Empirical Imperatives

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Empirical Imperatives
May 11th – June 8th, 2019

Leon is demonstrating its commitment to promoting performance art through an intensive five weeks series of events featuring some of the best and brightest performance artists of the Denver art community. 

Ben Youngstone + Henry Maximillian McCall 
Charles Livingston  
Jared David Paul Anderson 
Esther Hernandez 
The Flinching Eye Collective

Leon is proud to announce their upcoming performance art series, Empirical Imperatives, an exploration of the immediacy and visceral nature of performance art, celebrating artists who are actively engaging our community, challenging our notions of art viewing, and broadening our artistic experiences. The series is taking place from May 11th – June 8th, 2019. Each successive Saturday night at 7pm, the gallery will become the stage for each of these unique and innovative artists from within our Denver scene, who are exploring a variety of performance art styles, and expressing authentic, individual statements. The artists presenting include 

Ben Youngstone + Henry Maximillian McCall

Charles Livingston

Jared David Paul Anderson

Esther Hernandez

and collaborative artists The Flinching Eye Collective  

Saturday, May 11th, 7-10pm Ben Youngstone + Maximillian McCall
Saturday, May 18th, 7-10pm Charles Livingston
Saturday, May 25th, 7-10pm Jared David Paul Anderson
Saturday, June 1st, 7-10pm Esther Hernandez
Saturday, June 8th, 7-10pm The Flinching Eye Collective
 
All performances will take place approximately at 8pm each evening. Length of program varies with each artist. Refreshments and conversations occurring before and after the programming. We encourage our visitors to this series to consider donating $5 or more at the door, so that we may give 100% of the proceeds to our performing artists. 
 

Empirical Imperatives Exhibition Schedule: 
 
Saturday, May 11th– Ben Youngstone + Henry Maximillian McCall– Untitled.
Untitled is an exploration of the themes of repetition and stagnation through the lens of movement. We all have interior worlds that are easy to get caught within and habits that can erode the spontaneity of life. The impetus to go outside a comfort zone can come from within or from outside forces and we are looking to investigate what factors can bring this about. Using physical and verbal patterns as well as projected film elements, the artists will take the audience outside of the realm of their everyday while exploring the dancer’s own personal habits. Ben + Henry look to create a unique experience for the audience while challenging themselves to both embrace and reject the improvisational habits that we have built over a lifetime of rehearsed dance.
 
Saturday, May 18th – Charles Livingston –Catalyst 1,542,384 
Catalyst 1,542,384 is a performance/installation whereby Charles hand cut over 1,500,000 slices of bicycle inner tubes. Viewers are encouraged at any time to sit and take pieces of the tube, count how many they remove, record the number, sign, and date the ledger. Charles counts every slice and keeps a separate ledger. The number of slices changes with each performance as viewers take pieces and he adds. Catalyst 1,542,384 can be viewed as a catalyst for change and evolution through a process. A transformation from one state to a different state of being. From a micro to a macro scale through accretion and accumulation similar to how nature constructs. It is a metaphor for the interconnection between all things. A shared experience that allows for an awakening to our place and potential in the world. Living with manufactured plastics and synthetics is part of our everyday experience. Plastics and synthetics have been co-opted into the landscape, an undesired evolution of our nature. Using discard rubber addresses this chemically induced nature and environmental problem. This synthetic landscape is also represent in the synthesized sounds used to enhance a meditative state during the performance. 

Saturday, May 25th – Jared David Paul Anderson– The Primordial Playground
The Primordial Playground has been experienced in a cave, in the alley and in the next episode, in a gallery.  This is a concept where the observers of art become the creators of art through means of spontaneous actions while invoking a deep dig into the marrow of primal psyche. We will be better off after this primitive art performance as it will ready us all to prepare for when the gadgetry goes dark.  If the world had lost its’ vessels of technology that shackle today, we still, as a race of beings, must create art, with anti-technology.   

Saturday, June 1st – Esther Hernandez– née trance
The nature of the audience will be renegotiated through a series of movements, sounds and instructions in a three part performance that revisits and reworks an old fluxus score from the fluxus performance workbook. The performance, titled née trance is about being entranced by the past, and inspired by the work of the family of artists who came before!
 
Saturday, June 8th –The Flinching Eye Collective– Sticky Metal
For Sticky Metal, a new performance at Leon Gallery, members of the Flinching Eye Collective will present an entanglement of Post utilitarian humans fixing (or causing) problems no one asked to be fixed.

 
Every performance will be documented through video and still photography, thanks to Guilio Vallada D’Amore