November 12 – November 19
10:30am-6:00pm Daily
Art in General storefront Project Space

RECENT PRESS
The Village Voice, Artinfo, The New York Post, Daily Mail.

Acclaimed for creating the flashpoint 50-person naked performance Ocularpation: Wall Street, which foreshadowed the current social unrest mirrored and echoed in the Occupy Wall Street movement, Zefrey Throwell presents his latest piece – a seven-day public strip poker game at Art in General. Each day for a week, from 10:30am-6:00pm, seven players will gather around a white table in the storefront Project Space of Art In General to gamble away what most consider so dear, their clothes. At the end of each round, the players will get dressed and begin again, creating a meditative repetitious action that continues over the course of a workday.

Transforming Art in General’s storefront Project Space into a stage, I’ll Raise You One… establishes a world of absurdity and purposelessness, allowing the casual onlooker to participate in a guilt-free voyeurism, while teasing out a different outlook on our personal interactions and day-to-day routines. In a world where money has taken supreme importance and all functions of life are commoditized, I’ll Raise You One… is a project where clothing, charisma and a good bluff are the only currency. Using the language of small stakes capitalism mixed with America’s favorite gambling pass-time, and the flirtatious teenage party game of strip poker, Throwell draws a fluxus parallel between what we consider winning and losing in the world today.

Presented in conjunction with Performa 11 Fluxus weekend

Click here to download a PDF of I’ll Raise You One… posters.

Zefrey Throwell is an artist living and working in New York City. Investigating honest communication, in all its varied plumage, is his aim. Working with video, radio, painting and people, he is exploring the connecting points and underpinnings of social discourse. He is a member of three collectives: THROWHITE, Red76 and Cameracartell. In addition he co-directs a gallery called Engineer’s Office Gallery in the heart of Rockefeller Center, www.engineersofficegallery.com

Throwell works with Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert, Inc. in New York and is a regular contributing member to Art International Radio and was recently included in the 2007, 2009 and 2011 Venice Biennale, has had recent performances at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2010), Queens Museum of Art (2010), the Guggenheim Museum in New York (2009), Studio Museum in New York (2009) and projects at Werkstatt der Kulturen in Berlin (2010) and Photo Miami (2009). In addition Throwell’s project “Ocularpation: Wall Street” received international attention for it’s critique of Wall Street and was featured in the New York Times as well as CNN, NBC and the international press. Throwell has work in the Museum of Modern Art collection as well as the Hall collection.

All images courtesy the artist.

Support
General support of Art in General is provided by General Tools & Instruments LLC; the Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation; Abraham and Lillian Rosenberg Foundation; public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State’s 62 counties; National Endowment for the Arts; Ralph E. Ogden Foundation; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; Bloomberg; ConEdison; The Greenwich Collection; Cowles Charitable Trust; Foundation for Contemporary Arts; and by individuals.