Now and Again

The Copy Gallery crew picks up where Black Floor left off.


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Published: May 8, 2007

gallery

COPYCATS: (L-R) Annette Monnier, Jamie Dillon and Nick Paparone renovated Black Floor Gallery (and sanded down the black floor) to turn it into Copy Gallery. Their first exhibition, "Here & Now," is an unjuried, first-come, first-served show by artists and nonartists alike.

: Michael T. Regan

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

The third floor of the building marked Frank Maurone Carnival Supplies is shrinking and changing color. It's no trick. Unless you consider stripping paint, moving walls and sanding floors a form of magic.

Then again, there are black cats all over the place. "They're just mice killers," says Annette Monnier, 26.

She's one of the artists sanding and stripping Copy Gallery, the Philly art collective/studio known until a few months ago as Black Floor Gallery. Along with the cats scratching and sanders buzzing, there's plenty of activity at Copy Gallery.

There's no black floor anymore; sanded away for its first show, a sort of mi casa su casa free-for-all called "Here & Now." Artists and nonartists were invited to stake out some wallspace.

There's Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction co-founder Tim Gough's sketch of Walter Benjamin Ã¢â‚¬â€ the philosopher whose essay gave his graphic design company its name. And 1026 member Mark Price's mint and pink-toned screen-print of the word "please" stretched across a canvas titled "Our Desperation." And Paper Napkin guitarist/textile designer Mayu Hayashi's "Follow the Trend" water-colored painting of girls that share her look, all white-skinned with dark hair. The anonymous entry "Gingerbread Sky-scraper" is a sculpture with little magazine clippings papering the walls. Flashlights are provided for peeking inside the house.

"This piece represents the kind of work we're hoping to give voice to by putting on 'Here & Now,'" says Monnier. "Work by people who are a little shy and unsure of their talent."

This was part of Black Floor's mission as well. For two years, the Black Floor crew Ã¢â‚¬â€ Monnier, Gerik Forston, Elsa Shadley, Carrie Collins, Nick Paparone and Jamie Dillon Ã¢â‚¬â€ curated shows and made art involving raccoons, fireworks, bicycles, unicorns, multiheaded monsters and stuff from eBay. The members, all originally from Cincinnati, did shows at ICA, Space 1026 and Gallery222. They lived and worked at the gallery. Their work spoke successfully to the influence of the Surrealists, Duchamp and Warhol, but was sillier.

"From the start, we all agreed that it is better to burn out than fade away," says Paparone, 27. "We agreed Black Floor would run for two years then we would end it."

Black Floor ended in March. So what are Paparone, Dillon and Monnier doing hanging around, reconfiguring studio space and spinning Del tha Funky Homosapien records? These three are still tied to each other; as Copy Gallery, Print Liberation graphics and Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

Paparone and his fellow Copy Gallery members now use all the rooms the Black Floor members once worked and lived in for studio space, rentals to other artists, a gallery and a store specializing in artist multiples and artist-made products. No one lives here anymore.

According to Monnier, Copy will be about personal project-based shows. "Each of us is responsible for one individual month for the next five months," says Monnier. "We can curate, show our own work, experiment, yell at jars of water." She's bringing in a show by NYC's Stephen Keene in September.

At Black Floor the artists/curators were always more interested in what was in the space at any one time than the reputation of the space. Paparone sees Copy Gallery as a more neutral setting with everything subject to contemplation, criticism and documentation. It'll be smaller and easier to manage. Not that the un-juried, first-come, first-served "Here & Now" wasn't ambitious.

"We're interested in the anthropological aftermath of having no filtration," says Paparone proudly. "We're hoping Copy Gallery will always be filled to the brim Ã¢â‚¬â€ like the house of a 90-year-old packrat."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

"Here & Now" is now on exhibit, Copy Gallery, 319 N. 11th St., 3rd floor, 215-694-8656, www.copygallery.org.