feet long, and 2 feet high. Acconci occupied the small space under the ramp three days every week, for a period of 8 hours, masturbating and speaking through a microphone connected to a speaker positioned inside the gallery space. As Acconci has stated, the work was an attempt to establish an "intimate" connection with those who visited the gallery, through fantasizing sexual relations — Acconci would mutter a stream of sexual epithets and subconscious thoughts, speaking to visitors as if they were lovers.

"Seedbed" operates as a performative work not only through its use of the body, but also through its reliance upon the ramp — the ramp could be said to make possible the fantasized moment of intimacy through its very operation of concealing Acconci the masturbator.

"Learning from Seedbed" restages Acconci’s work by articulating the ramp as the main character. As an inverted wedge in LaBelle’s installation, the ramp is replayed; rather than concealing a hidden body (and its desires) the ramp opens out onto the space of the gallery, inviting visitors to enter its interior, as a social space. To enact "Seedbed" as an architectural "other" whose presence makes possible the articulation of interior wishes, the ramp is envisaged as an idiosyncratic form against the Modernist tendency of straight lines, cool surfaces, and geometric purity. In contrast, the ramp diagonally cuts across and splits space, marking an uneven ground, a blob or jag on surfaces. Such unevenness - as Acconci suggests - is also the site of the body in its most libidinal and performative position. Thus, the ramp can be understood as architecture’s own moment of masturbation, driven by a desire to embrace those who occupy its spatial potential.

Working in the field of sound, performance, and installation art since 1993, LaBelle's work aims to draw attention to sound as a social and spatial dynamic. Through performative usage of objects, found-sound, and electronics, the work underscores the "contextual" through an emphasis on and displacement of architecture and the aural. LaBelle's interest in site-specificity reflects a desire to consider the relationships between art and a broader social environment.

His work has been featured in the exhibitions: "Undercover: sound/art and social space", Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde Denmark (2003), "Pleasure of Language", Netherlands Media Institute (2002), "Bitstreams", Whitney Museum (2001), "Amplitude of Chance", Kawasaki City Museum Japan (2001), and "Sound as Media", ICC Tokyo (2000). He is the co-editor of "Site of Sound: of Architecture and The Ear" and "Writing Aloud: The Sonics of Language", both published by Errant Bodies, and curator of "Social Music", a radio series commissioned by Kunstradio, Vienna.

“Learning from Seedbed” opens on Saturday, April 26 from 6-10pm, the exhibit will continue through June 14, 2003. Standard Gallery is open on Saturdays from 12-5pm and by appointment. During ArtChicago weekend, Standard will be open Friday, May 9 - Sunday, May 11 from 12-5pm. Standard is located in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood at 1437 North Bosworth. For more information call 773.486.1005 or visit our web site at www.standardgallery.com