Downtown, Los Angeles
Jordan Rountree
I Hear a New World
Baert GalleryBaert Gallery is pleased to present I Hear a New World, Jordan Rountree's first solo exhibition with the gallery. I Hear a New World stages a multidisciplinary, multi-sensory space that combines woodcut prints, woodblocks, radio art, music, text on paper, video installation, and performance. The images and audio recordings depict scenes of tempestuous lovers, solitary figures disappearing into nature, and nocturnal revelers seeking solace in music, all drawn from the artist's own life and memory. Rountree treats language as a material with which to sculpt reality: carved into wood or incarnated in live performance. I Hear a New World includes the sixth and latest entry in Rountree's ongoing Chthonic Archive series of performances formally inspired by the traditions of 14th century Japanese Noh and early 20th century American radio dramas. The performance, featuring Rountree alongside Butoh dancer and artist, Crystal Sasaki, is being documented during the exhibition's opening. A text by author Jack Skelley accompanies the exhibition. The Chthonic Archive can be heard on Spotify and all major streaming platforms, and excerpts can be viewed on YouTube. Jordan Rountree (b. 1990, Paris, France) began his visual art training at the Ateliers du Carrousel programme in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. After spending three years studying life drawing and traditional art making techniques, his initiation into performance matured from working under the artist practices of Jasmin Blasco and Cyprien Gaillard; he later performed in Terence Koh’s “Adansonias” (2008) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. In 2015, Rountree established his own studio practice in Los Angeles, where he uses Surrealist literary techniques to produce multidisciplinary works, primarily working in text, radio art, woodcuts, and performance. He is based in Los Angeles and represented by Baert Gallery.