June 5th Performance at Allegra LaViola Gallery "Catalytic Confessional Noise Ceremony"

Madame Lamort (Elektra KB+Nicolas Ulloa) Duo Pontificalis  of the Theocratic Republic of Gaia Noise performance. (A second performance will take place at the gallery on Saturday June 15th.)








Camera phone shots of Installations at Allegra LaViola Gallery's opening



Site specific installation "Confessional Catalytic Noise Machine" at the opening of the current show at Allegra LaViola gallery.




The White Papess heard many spontaneous confessions and also received this "fan mail" letter in her bed.



Stairs to the Project Room
 

Untitled Interactive Installation


June 5th, 2013 - 7PM / CATALYTIC CONFESSIONAL NOISE CEREMONY

Madame LaMort, live performance (June5th, 2013)


Elektra KB's: The Cathara Insurgent Women Vs The Theocratic Republic of Gaia Beings 
Exhibition in Project Space: May 29 - June 22, 2013 


+++++ Wednesday, June 5th at 7pm: +++++


Elektra KB and her partner Nicolas Ulloa will be performing:
"
CATALYTIC CONFESSIONAL NOISE CEREMONY" as the duo MADAME LAMORT.

This will be an interactive noise performance in which the congregation (audience) that enter the Theocratic Republic of Gaia's Catalytic Confessional Noise Ceremony will confess anything they wish to the White Papess. Her holy mother, will use sound as a catalyst to erase all guilt and sins, thus liberating the Trogian congregation. With the audience's participation a live sound piece will be created together with the artist.

Note: Additional performance on Saturday, June 16th.


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Event Page: facebook.com/events/147870435398402
More information at: allegralaviola.com

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Confessional Catalytic Noise Machine performance



Site Specific InstallationThe Theocratic Republic of Gaia Presents: Confessional Catalytic Noise Machineby Elektra KB

Short video loop made by #YoPablo of the performance at the opening last night in Allegra LaViola Gallery.


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"The Cathara Insurgent Women Vs The Theocratic Republic of Gaia Beings" at Allegra LaViola Gallery




Elektra KB
The Cathara Insurgent Women Vs The Theocratic Republic of Gaia Beings
May 29 - June 22, 2013
Opening Reception Wednesday, May 29, 6-8 pm


Allegra LaViola Gallery is pleased to present The Cathara Insurgent Women vs The Theocratic Republic Gaia Beings, a multi-media exhibition by Elektra KB. The show will open on Wednesday, May 29th and continue through June 22, 2013. There will be performances by Elektra KB + Nicolas Ulloa on Wednesday, June 5th and Saturday, June 15th, with exact times to be announced.Elektra KB’s work is set entirely in the realm of her mythological world: The Theocratic Republic of Gaia (T.R.O.G). This world is undergoing a period of imminent intense geological and social upheaval, during which tensions that have built up over centuries will be discharged. It is populated by colonized Trogians living under the supreme ruler: the White Papess II, her army: The Beings and the heretic Cathara Insurgent Women who lead the resistance and uprising of T.R.O.G. Trogians live as machines in a massive staged fantasy. They are in search of Tetrapharmakos (the essence of pleasure and happiness) and at the mercy of a world fascist empire lead by the White Papess II and the T.R.O.G.’s army, the Beings. Trogians, who live in a hypnotized state, have forgotten what reality is and are at the mercy of unintelligible dogmas and a cult of abstract humanoids and objects. The Catharas are dancing warriors, who lead the uprising of the Magical –Insurgent-Spirits that populate the Aztec territory of T.R.O.G and lead a mystical battle of resistance to the light ray weapons of the beings.
The Theocratic Republic Of Gaia is Elektra KB’s critique against the contemporary status quo, and a call to break from it, encompassing elements of anti-patriarchal struggle and issues of Neo-Colonialism. The entities that populate her work are often purging threads out of their mouths, which allude to a physical and emotional catharsis that expresses what is ignored and repressed-- what we are forced to hide: a mute scream.
In the photographs, which are printed on canvas and stitched to fabrics, she constructs alternative realms of resistance, where utopia has not quite been reached. Elektra KB’s interest in female identity and the historical silencing and shaming of women is apparent from the first view of her work. The women in her world are alien beings, yet very familiar. Legendary fighters- Joan of Arc, the Amazon warrior women, the supposed female Pope Joan/Agnes- seep through into the depictions of these otherworldly beings. The symbols associated with them are recognizably altered, yet they still harbor powerful associations. Despite addressing the persistent historical demonization of women, all of the characters in T.R.O.G are female. There are no men to perpetuate violence- the women are the sole inhabitants of this realm. Through the varying media of installation, performance, video, photography and works on fabric, Elektra KB immerses us in her personal mythology.
Elektra KB is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts (2012). In 2013, her work has been exhibited in the group exhibitions “All The Best People” at 1 to 1 Gallery, New York, reviewed in Artforum (March 2013) by Carolyn Busta, and “Changing the World Through Art” at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York. She also has a solo exhibition in New York at BravinLee Programs: There are Women at the Gates Seeking a New World, and a monograph of her work published by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness due later this summer.


Artist's Book of The Cathara Insurgent Women

Currently on view at BravinLee Programs
There are Women at the Gates Seeking a New World...
May 22 - June 28, 2013
526 W 26th St #211 New York, NY 10001











Thanks to Derek Kalisher for the photos.

