Studio Hart is very pleased to announce an exhibition of work by film artist Lawrence Brose. This show marks the artist's first solo exhibition in Buffalo since his 2002 show at the Albright Knox Art Gallery and will consist of 14 images derived from his film, De Profundis. The show will run Tuesday, May 5 through Saturday, June 20, 2009. A reception for the artist will be held Friday, May 8 from 6 - 8 pm.

Brose is an experimental film artist that has created over thirty films since 1983 which have been shown at international film festivals, museums, art galleries, and cinematheques in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. De Profundis has been greeted with critical acclaim and has been screened at more than eighty venues and festivals worldwide since its release. It is a 65-minute experimental film with an original score for the film by the American composer Frederic Rzewski and is one of a series of collaborations with contemporary composers that explore the relationship between the moving image and music.

In describing the work Brose says, "Many of my films have investigated issues of gender and sexuality along with an exploration of my personal experiences within the AIDS crises. This show will be a limited edition series of medium format Epson prints created from consecutive frames from De Profundis. The film explores the transgressive aesthetics of Oscar Wilde and contemporary queer culture. I developed and employed an innovative series of photochemical processes in the creation of the film, working literally on each frame. This exhibition is a result of that working method translating these unique images to a printed medium. This new series restores the relationship of the film’s original photographic process with more detail and clarity."

Brose's prints are part of numerous private collections and have been exhibited at CEPA Gallery, Big Orbit Gallery and El Museo Francisco Oller y Diego Rivera in Buffalo, NY; Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, Ireland; Jack Tilton Gallery, NYC; Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, Alfred University; BS1 Contemporary Art Center, Beijing, China. In 1992 Brose was the featured United States filmmaker at the International Short Film Festival of São Paulo, Brazil. His film series FILM for MUSIC for FILM, the aftermentioned collaborative project with contemporary composers (most notable are John Cage, Virgil Thomson, Conlon Nancarrow, Yvar Mikhashoff, and Frederic Rzewski), has been presented with live music at several international music festivals and was featured in a special New Music program at the 21st International Biennale of São Paulo, 1991. Brose recently presented his video portrait of composer John Cage, IMUSICIRCUS - a Music, Image, and Performance work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art with the California EAR Unit. In 1999 Lawrence Brose was commissioned to create a new gallery installation based on this work titled CAGE: A Filmic Circus OnMetaphors on Vision for the Rhizome Festival at the Triskel Arts Centre, Cork Ireland. The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, has included his acclaimed experimental film An Individual Desires Solution, about his lover’s struggle and loss to AIDS, in Big As Life – An American History of 8mm Films and he has recently been invited to place his films and career related documents on deposit at the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York as part of their permanent collection.

Brose also serves as Executive Director and Chief Curator of CEPA Gallery, the internationally recognized photographic arts center with an international impact serving over 350,000 individuals annually. The Gallery’s changing exhibitions, multi-media public art installations, and educational programming create a vibrant presence in the heart of downtown Buffalo. Brose curated CEPA’s recent, critically acclaimed exhibition Deviant Bodies and such ambitious projects as Paradise in Search of a Future, Unlimited Partnerships: Collaboration in Contemporary Art, Ruins in Reverse: Time and Progress in Contemporary Art, and Uncommon Traits: Re/Locating Asia.

Both as an artist and arts administrator it is clear Brose is a visionary maverick. As such, Studio Hart is proud to provide a forum for the greater community to see his work and acknowledge the major contribution he continues to make to the cultural landscape of Western New York.

Studio Hart is located in Buffalo's historic Allentown district, home to 20 plus galleries including Buffalo Big Print, Indigo Art, Art Dialogue Gallery, and College Street Gallery as well as a host of many fine restaurants and retail shops.

Hours are Tuesday-Friday, 10:30 am to 2 pm Saturday, 11 am to 3 pm and by appointment. —Tim Moran