Country:
Categories:
pas gentil, opening Saturday, August 13, at Darger HQ, will feature work by Kim Darling (Omaha, NE) and Jean-François Leboeuf (Montreal, Canada) and will be on view through October 9. The opening reception will be on Saturday, August 13 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, with an artist talk at 6:00 pm and a performance at 8:00 pm. The performance will be a collaborative performance by Darling and Leboeuf.
Darling and Lebeouf’s work is rebellious, revolutionary, defiant, and examines and defies conventional notions of gender, race, sexuality and society and cultural norms. “Pas Gentil” is French for “not nice”, is a play on Nebraska Tourism’s branding of Nebraska Nice and a commentary on the importance of insurgency in today’s political climate.
Kim Darling works in range of media from ranging from painting, sculpture and performance. Her work explores ideas of gender, social and political issues and taboo breaking. Drawing upon historic and contemporary icons from our unconscious reality, this work explores a sacred/profane dichotomy using mark making generated in a method similar to automatic writing. This content is drawn from myths and is seen in fragmented and compartmentalized layers. Graphic shapes are synthesized into a seamless, cacophonous flow, harnessing a frenzied vigor.
Darling holds a BFA in studio art from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She participates in residencies throughout the country and has been featured in regional solo and group shows. Darling's passion for collaboration has led her to social practice and partnerships with local, national, and international artists and arts organizations.
Jean-François Leboeuf’s Artist Statement:
With the remains of junk culture and the relics of daily trivial, my work probes the strange and grotesque by amalgam and recontextualization. My multidisciplinary corpus cites even as it plunders the surrounding consumer cultures, keeping a soft spot for decadence, frivolity and social exclusion. Combinations of signs and morals gives birth to fictional beings who take flesh in performance and video scenes. The actions are portrayed in a certain banality while often switching to absurdity and irreverence. This coarseness is however washed by a meticulous formal treatment both used in drawing and photography. Identity disorder, semiotic chaos and allegory of excess...it's on these tracks that wander my performances, videos, photographs, drawings and installations.
Leboeuf received his Master of Arts L'Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and his Bachelor of Visual Arts at Laval University (Quebec, Canada) and Ecole des Beaux- Arts de St- Etienne (France). Leboeouf has had exhibitions, performances and residencies in Canada and abroad.
pas gentil is part of a series of collaborative and experimental projects facilitated by Darger HQ. Darger HQ connects Nebraska contemporary artists to the world by creating collaborative working opportunities between local artists and national and international artists with related practices, and develops partnerships that benefit artists by providing new means of support through combined private and non-profit sources. Darger HQ also educates, enriches and exposes the community to some of the most innovative contemporary art being produced today.
More information on the artists and their work can be found on their websites:
More information on the artists and their work can be found on their websites:
www.dargerhq.org