"No One Can Explain This Pain, I Just Want To Disintegrate"




Currently on view at BravinLee Programs
There are Women at the Gates Seeking a New World...
May 22 - June 28, 2013
526 W 26th St #211 New York, NY 10001
(212) 462-4404

The Journey



Currently on view at BravinLee Programs
There are Women at the Gates Seeking a New World...
May 22 - June 28, 2013
526 W 26th St #211 New York, NY 10001
(212) 462-4404

Procession in Colonized Territory



Currently on view at BravinLee Programs
There are Women at the Gates Seeking a New World...
May 22 - June 28, 2013
526 W 26th St #211 New York, NY 10001
(212) 462-4404

Elektra KB - BRAVIN LEE GALLERY - Opening Next Wednesday, May 22, 6-8pm






There Are Women at the Gates Seeking a New World...




May 22 – June 28, 2013




Opening: Wednesday, May 22nd, 6-8pm




















Procession in Colonized Territory, 2013, Archival pigment prints, fabric, felt, thread, 36 x 54 inches









BravinLee programs is pleased to present an exhibition in the gallery's project room by Elektra KB of new works on paper, photography, and a selection of cloth pages of her 20 page, hand-sewn artist’s book.

The pages of the book, each a sewn and embroidered felt collage, depict guerilla warfare in a mythological, semi-autobiographical world parallel to ours: a female rebel army revolting against the forces of a tyrannical police state. The women are primitivist and often uniformed and weaponized--most wear only short petticoats and veils or ominous balaklava. They pose brazenly with machine guns and chainsaws in photo ops, but Elektra KB has rendered these weapons more like toys, and according to her rule-set for this alternative world, they shoot rays of light not ammo.

As in Anthony Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange,” Elektra KB’s world subsists on a complex play of invented language and iconography; however, her protagonists are righteous. “The Cathara Insurgent Women”—dancing warriors, rebels, heretics—fight against the shadowy forces of “The Theocratic Republic of Gaia”. The Insurgents call to mind simultaneously today’s feminists and activists like Susana Chavez, Medieval heretics, and the Aztecs in the era of Spanish conquest.

Throughout the pages of the book, shadows leak and flow together representing the forces of Neo-colonization: mass scale and conspiratorial violence and murder, repression of free speech, and the oppression and alienation of women. Threads hang loosely from these shadows and war iconography, representing catharsis, repression, Barbarism, and physical emancipation à la Freud’s Death Drive.

The title of the show is a modification of text, “There are men at the gates seeking a new world,” extracted from an essay in the first issue of a magazine produced by the late 1960s art group Black Mask (later Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers). The group, formed by painter Ben Morea and poet Dan Georgakas, declared that revolutionary art should be an integral part of life, as in primitive society, and not an appendage to wealth.

Elektra KB is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts (2012). In 2013, her work has been exhibited in the group exhibitions “All The Best People” at 1 to 1 Gallery, New York, reviewed in Artforum (March 2013) by Carolyn Busta, and “Changing the World Through Art” at Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York. She will also have a solo exhibition in New York at Allegra LaViola Gallery, “The Cathara Insurgent Women vs. The Theocratic Republic of Gaia Beings,” opening May 29th, 2013, and a monograph of her work published by Tangled Wilderness/Combustion Books is due later this spring.

For more information, please contact BravinLee programs at 212.462.4404 or info@bravinlee.com.
























526 West 26th Street #211




New York, NY 10001





































Rosa Apátrida in MRR

This month's Maximum Rocknroll with cover art by radical Spanish illustrator DOC came with a review of Rosa Apatrida's demo and the zine by Elektra KB. (Shown at artist run space 1 to 1 for the All the Best People exhibition.)

Cutlog Art Fair May 8th-13th

http://www.cutlogny.org/en/
http://timeinkids.org/event-registration/




A VIP PREVIEW & BENEFIT COCKTAIL for TIME IN 

          Please Join Time In to celebrate the work of  
Brian Alfred, Richard Cutrona, Elektra KB +Martin Roth
             Wednesday, May 8th
Private VIP Preview & Party to Benefit Time In






VISIT TIME IN AT CUTLOG

Richard Cutrona                         Elektra KB                    Brian Alfred                       Martin Roth 

   
All proceeds from art and ticket sales go directly to supporting  
TIME IN's  
groundbreaking programming 

for some of the youngest, most at-risk public elementary school children in New York City
  



The Board, Staff and Children of Time In express their sincerest thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts , Catalog for Giving, The Lincoln Fund, The E.H.A. Foundation and all of the generous foundations and donors who make this incredible program available to children who would otherwise have no meaningful access to the arts




Cutlog Access info

Subway: F, J, M, Z trains to Delancey Street / Essex Street Bus: lines 14A & 9
A shuttle bus will run between cutlog and the Frieze ferry stop from Thursday, May 9 through Saturday, May 11 at 11 am – 8 pm daily.
(Sunday, May 12 until 7pm)



Open to the Public

Admission tickets are priced as follows:
adults $15    |    students & seniors $10 | Multipass (5-day entry) $25 / $20

Rosa Apatrida Show




by: Phil Maier/Rituals

Soviet-Latino Family





Mother, Grand-Mother, Daughter and Father.

All The Best People Reviewed in ARTFORUM

I participated in a group show titled "All The Best People" this past month at 1:1 with a photography piece and a Zine (the latest which I am told the reviewer acquired.) Caroline Busta wrote a review in this month's ArtForum pages 278 & 279. The article is focused on the last show in the space, and mostly in 1:1 as an entity and the great people running it: Leigha Mason, Jarret Earnest, and Whitney Vangrin.

Elektra KB for Rosa Apatrida zine (updated version)

Shown at 1:1 "All the Best People"




Working