Opening reception
Thursday, March 9, 5pm

Public Reception for Artist
Saturday, April 8, 4pm

"Angel of Histories" is a poetic tapestry of treated wood surfaces, goblets, mirrors, sheep fleece, scale, ottomans, photographic and video images incorporating motifs central to Cypis' oeuvre. Themes that permeate her work include dialogues with notions of corporeality, memory and history, exploration of indeterminacy and meta-morphosis, and formal plays with seeing and representing. Cypis' formal strategy often places the viewer in conscious participation with an image, object or constructed situation, implicated in the construction of meaning. The space of exhibition is thus positioned as a place of active engagement and experience.

In Scale, for example, a tiny video lens hidden in a step-on bathroom scale, when activated by the weight of a body, (from the scale's unique vantage point) projects this "body's" image onto another gallery surface. We move through the space of exhibition experiencing ourselves simultaneously as body and representation.

Throughout "Angel of Histories" "we are made aware of this simultaneous density and ephemerality of our bodies, our flesh. "People" are negotiated and multiply as images, things, and fully cognizant social subjects in Cypis' project.... The gallery is "peopled" by objects that reciprocate our subjectivity as we engage them: mirrors, scale, video lens, screen, wine goblets, sheep fleece (hair)--all surfaces and materials that suck in and spit out some aspect of our embodiment." A. Jones Cypis understands the body as a shifting medium through which we can experience, remember and represent (histories); our bodies are receivers and transmitters of endless narratives. Cypis cunningly turns the focus back on the viewer, back to visceral, fleshy experience. Her exhibition invites close examination and scrutiny, especially when we see ourselves in the installation staring back.

A native of Tel Aviv, Israel, Cypis emigrated to Canada in 1958 and to the United States in 1975. A graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Cypis received an M.F.A. in 1977 from the California Institute of the Arts. In 1999 she returned to live in Los Angeles after 16 years in the Twin Cities. Her work has been presented in numerous international and national exhibitions including the Whitney Museum of American Art; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Walker Art Center; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; New Museum; ICA, Boston; Musee d'Art Contemporaire, Montreal; Southern Theater, Minneapolis; Groningen Theater, Netherlands; Gallerie AD 2000, Tokyo. Cypis' work was last seen in Los Angeles in "Defining Eye: Women Photographers of the 20 Century", at the Armand Hammer Museum and "Beyond the Pink", at the Santa Monica Museum.

Cypis pioneered strategies of networking artists, audiences and Los Angeles public sites as Director of Foundation for Art Resources, FAR, 1978-1982. Cypis created and directed Kulture Klub Collaborative, artists and homeless teens bridging survival and inspiration in Minneapolis, 1992-1998.

A 20-page color catalogue, designed by Tom Recchion, accompanies the exhibition "Angel of Histories." Essayists include art historian, writer, professor, Amelia Jones, Los Angeles; writer, photographer Vince Leo, Minneapolis; independent curator, writer, Nicole Gingras, Montreal. The catalogue is US$15.00 plus $2.50 for shipping and tax where applicable. To order a catalogue
e-mail karen.rapp@ucr.edu