Gloom & Doom

Joint Exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center and the Weston Art Gallery

May 5 - June 25, 2006 at the Weston Art Gallery
May 6 - October 1, 2006 at the Contemporary Arts Center 

The Cincinnati Arts Association's Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts announces the opening on May 5, 2006 of the site-specific installation Gloom & Doom: SIMPARCH with Steve Rowell, in conjunction with a simultaneous opening in the Contemporary Arts Center's Kaplan Hall lobby.
SIMPARCH, which recently had an exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York, have created joint site-specific installations in the street-level spaces of both the Weston Art Gallery and the Contemporary Arts Center, influenced by the dominant architectural features and public interaction inherent in both spaces.

The Weston Art Gallery's installation is on view from May 5 - June 25, 2006 while the CAC installation will be open to the public from May 6 to October 1, 2006.
SIMPARCH's segment of Gloom & Doom at the Weston Art Gallery reconfigures components from their Hot House project created for the Tate Modern in 2005 which combined plywood furniture components constructed from a 1950s do-it-yourself manual with targets utilized for training purposes by law enforcement agencies. Arranged within the Weston Art Gallery's street-level exhibition space, the installation includes a sound composition by Steve Rowell incorporating sonic booms recorded by sound monitoring devices located beneath military air space in the Mojave Desert.

As the first site-specific installation in the CAC's Kaplan Hall lobby, SIMPARCH lowered the lobby's ceiling and created low-tech, dramatic atmospheric conditions using readily available consumer products, sound and lighting effects. Acoustic ceiling tiles, a symbol of advanced consumer material production, are deployed to signify a stealth bomber, a symbol of advanced military weaponry. A sound composition titled Tactile Air, provided by Steve Rowell, employs sonic booms recorded during military exercises in the Mojave Desert.
SIMPARCH, a contraction of the words "simple" and "architecture," is an artist collective based in Cincinnati and Chicago. As their name implies, SIMPARCH creates installations that present alternatives to conventional building processes and social situations. Architecture becomes a conduit and a location for discourse.

SIMPARCH's major projects include Free Basin (2002), installed at the Wexner Center for the Arts, El Tubo Completo (2004), exhibited at the Whitney Biennial in New York; and Hot House (2005), recently shown at the Tate Modern in London.

download Didactic Panel - First Story 

download Didactic Panel - Second Story 

Gallery Talk Series: Thurs., June 8, 7 p.m.

Families Create! Education Workshop: Sat., May 13, 10 a.m. - noon