The Rotunda Gallery, 33 Clinton Street, Brooklyn Heights, presents Critical Consumption, an exhibition bringing together artists who appropriate the forms and language of consumer culture for their own ends. Organized by guest curator Jonathan Allen, Critical Consumption opens on Thursday, January 30, 2003 with a reception from 6:00 to 8:00 PM, and remains on view through March 15, 2003. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday, Noon to 5:00 PM, and Saturday, 11 to 4 PM. Admission is free. Information: 718-875-4047.

The artists in Critical Consumption use the elements of mass culture to explore the far-reaching effects of consumerism on politics, popular culture, world events and human interaction. They share a focus on consumer culture’s sometimes humorous, often stifling impact on the world. Their approaches range from the direct confrontation of Miguel Luciano’s paintings, which combine Puerto Rican folklore with product packaging design to question racial stereotyping in consumer branding, to the more ambiguous works in the Cheryl Yun collection, hand-crafted handbags featuring newspaper photographs of war and catastrophe.

On February 21, 2003, at 8:00 PM, the puppet collective Animated Neck and Stars will present the premier performance of The Shadow & The Flag, created specifically for Critical Consumption. Shadow puppets and marionettes combined with sounds, spoken word and live music will animate the gallery space, interacting with individual works and responding to the exhibition. For reservations, call 718-875-4047, ext. 11.

Artists include:

Associated Artists for Propoganda Research, a collective whose small scale models and installations critique the propaganda techniques intrinsic to corporate power structures.

Bridget Batch, whose photographs explore the far reaches of advertising and consumerism in logo-laden landscapes, market interiors, and department stores.

Margarita Cabrera reproduces appliances in colorful, unconventional materials, examining the relationship between Mexican labor that produce the goods and American consumers who buy them.

Heidi Cody employs the graphic language of consumer culture to highlight the public’s fascination with branding, logos and advertising.

Greg Fuchs tests the traditional objective viewpoint of documentary photography with a more expressive one; his latest series reframes the garish sexuality of Manhattan boutique windows.

Ligorano/Reese, collaborative media artists who use satire to underscore the relationship between marketing and politics.

Miguel Luciano, whose paintings combine Puerto Rican folklore icons with contemporary consumer culture iconography to explore the persistent colonial history between the United States and Puerto Rico.

David Opdyke, whose slide projection work deconstructs current events, evoking and amplifying the reductive, surreal generalizations of their representation in the media.

Cheryl Yun Collection mimics the forms of the most elite consumer industry: fashion. The Cheryl Yun collection combines designer objects with violent and tragic media images.

Guest curator Jonathan Allen is an artist whose work was recently part of the 2002 Artists in the Marketplace group exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and will be seen in the upcoming group exhibition Crossings: Curatorial and Artistic Practice at the West Side Gallery, New York. He manages the Henry Urbach Architecture Gallery, New York. This is his first curatorial endeavor.

Critical Consumption is part of the Rotunda Gallery’s curatorial initiative program, which supports new and emerging curators and provides opportunities for them to realize their vision in a professional arena. Previous exhibitions selected through the curatorial initiative program have included Lost and Found: Reclaimed Moments (2001) with Mihee Ahn, guest curator, and What Happened in Lime Mills? (2002) with Nelly Reifler, guest curator. Applications for the initiative’s annual exhibition will be available in March 2003.