"The Ballot Show" Opens This Thursday

The Front Room presents, The 3rd Quadrennial:

The Ballot Show

October 25th–November 6th
Opening: Thurs Oct 25th 7–9

Featuring works by:
Wayne Adams, Daniel Aycock, Julia Whitney Barnes, Thomas Broadbent, Ken Butler, Ethan Crenson, Steven Gagnon, Hubert Dobler, Robert Egert, Peter Fox, Enrico Gomez, Gregory de la Haba, Eric Heist, Kim Holleman, Lori Korchek/Mike Bade, Jesse Lambert, Jason Clay Lewis, Stephen Mallon, Sascha Mallon, Karen Marston, Mark Masyga, Geoffrey Owen Miller, Rob de Oude, Ross Racine, Ellen Rand, Marshall Reese/Nora Ligorano, Daniel Rosenbaum, Emily Roz, David Shapiro, Mark Stilwell, Savannah Spirit, Rodger Stevens, Miho Suzuki, Kathleen Vance, Cibele Viera, Larry Walczak, and more.

The Front Room Gallery is proud to present the third quadrennial “Ballot Show”, which focuses on the American electoral system, and the overall notion of voting with a ballot. “The Ballot Show,” held every 4 years since 2004, is inspired by the American election, and contemplates our antiquated electoral-college voting process.

Historically political art has often been associated with repression. This exhibition, however, is motivated by the idea of making a choice, and what it that choice represents.Steven Gagnon’s diptych, “Hope” and “Progress”, parody the famous Shephard Fairey portrait of President Obama, and feature an unopened six-pack of the hipster beer, Pabst Blue Ribbon, as one component and the following serigraph image of the cans empty and smashed. Jason Clay Lewis’sneon sign “Inner Peace $100, Blow Jobs $20” is about a more basic choice.

Many of the artists in this show have gone outside of their wheelhouse to create works specifically for this show. Ethan Crenson will be doing a performance at the opening in which he will tattoo people with their party affiliation on their hands knuckles a la “Knight of the Hunter”. Kim Holleman's piece is an installed work and a point of sale purchase for Presidential Lottery Tickets. Holleman made the designs and printed them on actual lottery tickets. Complete with Presidential Foil Seals on them, and signed to make them, "official". Holleman's ballot lottery is a commentary on buying elections, and how "the candidate that spends the most money, has the best chance of winning the grand prize".

Veteran political artists Marshall Reese and Nora Ligorano's video of a cast ice sculpture "Melting Middle Class" might be chilling, and it might be true. With AMERICA for PRESIDENT, Lori Korchek and Mike Badehave been traveling across the country with a replica of the Oval Office desk, asking Americans to take a seat as Commander in Chief and tell them "what good they would do for America;" The will have the actual desk as part of performance/installation with the video in the gallery.Emily Roz’s polaroid grids of actors portraying The President in Hollywood movies leave us with the impression that "Presidential" might just be a look.

During this time of overt partisanship “The Ballot Show” is not about looking at the candidates, it is about looking at the system that created them, and us. 

The Ballot Show Opens Thursday, October 25th

The Front Room presents,
The 3rd Quadrennial:

The Ballot Show

October 25th–November 6th  

Opening: Thursday,  October 25th 7–9

Featuring works by:
Wayne Adams, Daniel Aycock, Julia Whitney Barnes, Ken Butler, Ethan Crenson, Steven Gagnon, Hubert Dobler, Robert Egert, Peter Fox, Enrico Gomez, Gregory de la Haba, Kim Holleman, Lori Korchek/Mike Bade, Jesse Lambert, Jason Clay Lewis, Stephen Mallon, Sascha Mallon, Karen Marston, Mark Masyga, Geoffrey Owen Miller, Rob de Oude, Ross Racine, Ellen Rand, Marshall Reese/Nora Ligorano, Daniel Rosenbaum, Emily Roz, David Shapiro, Mark Stilwell, Savannah Spirit, Rodger Stevens, Miho Suzuki, Kathleen Vance, Cibele Viera, Larry Walczak, and more.

The Front Room Gallery is proud to present the third quadrennial “Ballot Show”, which focuses on the American electoral system, and the overall notion of voting with a ballot. “The Ballot Show,” held every 4 years since 2004, is inspired by the American election, and contemplates our antiquated electoral-college voting process.

Historically political art has often been associated with repression. This exhibition, however, is motivated by the idea of making a choice, and what it that choice represents. Steven Gagnon’s diptych, “Hope” and “Progress”, parody the famous Shephard Fairey portrait of President Obama, and feature an unopened six-pack of the hipster beer, Pabst Blue Ribbon, as one component and the following serigraph image of the cans empty and smashed. Jason Clay Lewis’s neon sign “Inner Peace $100, Blow Jobs $20” is about a more basic choice.

