MAKE NICE
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WEEK
ONE: YEE-HAW INDUSTRIES
(VIDEOBOX) Daniel Pflumm Selected by Michele Thursz
JULY 7th - JULY 10th
Opening reception: Wednesday, July 7th 6-8 pm
Curated by Eleanor Heartney, Critic and Author of Postmodern Heretics + Larry Litt, Filmmaker, producer of Before You Don't Vote...Advice to the Angry, Apathetic and Alienated
YEE-HAW INDUSTRIES
Yee-Haw is a working letterpress since 1997, founded by Kevin Bradley and Julie Belcher. Yee-Haw is a unique endeavor combining graphic design, illustration, fine art, painting, printmaking, etc. Yee-Haw produces 400-500 custom jobs annually as well as a range of fine art prints, a new line of greeting cards and purses They have created a latge body of work that has been recognized nationally from their 9,000 sq. ft. shop in Knoxville. They design, illustrate, and handcarve woodblocks and handprint everything that they make.
Over the last 7 years Yee-Haw Industries has assembled thousands of fonts of typography in lead and wood from 6pt. to 3ft. tall, making this one of the largest working collections of typography in use today. They primarily work in the entertainment and advertising fields, but also do a large volume of custom wedding invitations, as well as corporate identity work.
Kevin: "The conspiracy prints for me were a nice break from custom work. I wanted to release some energy that was building up from all the media hype. This election seems to have sparked more than any election, maybe as far back as Nixon. As an outsider, and being in Tennessee, I wanted to poke some fun at the prevailing powers. The tabloid approach seemed a perfect vehicle for a large format letterpress print. I think I am very skeptical these days and I think others are too."
"rambling
notes on the american conspiracy,
we see it every day, hidden in plain sight. the human condition- who's
doing what to whom. where's the love, where's the trust? Society, government,
media, bosses, friends, the cats out of the bag. The new century means
one thing, hardball baby. The information age rains down its destruction
on the individual like a tidal wave of shit. no one can escape the man,
the greed of human nature, or the sensory overload felt by all the people
trying to live their lives in the midst of the machine, that is designed
to grind up the spirit and spit it out in a production line of pre-packaged
sanitized conformity that says youÍre either with us or against us. and
by the way kid, weÍve got our eye on you.
the conspiracy lives, we hear about it all the time. the mafia, the illuminati, scull and bones, richard gere and hamsters, planet x, the government, the police, procter and gamble, and of course Martha Stewart. Everybody is fair game. It is the new price of fame.
the conspiracy crowd is not loaded with flowery adjectives of descriptions, the norm is crackpots, freaks, paranoid schizophrenics, losers, etc.
the conspiracy is of itself, a view of the american mindset at work, mostly on the personal level. if one wants to rationalize any event or injury, it is easy to shift the blame and create a connection that seems logical on some level. it's the american way. we're all guilty of it. but in a twisted way we find a lot of humor in it, and it serves as a national psychotherapy.
do you believe what the media tells you? are you a good american? will you go to hell? what does it matter anyway. every body knows that jeb is the real puppetmaster and he is pulling all the strings from his bunker at space mountain.
it's my job to tell the truth, even if it's all lies and made up facts. these prints are all made letterpress, with moveable type (lead/wood), and handcarved woodblocks for headlines and photo etchings. they were hand printed on a takach press at the printmaking facilities of yee haw industries in knoxville tn. by kevin bradley in early 2004."
-- Julie Belcher & Kevin Bradley, owners
(VIDEOBOX)
Selected by Michele Thursz
DANIEL
PFLUMM
CNN,
Questions & Answers, 1997 (60 min loop)
Courtesy Greene
Naftali Gallery