'It's Been Awhile' An Explanation and Information on upcoming FUTURE PRESENCE GALLERY events

Hello all.  If you have stopped by The Future Presence Gallery's blogspot here you will have noticed that has not been updated since the day before our exhibition of IMPERMANENT PUBLIC, which was all the way back in July.  Here's why:

- IMPERMANENT PUBLIC - The New & Evolving Street Art exceeded ALL of our expectations. More than 500 people came to our one-night only event, crowding and warming the gallery on one of the warmest of Minneapolis summer nights. The response was incredibly positive, and all the artist's work collected looked amazing. Writers, graf artists, friends, entire families, neighbors, old couples, dogs, cats, press and it seemed like everyone who know everyone stopped in and showed their appreciation for this new form of public expression. As a curator, I was entirely blown away and incredibly moved by the interest, ideas exchanged and the number of people who notice and care about the amazing art happening in this city.

The show was so well attended and drew such a great response that there was an unexpected result: we actually got several warnings from other gallery owners, art organizers and in the know people that we were officially on police radar and needed to keep a lower profile lest we be subject to fire code violations, not having proper crowd permits or liquor busts. To avoid this unwanted attention, our next exhibit, our namesake group  show, FUTURE PRESENCE 3, was a rather quiet affair. The exhibition featured a mix of a dozen Minneapolis-based established and relatively emerging artists, and was a beautiful showing of contemporary work from a rising group of artists.  The fourth installment of the series, FUTURE PRESENCE 4, will reunite the almost 40 artists who have participated in all of the group shows together, making special room for collaborations and installations from artists who met and started working with each other after exhibiting together at Future Presence shows.

- Before that, gallery co-founder Bryant Locher will gather a prodigious and varied body of work for a solo exhibition, PHARMACOPEIA.  Since moving to Minneapolis several years ago, Locher has creates colorful geometric abstract paintings in addition to lightshows and productions for local luminaries ranging from Gayngs, Solid Gold, Lookbook and the Pines. PHARMACOPEIA opens September 30th at 6PM.

IMPERMANENT PUBLIC Artist Profile: Light The Underground

LIGHT THE UNDERGROUND

At only 20 years old, Light The Underground has already created an impressive portfolio of light projects and social experiments. His process includes exploring abandoned buildings, factories, sewers and caves and creating a photograph using slow exposure and lights. “I started out as an urban explorer just taking pictures of the places I went but after a while it was the same old tunnels and same pictures. Then I came across light painting and it started a whole new way to photograph the places I went. I do research and there is a tight knit community of urban explorer who I sometimes go with and find lots of my locations through them.”

He will then frame these pictures and return them to the place where the image was created, thus illuminating this space. Although most of us will never see these works in the habitats they were created, we can imagine the surreal experience of seeing a finely framed print in an abandoned space, almost as a marker of past explorers or a modern cave drawing. It is easy to assume that this illumination is both a literal and figurative one; highlighting economic conditions, unused potential or our throw-away consumerist culture. But when asked of his motivations, Light The Underground responds with youthful charisma, “I like to share my work with others and try to let people see the rare and exotic locations they don't usually get to see, and at the same time getting people to wonder how the photograph got there. I haven't thought much about a larger message”.

Nathaniel

You can of course see more at IMPERMANENT PUBLIC at The Future Presence Gallery July 29th, and at Lighttheunderground.com