Many of the artists in this show have gone outside of their wheelhouse to create works specifically for this show. Ethan Crenson will be doing a performance at the opening in which he will tattoo people with their party affiliation on their hands knuckles a la “Knight of the Hunter”.

Veteran political artists Marshall Reese and Nora Ligorano's video of a cast ice sculpture "Melting Middle Class" might be chilling, and it might be true. With AMERICA for PRESIDENT, Lori Korchek and Mike Bade have been traveling across the country with a replica of the Oval Office desk, asking Americans to take a seat as Commander in Chief and tell them "what good they would do for America.;" The will have the actual desk as part of performance/installation with the video in the gallery. Emily Roz’s polaroid grids of actors portraying The President in Hollywood movies leave us with the impression that "Presidential" might just be a look.

During this time of overt partisanship “The Ballot Show” is not about looking at the candidates, it is about looking at the system that created them, and us.

“Territorial Re-Marks”

Montreal/Brooklyn Exchange with articule gallery

Exhibition in Montréal : October 19 – November 25, 2012



Opening reception : October 19, 6pm


Exhibition in Brooklyn : January 11 – February 3, 2013 




The exhibition “Territorial Re-Marks” will feature works by Front Room artists Emily Roz and Patricia Smith in conjunction with Articule artists jérôme havre, michelle lacombe.



As part of the project Montréal-Brooklyn organised in collaboration with : Parker’s Box, Momenta Art, Pierogi, Smack Mellon, Front Room Gallery, A.I.R Gallery, Causey Contemporary, Residency Unlimited & Interstate Projects, Centre CLARK, articule, Optica, Les Territoires, Galerie [SAS], Galerie de l’UQAM, MACM, Galerie Division.



The first major artistic and cultural exchange between Montreal and New York City in over 10 years, Montreal – Brooklyn will reveal cultural similarities and differences between two major cities and beacons of North American contemporary art, via a series of exhibitions in galleries and museums in both cities.



For this exchange, artist-run center articule and The Front Room Gallery collaborate to organize an exhibition that will be presented in both Montréal in and Brooklyn. This exchange was developed as an occasion for both organizations to explore and share each other’s concepts about art, artists, the working styles and cultural variances between the two cities. The concept of the exhibition, “Territorial Re-Marks” grew from this exchange and became the focus for the curation of representative artists and artworks from Brooklyn and Montréal. Artists were selected whose work deals with the idea of territory: territory of the mind, territory of the body, territory of societies, territory of wilderness. By presenting a range of working styles from performance to painting, drawing and sculpture, each artist explores the complexities of desire, social organization, hierarchy, and mark-making relative to the various forms of territories. 

Michelle Lacombe

With, Where we touched; A drawing of places to meet authors, Michelle Lacombe explores the encounter between author and reader and the way one contributes to shaping the mind of the other. In a performative action, Michelle Lacombe will translate onto a wall, marks she made to emphasize important passages while she was reading. By reenacting the action of underlining, she will be tracing a horizon of the mind.

Patricia Smith

In Plot Plans for an Ideal City, Patricia Smith proposes un-realistic plans for city developments that will never be realized. Drawing delicate psychological maps, she uses the movement of desire to prescribe domains, territories and unattainable plot plans. Patricia Smith's map-like drawings reflect how inner architecture can constrain our action in society.

Emily Roz

Emily Roz paints territories in which wilderness and domestic domains intertwine. Wild animals act ferociously – feeding upon each other, fighting, and roaring – in luxurious domestic flora. Their instincts of survival and territorial control can be viewed as human actions in relation to the space they share, competing against each other to control the land, to feed, and propagate.

Jerome Havre

Jérôme Havre proposes a fiber baroque sculpture exploring the use of power to create hierarchy. Referring to colonization, he associates artifacts of luxury with objects of war; he utilizes light and flames to reflect how behind power lays domination. Havre uses the underlying metaphor of The Enlightenment to examine how rational discourse can be used to justify                  violence and abuse when explained by the dominant.

In the exhibition, “Territorial Re-Marks,” each artist examines the conditions of control over territory. Havre’s sculptural installation considers the materiality of desire as illustrated through opulent objects – and how this desire for control can taint the reality of actions. Roz’s paintings reference our own underlying desires, and the impulses of survival that can fuel wild actions, even in the calmest of people. Dominion over these base impulses drives an internalization of territorial control. Lacombe’s visually striking wall installation expands the internal relationship inherent in reading and writing and exposes the insulated realm between the two. Smith transforms the internal and private realms of desire into publicly displayed architectural plans. Both Lacombe and Smith cross the boundaries between the hidden internal thoughts and methodologies expanding the territory of the mind to that of the physical world.