Our Pick of the Week takes place this Saturday, September 19, 2015, at MAMA Gallery. “Cerebral Vortex” is a group show featuring an mamalogoincredible array of media…sound, sculpture, installations, paintings, video, etc. The exhibition will feature established artists: Matthew Barney, Jonathan Bepler, Double Diamond Sun Body, James Franco (yes, the actor), Galen Pehrson, Luckey Remington, Angeline Rivas, Adam Tullie

Here’s what the gallery has to say:

We know nearly nothing of how tornadoes are formed. We know only that small pressures, placed in small measures, spiral into an atmospheric impulse to create storms out of states of calm.

This propulsion out of sepia toned realities can lead us into Technicolor journeys toward self-individuation. We follow the undulating brick road that, perhaps, will result in that enigmatic goal: Enlightenment. In this flurry, we encounter our desires, temptations, and our shadow selves. Yet, at the end of the road, more often than not we find a mere mortal behind the facade. Snapped out of the reverie, we are transported back to our heartland, finding it was all only a dream, but transformed nonetheless. Or, we give into those temptations along the rainbow road, go off the path to rest in intoxicating fields, deflating our own escape route and thus, remaining cyclonic in toto.

On September 19, 2015, MAMA Gallery twists itself into a temporary coil, experiencing an equally unexplainable impulse to spiral briefly into the form of the Cerebral Vortex. This multi- sensory group exhibition features work from eight highly cerebral artists.

Like all good trips, “Cerebral Vortex” has a fitting soundtrack: a private one night performance conjured up by the composer and frequent Matthew Barney collaborator Jonathan Bepler. In a reinterpretation of a scene from the recently released epic 7-year-in-the-making 5 hour film River of Fundament, dozens of exposed bodies will navigate around, within, and through dueling cacophonies, mining for a bit of peace and quiet while simultaneously summoning the typhoon.

Sat-Sept 19-MAMAThose seeking a bit of escape are led through an arrangement of works representing the beginning, middle, and end of a consciousness sent spinning. Angeline Rivas invites you into a physical installation based on her meticulous ball point ink worlds. Adam Tullie merges the physicality of sculpture into a picture plane of a painting, while Luckey Remington’s colorful wooden shrines offer a moment of stillness. On the pay phone, James Franco talks about what his mind feels like some times, while contrasting paintings reflect that same mind at other times. Henry Hopper articulates through works on paper, creating patterns from a mind lost in a vortex of societal pressures and stimulations. This work coincides seamlessly with a video piece by artist Double Diamond Sun Body, whose absurd video gestures will ignite the randomness associated with a life lived on shuffle or repeat. Finally, peer through a cutout hole in a wall to find an immersive experience, a hand drawn animation, from Galen Pehrson. This exhibition places the wanderers on the precipice of a mind split between rotating into imaginative reverie or drowning in the whirl of a dangerous fantasy-state.

Cerebral Vortex is a journey of internal expansion. Yet, it is one with finite edges— a contained environment that is limitless for but a small moment in time. Rest assured, in an instant another itch will certainly need a scratch, and a cryptic change of momentum will return our thoughts, attention, and perceptions into a calm-before-another-storm. Who knows what we will remember from our turbulent ride? Perhaps memory will, and should, remain in the canal of that experience. Feel free to go round and round again and again, but remember, the stakes are high when thinking wildly.

What: Opening reception
Where: MAMA Gallery, 1242 Palmetto St., LA 90013
When: Saturday, Sept 19 – 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Website: http://www.mama.gallery/

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