Bedside Table holding a Lamp

(337 hand-crimped buttons, 25" x 23.5", Brendan Bock and Gabriella Guthrie, 2010)

Opening Day - "The Space Between"

Brendan Bock and Gabriella Guthrie provide an introduction with interaction for their show "The Space Between".

Why buttons?

Buttons are autonomous units of display. A self-contained hanging device and a protective layer sandwich a miniature world of art; at once a painting and an entire portable museum. We thought buttons would be the perfect ready-made medium for the mauve? Gallery walls.

Tell me more about the title, “The Space Between”.

“The Space Between” refers to three specific aspects of the show. The geographical distance between its birthplace (Brooklyn), its exhibition space (Berkeley), and the eventual dispersal of each button; the negative space created by the buttons’ circular form when cut from one large printed image (does your eye fill in the lost information or is it lost forever?); and the distance between disparate spatial categories. The buttons collectively display the image of a bedside table holding a lamp. We wanted to play with the exhibition space as much as possible, as a certain homage to the gallery itself, in this case by negating it, making reference to what it is not, i.e. the home. At the same time we are creating distance, we aim to collapse it.

How can mauve? visitors participate in “The Space Between”?

By creating an even greater space between buttons: Take a piece or two of the show off the wall and home with you. mauve? Gallery subverts a strict categorization of space by creating a gallery within an office. With each button removed, we bare more of its mauve-colored walls until the show becomes the gallery itself, a deserved homage through slow dispersal, an act of collective creative destruction.

About the artists:

Who are you guys?

Brendan Bock no longer shaves everyday. Gabriella Guthrie is no longer afraid of the dark. Come say howdy next time you are in Brooklyn near the Texas Fried Chicken Donuts.

29 March - 25 April

"The Space Between"
Brendan Bock and Gabriella Guthrie

6. Lost

(digital print, 17" x 11", 2009, Karamjit Birk)

5. Mediocre

(digital print, 17" x 11", 2009, Karamjit Birk)

4. Abstain!

(digital print, 17" x 11", 2009, Karamjit Birk)

3. Predictions

(digital print, 17" x 11", 2009, Karamjit Birk)

2. Language

(digital print, 17" x 11", 2009, Karamjit Birk)

1. Info Revolution

(digital print, 17" x 11", 2009, Karamjit Birk)

The Application station

Please feel free to share your own story (word or image) here, in response to what you've just read.

Opening Day: "The Application"

Karamjit Birk’s “The Application” has been submitted today to mauve? with an open invitation for public participation. This strip of spreadsheets is in fact an application to design with Colors magazine. Miss Birk extends the opportunity here to the viewer to react to graphic prompts for storytelling.

This exercise will not be timed. Please take your time.

About the artist, in 90 words:

1983. born in Preston, England. Lived in a small house with a blue door.
1988. moved to Montreal, Canada. Learned how to forecast the weather in French.
1990. moved to Brampton, Canada. Walked home for lunch every day.
1996. moved to Mississauga, Canada. Painted my bedroom bright green.
2006. moved to Alabama, America. Worked on a house.
2007. moved back to Mississauga, Canada. Graduated with a B.A. in Architecture.
2008. moved to Halifax, Canada. Began a Bachelor of Environmental Design.
2010. moving from Halifax, Canada to ?. Quit Architecture school.