About the Exhibition
The on the wall series will be a rotation of projects on the gallery’s 10 x 25 foot wall viewed from Division Street through our floor to ceiling windows. Designed to engage the community and challenge the white cube notion of “viewing,” the series will feature site-specific projects in a wide range of media made by an equally diverse group of artists. The gallery hopes to bring new work to Chicago and views this series as an opportunity to work with an exciting group of artists new to the gallery! We are pleased to present the inaugural project with assume vivid astro focus.
assume vivid astro focus (avaf) is the pseudonym given to a unique network of collaborators “born anytime between the 20th and 21st centuries in various parts of the world.” The international group of visual and performance artists have a wide-ranging aesthetic project that combines psychadelia glam, kitsch, and pop. For this site-specific installation Butch Queen 5, vinyl wallpaper covers the entire street-facing wall of the new moniquemeloche gallery space. This will be the first solo project for avaf in Chicago, however the work was included in both the Sympathy for the Devil (2007) and Tropicalia (2006) exhibitions at the MCA Chicago. Selected exhibitions include The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway,(solo 2009), Kunstverein Arnsberg, Germany (solo 2009), Poprally, MoMA, New York 2009, 28th São Paulo Biennial, curated by Ivo Mesquita and Ana Paula Cohen, São Paulo, Brazil, 2008, and the Whitney Biennial 2004. Upcoming in 2010 are a solo exhibitions at KadE, Amersfoort, The Netherlands and Centro Contemporaneo La Conserva, Murcia, Spain, as well as a Public art project for V/W, Autostadt, Wolfsburg, Germany. avaf has been featured in Art Forum, Frieze, Flash Art, L’Uomo Vogue, V Magazine, W Magazine, and is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawing Collection. avaf is currently based in New York and Paris. avaf work courtesy Peres Projects Berlin/LA.