January 25 –February 25, 2006

The Backroom is a research-oriented project that was initiated for a temporary project space in Culver City, Los Angeles. From September to December 2005, an evolving line-up of artists, filmmakers, writers, and architects presented source materials that inform and support their practice, creating an expanding compilation of objects, videos, magazines, photographs, ephemera, data, and written anecdotes. For The Backroom: SF, SF Camerawork and New Langton Arts have collaborated for the first time to co-present the complete accumulation of source material.

Also presenting source materials from The Backroom/LA: Akasegawa Genpei (compiled by Reiko Tomii), Anthony Auerbach, Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian, Walead Beshty, Jennifer Bornstein, Anne Collier, Dennis Crompton (Archigram), Vaginal Davis, Olivier Debroise, Jeremy Deller, Kota Ezawa, Vince Fecteau, Sam Green, David Hatcher, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Jess, Paul Ramírez Jonas, William Jones, Adria Julia, Stephen Kaltenbach, Allan Kaprow, Thomas Lawson, Jesse Lerner, Lu Jie, Marko Lulic, Erlea Maneros, Ari Marcopoulos, Euan MacDonald, John Menik, Julian Myers, Michelle O’Marah, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Raqs Media Collective, Tercerunquinto, Mario Garcia Torres, Jeffrey Vallance, Miguel Ventura, Mark Verabioff, and Bruce Yonemoto.

For more information, please visit www.the-backroom.org.

October 5 - November 18, 2006

Ann Carlson and Mary Ellen Strom
Tony Hooker
Mildred Howard
Claudia Kunin
Dinh Q. Lê
Jorma Puranen
Walid Ra’ad

Ghosts in the Machine delves into the subtle influences of history on contemporary artwork, exploring how elements of the past return to haunt the present in works of contemporary photography and digital media. The exhibition brings together artists from Finland, Lebanon, Vietnam, and the United States who have developed inventive strategies to revive and assimilate what might otherwise be forgotten, conjuring the forgotten faces and demolished places that flicker at the far reaches of personal and cultural histories. Says Spalding, “Ghosts in the Machine explores the notion of haunting as a set of cultural conditions that arise when estranged moments in national histories and collective memory are not given their due.”