Gallery Exhibit openings May 15, 6-8 pm from Industry Gallery, Conner Contemporary Art, and Studio H

Industry Gallery (1358 Florida Ave), Conner Contemporary Art (1358 Florida Ave), and Studio H (408 H St) all have new exhibits with opening receptions Saturday, May 15, 6-8 pm. Details follow.

Industry Gallery (1358 Florida Ave) will open “If I told you one time …” the first solo U.S. exhibition for New York‐based designer Chris Rucker..

The exhibition will run through July 3, 2010, and features 10 limited edition works and one installation all created during the past nine years. Rucker’s design ethos is rooted in the use and reuse of simple and humble material. His principal medium, oriented strand board (OSB), an engineered wood product made from fast‐growing trees, is usually used for flooring, walls, ceilings and other construction purposes. OSB is a composite sheet material like plywood, but with less structural integrity. His design aesthetic weds the asceticism of Donald Judd with the rule‐based principles of Sol Lewitt, to yield what Rucker calls “a rectilinear vocabulary.” (Rucker also cites Louise Bourgeois, Richard Serra and Mathew Barney as influences). In 2007, he began making cushions and quilts from packing blankets. His construction process utilizes plywood box construction, which involves dados, miter joints and working with a table saw. He operates within the confines of a relatively simple equation: apply basic plywood box construction principles to strand board to create minimal, functional furniture with structural integrity.


Conner Contemporary Art (1358 Florida Ave) is pleased to announce two concurrent solo exhibitions featuring new video and photographs by Janet Biggs (New York, NY) and performance and video by Mary Coble (Washington, DC). Nobody Rides for Free is Biggs' first solo exhibition with the gallery; Source marks Mary Coble's third exhibition with the gallery.

In new video and photographs, Biggs delves into the desire to explore remote lands. To create this work, the artist embarked on an expedition in the high Arctic, traveling aboard an ice-class, 2-masted schooner, built in 1910. During the voyage, Biggs filmed Fade to White, focusing on a crew member as he navigated the ship through iceberg filled seas, and paddled a kayak past glacier walls and polar bears.

In Source, Coble presents three new videos, mixed media work, and a live endurance performance (to occur in the gallery courtyard during the exhibition opening). In all of these pieces, Coble addresses themes of purification and renewal in actions focused on the element of water. In her videos, the artist explores subjective states of uncertainty and futility. In her performance, she will raise social awareness about water quality and availability in the local and global communities.

A full preview of Conner Contemporary's new exhibits is available on their website.


Studio H (408 H St) presents Ellen Cornett's "Juxtapositions." Cornett's work begins with words—often short stories, operas or fairytales. But once she begins painting or drawing, she ceases thinking in terms of written or spoken language and allows her subconscious to dictate the content and direction of her work. She enjoys the contrast between very precisely executed drawings of people and objects and their improbable juxtaposition.

In this juxtaposition of characters and objects, Cornett explores the uncertain and the illogical in life through her pastels and her drawings. A full preview of the exhibit is available at East City Art.