unFiction

Curated by Bill Conger

January 13 - February 15, 2009

University Galleries of Illinois State University is pleased to present unFiction from January 13 through February 15, 2009. unFiction features nine video artists and photographers whose works blur the defining aspects of fact and fiction.

Informed by modern media presences such as YouTube, whose submissions fuse varying degrees of documentation and artifice, the work in unFiction is at times indistinguishable from such products of popular culture. The included work comments on a culture which, through media, constructs reality and in turn creates abstraction through the inclusion of uncertain fact.

Among the works featured are Cameron Jamie’s signature work BB in which the spectacle of suburban backyard wrestling becomes the actual subject of the work. Zoe Crosher’s The Reconsidered Archive of Michelle du Bois positions seemingly endless photographs of a family friend remaking her into a faux-celebrity/heroine ingenue. Joe Sola’s performance-based Studio Visitdocuments actual studio critiques interrupted by the artist leaping through his studio window. Lena von Lapschina’s dual-projected assemblage of images taken from her bedroom window in Vienna is accompanied by hypnotic acid-jazz by Nuclear Los. Photographer Charlie White’s series entitled Everything is American consists of an array of tableaux remaking iconic moments of Americana. 

The opening reception for unFiction will be on Tuesday, January 20 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Austrian artist Lena von Lapschina will provide a free public lecture on her work on Wednesday, January 21 at noon in the gallery.