ANDREW RAFACZ is pleased to announce Space Out, Space In, a group exhibition of new and recent video works, curated by gallery artist Scott Wolniak.

Chicago, IL, July 9, 2011 – Andrew Rafacz continues the 2011 season with Space Out, Space In, a curated compilation of projected video works by Thorne Brandt, Ken Fandell, Young Joon Kwak, Jesse McLean, Shana Moulton, Jon Rafman, Andy Roche, Ben Russell, Jen Stark, and Kirsten Stoltmann in Gallery One. The exhibition is curated by Scott Wolniak and continues through Saturday, August 13, 2011.

Space Out, Space In is a program based on the idea that landscapes are internal and external. This collection of videos involve excursions of consciousness and geography, through immersive digital environments and landscape-induced trances.

Summer time = free time… open road and dark cinema. Even if we can’t get away to the country, perhaps we can indulge in afternoon movies, all-night web-surfing, yoga and naps. To (begrudgingly) quote Bill Viola, “Duration is to consciousness as light is to eye”. Time spent in front of a screen, sitting on a rock or driving down the highway leads to a variety of real and imagined geographies.

Beginning as a collection of “landscape videos”, the curatorial framework of this program quickly opened to allusions of immersive space, spiritual quest, aimless wandering and hypnagogia. Travel occurs physically or mentally, via car, computer, kaleidoscope or song. Expansion always leads to contraction, with elastic reciprocation between outward and inward. It is said that the potential space of the human mind equals the infinitude of the cosmos, with perception being a reflection of this ratio. Consciousness can over-shadow the universe, or be dwarfed by its size and intensity. A push-pull between the two is always in flux.

-Scott Wolniak

Space Out, Space In is volume 3 in Scott Wolniak’s ongoing curatorial platform, Suitable Video, which showcases innovative moving-image art by established and emerging artists. For each Suitable Video project, a curated, limited-edition DVD is produced in an attempt to remedy the problematic issue of audience access to video art. The new volume, produced on the occasion of this exhibition, will be available at the end of its run. We will have a DVD release on August 13th at the gallery.