{ f ou r w alls MEDIA RELEASE 2/20/99

Solo Exhibition: Bring in the actual photo.
Artist: Carter
Dates: March 20-April 17, 1999
Opening Reception: Friday, March 19, 7 -10pm
Gallery Hours: Wednesday through Friday, 3-8pm, Saturday, 12-7pm
Location: 3160-A Sixteenth Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103
Contact: Julie Deamer, 415-626-8515

Artist Talk: Thursday, April 8, at 7:30pm

{ four walls is pleased to announce, Bring in the Actual Photo, a solo exhibition by Carter featuring 30-plus sculpted heads with props, a series of male body 'figurines,' and a video piece that suggests both broadly cultural and immediately physical contexts for the sculptures. Although the heads are thought of as sculptural versions of the Polaroids taken of Warhol in the 80's in drag, Carter's interest in 'celebrity' or 'superstardom' that was explored in earlier post-graduate work has become muted, allowing formal issues to arise and ideas about the actual artmaking process to be contemplated.

Referencing Roy Lichtenstein's famous, "Little Big Painting" which isolates the gesture thereby freezing the emotion while praising the brush stroke, Carter's heads are likewise interested in questioning art's intent or one's intellectual response to it. The plastic-cast heads all come from the same paper-mache mold, and are infinite. The heads could be anyone, but through the artistic act, they become unique objects, tattooed with art historical and contemporary references. The sculptures are treated with hair implants, and some are 'fixed' or 'healed' by the application of sculpted Band-Aids or acupuncture needles, granting the heads complexity/dimension. The heads are receptacles for the artist's interest in one's willingness to find faith in "personal transformation" or "New Age" beliefs that are uniquely American, from the Heaven's Gate cult and UFO religions, to Andy Warhol's simultaneous beliefs in Catholicism and "crystal therapy".

The heads represent sculptures that have problems. The fake acupuncture pins and Band-Aids allude to skepticism and faith: the artist's skepticism of most art being made or shown, including his own. Often losing faith in the head sculptures as works of art, Carter's use of these patches work as catalysts to keep himself moving through potentially debilitating formal and conceptual issues.

The heads are portraits and self-portraits representing attraction -- 'attractive hairlines on men, attraction to men, attraction to art, good art' -- and the figurines, which are classically posed, refer to both contemporary gay iconography and the 'straight' disciplines of anatomy and biology.

Bring in the Actual Photo advances the artist's previous investigations of celebrity, art, art celebrities, and the power of belief, while significantly deepening his concerns with concept, form, material, and technique. This is Carter's first solo show at {four walls.

There will be a reception for the artist on Friday, March 19th from 7-10pm. For more information, please contact Julie Deamer at 415-626-8515.

3160-A 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, 415-626-8515