Continuing its mission to bring engaging exhibitions to the Tampa Bay Area through a collaborative and feminist curatorial perspective, CUNSTHAUS is proud to present Bare Your Teeth, a site-specific installation by multidisciplinary artist Desireé Moore. Working primarily in film and video, Moore (b. 1986, Indianapolis; lives in St. Petersburg, FL) explores the social complexities of gender, and specifically the cultural norms assigned to women and girls. She states, “Bare Your Teeth isolates moments of gesture to consider the feminine experience within culturally accepted sexism and harassment. In some ways, these tactics have been perpetuated into normalcy, a convenient disguise protected by civility. Benevolence is not a shield, and ignorance is not acceptable.” These issues are timely, as women continue to step forward publicly with stories of sexual abuse and harassment in Hollywood and the art world. The harassment is not new, but the widespread public acknowledgment of it is.

Tempus Projects presents Head Cream, recent works by artist Neil Bender. Head Cream is an assortment of paper objects floating a disjointed stage of flattened, painted limbs. Bender’s work is the epitome of Boucher’s quote: “I detest the natural world because it is too green and poorly lit.” The aim of the work is to seduce and give pleasure through imagery that is social and accessible, that loves the idea of surface as a way of picturing honest yet mischievous belief systems. The work is a communicative device that takes imagery that is exploited by our popular culture and forms a new interface for open dialogue, with an interest in pleasure, sensuality, and black humor as the starting points. Through a restructuring of provocative images, he hopes to open up new contents that are potentially morally questionable.

CUNSTHAUS is happy to present Four Quilts, by Coulter Fussell. This solo exhibition of abstract quilts is a selection of quilts pulled from a much larger body of work spanning over the course of almost four years. The quilts selected for exhibition at CUNSTHAUS represent a progression, which proceeded quilt by quilt in her exploration of combining used fabrics with the logic of abstract painting. Fussell’s work opens the door to the mysteries and histories of worn, shredded, faded fabrics while balancing on the tightrope between the traditional wholeness of quilting composition and the focused nature of painting composition. .

CUNSTHAUS is pleased to present Work it out, by Caitlin Albritton. This solo exhibit of oil on canvas works is from the artist's Gym Series, which examines the gym as a place where every day antics are amplified in a stage-like environment where there is a hyperawareness of our bodies in a public space. This artificial space is a surrogate of other spheres of our lives that intensify competition, gender issues, body politics, and the propaganda of progress.

Tempus Projects presents Gatekeeper by Christina Humphreys. In this body of work, Humphreys pays homage to the contributions of women in the field of computer science, while examining the issues that many women in the United States still face working in the tech industry. Despite attempts by companies like Google and Facebook to diversify their engineering staff, recent statistics and events still show a great imbalance in tech that favors white men. By embroidering abstract digital images inspired by the iconic designs of former Apple designer Susan Kare, Humphreys illustrates the history of traditional “women’s work,” often derided as secondary to the work of men. The simple patterns of bricks and woven lines, paired with embroidered designs directly inspired by iron gates she has encountered both in San Francisco and Havana, Cuba, resemble walls and fences, referencing the barriers women face achieving the same status as men.

For more than twenty-five years now, artist Lambertus “Berry” van Boekel has been marking time and keeping the beat with his annual (admittedly obsessive) Top 100 painting project. Representing subjects as wide-ranging as his impressively deep and eclectic musical tastes, the Dutch-born, Fort Myers, Florida-based painter notes: “The Top 100 started as a hobby in the 1980s; an adoring fan paying tribute by making portraits of his musical heroes.” Creating Top 10 song lists every three to four days since February of 1983 and compiling them into his Top 100 playlist at year’s-end, van Boekel began selectively illustrating his lists by 1986 and rigorously formalized the process five years later - making a drawing or painting inspired by each of those one hundred songs.

CUNSTHAUS is pleased to present (100 Pitchers) ofHoney, a multi-media installation by Micheal Hooker, an arts-based psychology writer and performance artist. Grounded in embodiment practices used in art and therapy, Hooker’s work is influenced by relational participation and archaic rituals that shape our language and worldviews. In an attempt to reflect these intersections, Hooker primarily uses the voice and body in live performances, film installations, and both literal and figurative mixed-media collages.

Additional Programming:

Reading :: August 4, 2017 :: 6–9pm

Bees as Psychopomp Dream Tending Ritual :: August 19, 2017 :: 7–9pm

In conjunction with Micheal Hooker's exhibition (100 Pitchers) ofHoney, the artist invites participants to 'Bees as Psychopomp Dream Tending Ritual' cultivating the myth of bees as psychopomp in our local community. With the help of the bees as spirit-guides, participants will explore dreams through storytelling and embodiment practices that amplify their imagery and offer personal and transpersonal meanings. Attendants are invited to participate in a dream-chant recital the next evening at the closing of the exhibition (100 Pitchers) ofHoney on August 19th.

Cuban Artist Marian Valdes Rodriguez is the second artist to participate in our International Artist Exchange Program, a cultural exchange program between Tempus Projects and the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba. The artist-in-residence program invites Cuban artists to live and work in the second-floor loft studio/apartment and create work for a month-long exhibition in the Project Space. In turn, the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts hosts Tampa-area artists for a month-long live/work/exhibition experience on their historic campus.

