Exhibition: MO N S A L V A T

MO N S A L V A T a Merkx & Gwynne project organized with Maliea Croy and Allison Branham January 18 - February 17 2013

Image of a dimly lit room with a colorful tiled floor. A lighting design is projected onto the floor in the shape of a circle with emanating rays and a symbol in the middle. Paintings line the left wall, and arches line the right wall, with shallow depths. Dark Curtains frame the image of the room.

MO N S A L V A T a Merkx & Gwynne project organized with Maliea Croy and Allison Branham with Cy Amundson, Erica Baum, Gina Beavers, Francisca Benitez, Jessica Bennett, Paul Bergeron, Isaac Bonnel, Becket Bowes, Barb Choit, Andy Cross, Tania Cross, Cynthia Daignault, Constance DeJong, Michael DeLucia, Tyler Dobson, Sarah Dornner, Mark Fetty, John Finneran, Laurie Silver Flannery, Michael S. Flannery, Ron Flannery, Ellie Ga, Tamara Gonzales, Vivienne Griffin, Rachel Harrison, Dmitri Hertz, Matthew Hilshorst, Anders Holen, Matt Hoyt, Alex Hubbard, Timothy Hull, Tonya Huskey, Paul Jacobsen, Kristen Jensen, Joshua Johnson, Craig Kalpakjian, Scott Keightley, Gavin Kenyon, Viktor Kopp, Natalie Labriola, Tom Long, Benjamin Lowney, David Malek, Megan Marrin, Chris Martin, Tony Matelli, Justin Matherly, Lionel Maunz, Dave Miko, Filip Noterdaeme, Rome Petersson, Arianna Petrich, Rebecca Poland, Birgit Rathsmann, John Richey, Sarah Rogers, Julia Rommel, David Scanavino, Maximilian Schubert, Davina Semo, Mamie Tinkler, Tom Vanderwall, Erik Wysocan

Bureau is pleased to open 2013 with the exhibition Monsalvat, a project conceived by collaborators Andrea Merkx and Nathan Gwynne. With the work of over fifty contributors, the gallery will be transformed into a group exhibition-cum-music-video set to be used for periodic filming throughout the show.

Monsalvat is the first installment by Merkx & Gwynne in their sprawling series King Arthur Rock Opera, a multi-part project that will engage musicians, authors, artists and artisans, sound, film and television professionals in re-imagining Arthurian legend. The exhibition's title is taken from Munsalvaesche, the name given to the castle of the Fisher King in Wolfram von Eschenbach's 13th-century tale.

Employing a raked stage floor built in medieval-esque forced perspective, this first episode will center around the hall of the Fisher King in which Perceval encounters the procession of sacred objects, notably candelabras, a bleeding lance and the holy grail. In a massive collaborative undertaking, the objects and architectural elements in the space are bespoke artworks, made or altered specifically for the exhibition, from the tiled floor pattern, stained glass window design to the salon hanging of prints and paintings and archway which recedes into a tromp l'oeil wall painting extending the line of sight. Merkx & Gwynne mine a network of diverse producers to generate a new model for exhibition-making that allows for play-oriented collaboration. Re-imagining ways in which artists can create and work together to produce particular key elements within a larger narrative, the density of Monsalvat foreshadows the scope and ambition of their King Arthur Rock Opera. Absurd in scale and squashed into the confines of Bureau's gallery, the show merges the genres of rock music, film and fan fiction with contemporary art.

'Damn you, wherever the sun lights your path' shouted the page. 'You silly goose! Why didn't you open your gob and ask my lord the Question?'

Image of the room installation where you are unable to decipher if it is a painting or a room. The technique of tromp l'œil which deceives the eye. What is visible is a colorful tiled floor, a cooked fish on a table with lit candles, and a small arched window with a chalice like cup sitting on the sill.

A camera image of a colorful room with three archways that show a shallow lit space with images on the wall, and simple painted mural of lines. A large sword hangs between the right two archways. A wooden sculpture sits in the third archway. In the front of the image is a distorted sculpture, implying a specific perspective, of cooked fish on a platter next to two candles.

Image of a small stage set up with purple walls, a fake plant, and green, cut-out trees, which cast purply shadows on a pink and yellow floor. Projected light and shadows create shapes on the adjacent walls.