- Opening Reception: May 22nd 2010, 6-9pm
Flat Cola Pool Independence Day Celebration in 29 Palms: July 4, 4pm
The Box is happy the present the second exhibition of Mike Bouchet’s work. The gallery exhibition involves two stages. Stage (1), the gallery space will be used as the logistics center for the Flat Cola Pool sculpture, which will be located in 29 Palms, CA. Stage (2) and culmination of the Diet Cola works “logistics center” will be the Flat Cola Pool Independence Day Celebration in 29 Palms, CA on July 4th, 2010. This event will unveil the sculpture, Flat Cola Pool and be a celebration of the USA Independence Day. The gallery exhibition will include a new set of Bouchet’s Cola Paintings, exploring the irony and beauty of modern day cola advertisements. Along with the other cola works including his Cola Fountain (2006) and a series of drawings of the Flat Cola Pool (2010) sculpture.
In addition, and on another note, and for ones viewing pleasure, the gallery will also present Bouchet’s New New Age Film Festival (2008) in the lower gallery space.
The Cola paintings are a series of paintings that Bouchet began in 2005 in direct correlation to the production of his own Diet Cola in 2004—which was produced to be as dark as possible. With these pieces he uses his Diet Cola as the paint itself. This cola functions as a painting material due to the over saturation of caramel pigment. In this series of paintings he integrates the logos and language of the two major cola producers, Coke and Pepsi. These paintings locate themselves in the linguistic and graphic format of global marketing. In two of these paintings Bouchet repeats the language of two major advertisement campaigns: Open Happiness (Coke, 2009) and Ask for More (Pepsi, 1999). With these paintings, Open happiness twice and ask for more 14 times, the artist is reflecting and exaggerating the use of seductive language in advertisements. These paintings suggest a criticism of modern day mass media and advertisement in their use of an otherwise everyday or common product exalted by artistic consumption.
The Cola Fountain (2006) will also be installed in the gallery, offering visitors the chance to taste Bouchet’s Diet Cola, dispensed through what looks to be a drinking fountain for water. By replacing water with Diet Cola, the Cola Fountain seems to hint that this created, artificial beverage is as essential as water in the survival of the human species. And cups will be provided to viewers of Bouchet’s New New Age Film Festival presented in the basement of the gallery. This is a collection of films produced over the last few years. The New New Age Film Festival, is a classic "Film Festival" of feature length movies the artist has created from compiling existing popular commercial films. The films cover and multiply a variety of emotional experiences while the Hollywood three-act structure and standardized production techniques keep the films strangely seamless.
Also in the gallery exhibition will be series of project drawings done in preparation for the Flat Cola Pool sculpture. These pieces were done using Bouchet’s pure Diet Cola oil which emits a strong odor of diet cola. These drawing begin to consider the experience of the Flat Cola Pool, to be installed at an abandoned pool in the city of 29 Palms, in the desert of California. The Flat Cola Pool will be the worlds largest Diet Cola Volume to date.
The culmination of this exhibition will be the installation of the Flat Cola Pool. This will take place on July 4, 2010 at 4pm, and will celebrate USA’s Independence Day. This event will take place in the city of 29 Palms, CA.
**Please contact the gallery for more information regarding this special off-site event**
Mike Bouchet, a Los Angeles native who lived in NYC from 2000-2005, has been based in Frankfurt, Germany since 2005. Recent solo shows include BAWAG Contemporary, Vienna, solo (opened May 6th), ‘CANBURGER’, Galerie Georges-Phillipe & Nathalie Vallois, Paris; ‘New New Age Film Festival’, Galerie Parisa Kind, Frankfurt am Main (both 2008) and ‘16x9 Action Film’, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2008) and MOCA, Los Angeles (2007). Group shows include ‘Making Worlds’, 53rd Venice Biennale; ‘Quand la première ivresse des succès bruyants ….’ CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux (both 2009) and ‘Meet Me Around The Corner’, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2008). He also has an upcoming solo exhibition at Schirn Kunsthalle, (opening, June 30).