CUNSTHAUS is proud to present (Other) People In Love, by Pat Blocher. The exhibition features a series of photograms made by lining couples' beds with photosensitive paper. The paper records any light which penetrates their bedding as well as shows wear from their movements during the night. The exposure lasts from the time the people go to bed until the time they wake up.

The Reroute might refer to the constant rerouting involved in navigating Day & Night’s hometown of Atlanta’s crippled interstate system or the negotiation with political and personal landscape. In a similar vein, these artists explore new terrain related to the well-traveled areas of the human figure, the kitsch imagery, interpersonal relationships, and man’s discourse with nature. This exhibition features the founding members of Day & Night Projects: Steven L. Anderson, William Downs, Mark Leibert, and Tori Tinsley.

CUNSTHAUS is proud to celebrate its one-year anniversary with the presentation of a new photo-based series by Anthea Behm, a critically engaged artist who works between the mediums of photography, video, drawing, and performance. Behm’s photograms engage the connections between two seemingly distinct media: drawing, characterized by gesture and the artist’s hand, and photography, an ostensibly objective representation of the world around us

Angela Deane has been in residence at CUNSTHAUS since late March working on a series entitled, Ghost Photographs. It is a body of work she began during a residency in the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Her interventions on found vernacular photographs are playful provocations, which revel in the very plastic nature of a photograph. By painting out the figures, the images are transformed and their original context subsumed. Angela’s work has been exhibited in venues across the United States and her recent works will be included in a major exhibition in South Korea this summer. Angela opens the doors of her studio to visitors on Friday from 6-9pm for First Friday on April 7.

Tempus Projects hosts acclaimed Cuban sculptor Julio César Pérez Moracén in its artist-in-residence program. This is the first in a series of artist exchanges between Tempus and the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba. The goal of this endeavor is to foster partnerships within our communities while also promoting cultural study and diversity. With Tampa’s history so deeply entrenched in Cuban culture, this project opens an important dialogue for further cultural and artistic exchange. Julio César Pérez Moracén is in residence at Tempus Projects for one month, and at the end of his residency will install an exhibition of the artwork he produces during his stay in the Project Space at Tempus. Exhibitions and gallery talks are open to the public and free of charge.

VACUUM BAIT presents new drawings, paintings, objects, and sculptures by Joe Griffith. Inspired by the technological tragedy of the space race, Griffith’s solo exhibition consists of would be odes to these events. Through visual poems, he examines the tragic and mysterious deaths of Amelia Earhart, Elizabeth Short, and the three astronauts who perished in the Apollo 1 mission, Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee.

Tempus Projects presents Artificial Paradise, new work by Jenal Dolson in our Project Space. Jenal Dolson is the third artist in residence to spend one month in the Tempus Projects residency program, and to have an exhibition housed in the Project Space for one month following her residency. Dolson’s paintings are loosely based on a framework of landscape with notions of place, time, memory – a metonymy based in abstraction. Referencing themes of memory and sentiment of object/place, she abstracts perspective in a way that puts aerial views together with horizon lines and still makes reference to the foreground, middle, and background as well as interlacing the systems of classifying maps in a choroplethic/geologic way.

CUNSTHAUS is pleased to present We Want a President, as a means for reflection, discussion, and activism that explores our demands and desires for a Head of State. Selections were made by guest juror Margaret Miller. The exhibition opens Saturday, January 21st and runs through February 18th. This all-media exhibition features works inspired by artist Zoe Leonard’s 1992 manifesto “I want a president.” Exhibiting artists include Monique Blom, Will Douglas, Keiff Jones, Vincent Kral, Daniela Mora, Libbi Ponce, Ivan Riascos, and Bridge Club Collective.

January 21, 2017 Tempus Projects presents You Drain Me, a group exhibition highlighting works that focus on melancholic themes, often coupled with tenderness, revealing pathos, sometimes softened by unexpected humor. As the title suggests, the collection reflects a psychological continuum stretching across the taxing nature of complex emotional states and the release of catharsis. The artwork of You Drain Me circumvents a tinny sentimentality toward eliciting a genuine sense of pathos. It sets off from an unabashed contemporary context–an image saturated and hyperconnected landscape–and candidly investigates the activity of an inner panorama.

In continuing efforts to provide engaging cultural programs and experiences through a collaborative and feminist curatorial perspective, CUNSTHAUS is proud to present a series of music video screenings by Russian artists and activists Pussy Riot. All contributions donated to Planned Parenthood. Known for their blend of radical performance and leftist ideals, Pussy Riot became the focus of international attention in 2012 as members Nadya Tolokonnikova, Masha Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were arrested and jailed after performing an anti-Putin “punk prayer” in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. As Pussy Riot researcher Masha Gessen has written, “Their actions have had dire but clear consequences, and in return for the hardships they've faced, they have received a voice and a mission.” A vocal and active proponent of free speech in Russia, Pussy Riot has turned its attention to the United States, as evidenced by their most recent video “Make America Great Again” which will be screened at CUNSTHAUS. Also to be shown are the Russian-language video “Organs” with an English translation and “Straight Outta Vagina,” co-written with TV On The Radio’s, Dave Sitek. These music videos epitomize the brash and brave energy of Pussy Riot, and further their role as international protesters. CUNSTHAUS has worked with Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova to secure permission for these screenings.