Cerritos College Art Gallery to present Facial Expressionism

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 26, 2012

Media Contact: James MacDevitt, Director/Curator (562) 860-2451 ext.2612, info@cerritosgallery.com

WHAT: The Cerritos College Art Gallery is pleased to open the year of 2012 with the exhibit Facial Expressionism.

Fifteen contemporary artists participating in Facial Expressionism at the Cerritos College Art Gallery produce innovative aesthetic deterritorializations of faces that purposefully over-spill the limits of any singular signifying system, thereby resisting a simple complicity between a face and the evolving metrics for 'knowing' it. Merging baroque vision with haptic thought, the works on display exist as embodied (de)formations that explore the ontogenesis of a particular face with its various expressive manifestations, the gestalt of insular figuration with the nonorganic vitality of ground, the immanence of representation and materiality, and the entanglement of emotive gesture and pre-responsive affect.

As gestures migrate from body to body, and from one medium to another, confusing the etymologically linked concepts of passion and passage, it is difficult not to be reminded of the individualistic humanism of the early 20th-century art historical movement of Expressionism (Die Brücke, Der Blaue Reiter, etc.).

But while there are certain stylistic similarities to this modernist namesake, the work on display in Facial Expressionism must also be repositioned against the unfolding backdrop of recent para-humanist and object-oriented concepts of expressionism in contemporary philosophy (for example, theorist Brian Massumi argues that a kick is as much an expression of the ball as the player).

EXHIBITING ARTISTS: Michael Alvarez, Jeremy Bailey, Maya Bloch, Justin Bower, Guy Denning, Kim Dorland, Paul Gillis, Annie Lapin, Gerardo Monterubbio, Buddy Nestor, Rachel Niffenegger, Kambui Olujimi, Dominic Quagliozzi, Phoebe Unwin, and Eric Yahnker
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Galileo Gonzalez

WHEN: January 31, 2012 to March 15, 2012
Opening Reception: Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 5-8 p.m.

WHERE: Cerritos College Art Gallery
11110 Alondra Blvd
Norwalk, CA 90650
A map of the campus is available at www.cerritos.edu/guide

Daily Parking is available for $2.00 in lot C-10 in the student white stalls only.

COST: Admission and events are free and open to the public.

Founded in 1955, Cerritos College is a public comprehensive community college in southeastern Los Angeles County. The mission of the Cerritos College Art Gallery is to serve as an educational, social and cultural enhancement for the Cerritos academic population as well as the immediate surrounding communities. The Cerritos College Art Gallery presents rotating exhibitions highlighting the work of emerging and mid-career artists. A special emphasis is placed on works that confront challenging and pressing issues in contemporary art and culture. In support of exhibitions, the Cerritos College Art Gallery also regularly hosts workshops, lectures, and performances.