This Friday:

2-UP is pleased to announce its newest edition, a collaborative poster created by video artist Zerek Kempf and poet Cathy Park Hong. This is the third in a series of collaborative poster editions to be produced by 2-UP in the coming year. Please join us for a launch party hosted by Triple Canopy on Friday, April 30th at 8:00PM at 177 Livingston, Brooklyn, NY 11201 (the shared home of Triple Canopy, The Public School New York, and Light Industry).

Combining image and text, Kempf and Hong present a double-sided poster that reflects on industry and its effects on human interaction. Hong's contribution is inspired by the tradition of the poster as socialist propaganda. Riffing on and questioning Tatlin’s celebration of the machine aesthetic, she utilizes a DIY zine-like style of collage and drawings. The images and text are drawn from her recent writings about industrializing Chinese boom towns. Using a fragment of Hong's writing, Kempf takes on the more formal aspects of text. He positions hand-cut and taped letters in the corner of his studio to photograph. Skewed from the vantage of the camera, the view is further impaired by a suspended flurry of wood blocks. This interjection into the image is caused by a force which, though unseen, effects the visible interior of the frame.

For the occasion of the reception, Kempf and Hong have created a site specific, temporary video installation, to be projected at 177 Livingston. At 9:00PM, there will be a reading/performance by special guest Thomas Sayers Ellis and Hong.

Comprised of 16 artists and writers, each month 2-UP pairs two of its members together to produce a double-sided poster, packaged in twos. The content of each poster is entirely a product of the participants ‘up’ each month. The complete series of 2-UP editions is available for a modest subscription fee; individual editions are available for a suggested donation of $2. Production of each poster is funded by monthly contributions from each member, with all proceeds from the sale of posters re-invested into the project. 2-UP aims to produce low-cost multiples in large editions, guided by the idea that the value of art can exist independently of money and irrespective of rarity.

www.twoup.org serves as a record of the project that includes images of each month’s poster and documentation of the collaborative process.

The fourth installment of 2-UP will feature Ben Dowell and Mores McWreath, and will be available in May 2010.

Initiated by Adam Shecter and Joe Winter, 2-UP is Nathan Lee + Monika Zarzeczna, Davina Semo + Colleen Asper, Ben Dowell + Mores Mcwreath, Cathy Park Hong + Zerek Kempf, Glen Fogel + Craig Kalpakjian, Joe Winter + Christian Hawkey, Cate Marvin + Benjamin Kress, Adam Shecter + Matthea Harvey.

For additional information, please email info@twoup.org