Five Master Artists from NY showing - "Defeat The Future" downtown Vegas!

Defeat the Future - Artist Talk Wednesday Feb 1st 7 pm

Today at 6:00pm until March 10 at 6:00pm

The Contemporary Arts Center, Las Vegas (CAC) is pleased to present to you “Defeat the Future”, a group show featuring the work of five master New York artists: Antonio Serna, Chad Stayrook, Naoko Wowsugi, Richard Wager and being curated by UNLV, MFA graduate, Yo Fukui. This show is presented in partnership with the CAC as a cultural exchange of ideas between five artists working in different genres. “Defeat the Future” incorporates video installation, paintings, sculptural installation, photography, and performance art and highlights dynamic initiatives in culture and the arts currently at work in the margins of the art world and in American society.

The distinctive impressions from these five different artists are unified through the theme of an impractical story. The artist in the role of the warrior trying to defeat an imaginary monster that we all have a tendency to create at times in our minds, the “Future”.

Artists Bios:

Curator, Yo Fukui, born in Shiga, Japan and now living and working as an artist in New York, received a BFA in Ceramics from Kansas City Art Institute and his MFA in sculpture from the University of Nevada, Las Vega in 2008. He left his mark on the local Las Vegas art scene before leaving in 2009 with such shows as; I Love you no matter The World is Destroyed, Clark County Government Center and I’m gonna live ‘til I died, Donna Beam Gallery. Like the pursuit of a romance, an impractical delusion is Fukui’s aesthetic philosophy. “I make objects that are provocative, deductive, enigmatic. My work is about an ideal, a mythology: a utopia.”

Antonio Serna, a visual artist who is constantly comparing and contrasting the human idea of progress with the animal instinct of survival, obtained his BFA at the Parsons School of Design and an MFA at Brooklyn College (CUNY). He has exhibited in New York, Spain, Mexico, Amsterdam and has also taught and lectured at Parsons School of Design, St. Johns University, and at Brooklyn College as a teaching fellow. He has worked on various projects with seminal artistic New York figures such as Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, and Trisha Brown.

Chad Stayrook received his B.F.A. in Sculpture from Ohio University and his M.F.A. in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute and has exhibited extensively throughout the US in New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. and internationally in the UK, Netherlands, and South Korea. He’s taught at Sarah Lawrence College, San Francisco Art Institute, and the Columbus Museum of Art. He is currently Gallery Director and Curator for the Bronx River Art Center and also a founding member of the Bandwagon artist collective.

Naoko Wowsugi, a Korean- Japanese visual artist, works with photography, video, and performance. She received her BFA from both Osaka University of the Arts, Japan and the Kansas City Art Institute and her MFA in photography and film at VCU in Richmond, VA. She has exhibited in numerous locations throughout Japan and the United States.

Richard Wager is a conceptual performance artist based in New York City. He received a BFA from the University of Arizona and his MFA in sculpture from SUNY Albany. Wagner has exhibited throughout New York at venues including Chashama, Exit Art, University of Albany Museum, ABC No Rio, Sara Meltzer Gallery, Empire State College, and Postmasters. He has also engaged in a variety of conceptual performances in New York City; Brooklyn, NY; and Hoboken, NJ.

February 1st, 2012 - March 10th, 2012

Artist’s Talks: February 1st, 2012 - 6:00pm-8:00pm (Artist talks begin at 7pm)

Opening Reception: Preview Thursday, February 2, 2012, 6:00pm - 8:00pm

First Friday, February 3, 2012, 6:00pm - 10:00pm

Contemporary Arts Center, Las Vegas

107 East Charleston Blvd., Suite 120, Las Vegas, NV 89104