1708 Gallery

Absorption & Flow: Ted Coffey and Rebekah Wostrel

May 4, 2007: Joseph Lupo

OPENING: Friday, May 4 from 7-10pm

1708 Gallery will feature the work of Ted Coffey and Rebekah Wostrel: Absorption and Flow and Joseph Lupo: May 4, 2007 during the month of May.

This exhibition invites viewers to participate in, reflect upon and question the art and to question what exactly art is and can be. Porcelain and sound come together in the rich collaborations of ceramicist Rebekah Wostrel and sound artist Ted Coffey. Absorption and Flow features collaborative works where the viewers’ interaction completes the pieces and individual works that stretch the boundaries of the imagination.

Joseph Lupo’s work explores the intersection of documentation, communication, and reproduction. His hand-made receipts are a thought-provoking catalogue of buying habits, leading viewers to ask questions about language, consumption, and art. Since he only reproduces receipts that he has received, Lupo explains that “this body of work seen together can also be viewed as a consumer self-portrait.” But he warns that the complexities of assumptions made about both the stores and the consumer can be misleading and that “in this
context, no one true definition of myself can ever be secured.”

Image, top: Joseph Lupo, ink on paper

Image, below: Wostrel and Coffey, porcelain and sound installation

Opening tonight – 7-10pm!

April 6-28th, 2007…

The annual art auction on March 31st is officially sold out!

The Whitney Museum at Altria is currently featuring the performance/installation based PRAXIS STUDIO:the collaborative husband and wife team Brainard Carey and Delia Bajo. 1708 Gallery board member Amie Oliver was invited to submit video clips and participate in “Dreams and Possibilities,” an installation/performance which will be on view until March 22. A sampling of the work on view can be seen here and here: Dreams and Possibilities”

At JMU’s New Image Gallery, Michael K. Lease ‘s collection of photos titled Posthumous and 1708 Board member Alyssa C. Salomon’s collection titled Photo Fetish will be shown together in Pick and Save, which opened March 12th and will run till April 29th, 2007.

Go Alyssa and Amie O!

Come and see us today and this weekend at 1708 Gallery! We are open again and are looking forward to seeing all of our friends and neighbors as we re-open our doors after being closed for a few days after the fire on our block.

We have wonderful art for you to see, which is in PERFECT CONDITION (!!) on display for our upcoming auction (tickets and sponsorships are available!), you can chat with us about the past, present and future excitements and marvel at how incredibly lucky we are to have dodged true misfortune.

We hope to see you soon!

The outpouring of support, kind words and actions have been so encouraging as we at 1708 Gallery recover from the smoke and water damage our building suffered because of the recent fire on our block.

Offers of help and support streamed in from neighbors and friends of the gallery. Here are some (and this is only a partial list!) of our angels:

Michael Jones McKean, a professor of Sculpture at VCU, with studio one block away
Shannon O’Neil – Arts and Cultural Funding Consortium
Randy Humphrey – Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens
Jo Kennedy – Visual Arts Center
Kathy Emerson – Quirk Gallery
Sheila Gulley Pleasants – Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
Our friends at Comfort

Friends of Art, VMFA – Jenny Wortham, Carson Katie Shaw Sweeny

Heyn and Sandy Kjerulf

Leah Stoddard

We also had many generous offers of space in which to hold our Auction, and although we are in good enough shape to hold it at 1708 now, we deeply appreciate the offers of space from the following people and organizations:

Bev Jennette, Vice President of Community Development – downtown YMCA

Bob Mooney – Play

Tom Papa – Plant Zero

Don Dransfield – Dransfield Jewelers

Offers of help and support also came from Aimee Koch’s classmates at VCU:

Rebekah A Holbrook, Virginia Mentoring Partnership
Joanie Bach, Read Aloud Virginia
Robin Clair Cummings, Medical Society of Virginia Foundation
Rusty Davis, Petersburg Arts Center
Esther Baker, Linklog
Katrina, Planned Parenthood

And, of course, huge thanks to the Richmond Fire Department and the brave, helpful firemen who did so much to save our gallery and our block.

1708 Gallery’s Annual Auction A La Mode on March 31st is going to be the event of the season and you should be a part of it!

Tickets and sponsorships are still available to this black tie event and we would love to see YOU at the auction, artfully dressed and ready to have fun. Tickets and sponsorships are available for a donation of 60.00 and 125.00 respectively. Please send your donation to 1708 Gallery, PO Box 12520, Richmond, VA 23241 and we will send you your tickets promptly.

It is going to be a wonderful party, with delicious food, tasty beverages, and the thrill of a live auction of fantastic art, the suspense of the silent auction of small artworks by emerging artists and the Reasons to Collect Salon, with artworks by Sally Mann, Benjamin Jones, James Bradford, James Busby, Ledelle Moe, Richard Serra, Davi Det Hompson, Richard Carlyon, Jesse Mann, Patrick Caulfield, Ed Paschke and Marc Maiorana.

1708′s A La Mode Annual Auction will be held on March 31st, as scheduled!
Sponsorship tickets for $125.00 and regular tickets for $60.00 are available.

As our phones and electricity are still down from Sunday’s fire on our block (see previous post), please send ticket payment to: 1708 Gallery, PO Box 12520, Richmond, VA 23241.
You can contact our Gallery Administrator, Aimee Koch via email: akoch@1708gallery.org.

And if you can donate any funds to help with our recover efforts, we would be very grateful.
Please send any donations, earmarked “March 11 Fire” to the same address as above…thank you.