Curated by Joshua Bienko and Chase Westfall
March 18, 2016 – May 6, 2016
Opening Reception: Friday, March 18, 7-9pm
Tuesday – Friday, 1-5pm and by appointment

Ortega y Gasset Projects and Gallery Protocol are pleased to present Always Already Here, Vol. 2 a mixtape/album release featuring music by Neil Bender, Sean Joseph Patrick Carney, Angela Dufresne, Dan Baker Smith, Ann Catherine Carter (Lavender), CYNE, Black Galaxy Entertainment, Phrogz (Jennifer Coates and David Humphrey), Peter Cotroneo, Folkert de Jong, ShaRa Lunon, SpectroFeeder, Matthew Drutt, Angela Dufresne, Rubens Ghenov, Fritz Horstman, K’Swizz featuring Texas Trigg (Kirsten Bryant and Thomas Storey), MSHR (Brenna and Birch), Ross Simonini (Blood Pillow with Andrew Leland), Ross Simonini (New Villager with Ben Bromley), Dominic Terlizzi, Joshua Bienko, Zahar Vaks, and Roy Vastenburg.

The gallery will include work by Neil Bender, Ann Catherine Carter, Peter Cotroneo, Angela Dufresne, Lynne Ghenov, JJ Miyaoka-Pikola, MSHR, Maritza Ranero, Allison Shulnik, Thomas Storey, Matthew Whitehead, Roy Vastenburg, David Humphrey, Jennifer Coates, Folkert de Jong, Ross Simonini and performances on the opening night organized Hilary White. The album and the exhibition are co-curated by Joshua Bienko (Ortega y Gasset Projects) and Chase Westfall (Gallery Protocol).
In Thurston Moore’s Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture, Matias Veigner writes:
“The mix tape is a form of American folk art: predigested cultural artifacts combined with homespun technology and magic marker turn the mix tape into a message in a bottle. I am no mere consumer of pop culture, it says, but also a producer of it. Mix tapes mark the moment of consumer culture in which listeners attained control over what they heard, in what order and at what cost."
Artist-run spaces can be thought of as ‘take backs’ or ‘reclamations’ of the exhibition space in the same way that mix tapes are/were remixes of predigested cultural artifacts. Artists in the role of “curator” (or “artist-first-curator where curating is an additional mode of thinking) have a relationship to the mix tape creator. The goal is consistent. The spirit is paralell. The parameters of success are expanded.
The music that makes up Always Already Here, Vol. 2 is wide ranging. Contributing artists recorded in bedrooms, painting studios, parking garages… everything from professional recording facilities to quite literally (in the case of Dominic Terlizzi’s contribution) the kitchen sink. There is a specific spirit to this artistic output. It’s risky. It’s nervous. It’s difficult to positively, strictly define. The offerings might be considered evidence of what Derrida called “trace,” if evidence of “trace” is indeed considered possible. Trace is an always already absent present. Heidegger argued that Dasein (one’s presence, or existence) anticipates; in the same way that Derrida felt drawing precipitates. In drawing, the head (via the hand) rushes out it front of cognition; in the same way that a blind man’s hand ventures forth out in front to protect the corporeal body
The origin of drawing, or if you prefer the thought of a drawing, a certain pensive pose, a memory of the trait that speculates as in a dream about its own possibility… drawing’s potency always develops on the brink of blindness, for the hand ventures forth, it precipitates (PRAE – CAPUT = FIRST HEAD), rushes ahead, certainly, but this time in place of the hand, as if to precede, prepare, and protect it. -Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind

Art making relies then, according to Derrida, on a certain kind of blindness. The work is always out ahead of us, out of the range of our ability to see it, out ahead of our ability to positively, strictly define it.
The work that makes up the exhibition at Gallery Protocol and the consequent mix tape/album is similarly ahead of the head. The songs, paintings and objects select are ahead of ideological capture. They are out in front of or ahead of themselves. This concept of being out ahead, or the capacity to be ahead of one’s self is what Heidegger calls “Always Already.” Always Already Here, Vol. 2 is a purposeful exercise in trace. The trace is, “the nonmeaning that is inevitably brought to mind along with the meaning.” Always Already Here, Vol. 2 aims to resist in the same way that Slavoj Zizek is dogmatically Lacanian (which is to dogmatically reject dogmatism). The music and the work that comprise the exhibition are out ahead of their own reasoning. They signal work to be done. They signal collective commitments to Socratic questioning. They signal blind leaps TO faith that were always already here.
Gallery Protocol is a contemporary art gallery located in Gainesville, FL. Founded in 2013, Gallery Protocol operates in support of contemporary visual arts and artists in North Florida and beyond.
Ortega y Gasset Projects is an artist-run curatorial collective and exhibition space in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Our programming is motivated by a collective desire to sustain artistic vitality, whereby artists take the role of curator, critic, and promoter, (or in this case, producer, musician, and hype-man). Working without specific intentions of commercial profit or an explicit curatorial ideology, the goal of OyG is to mount exhibitions that provoke interpretation and dialogue. There is a DIY ethos that seeks to antagonize the space between rampant consumerism and content production. The release of Always Already Here, Vol. 2 is, in part, related to the genesis and working methodology of the artists that run OyG.

For press inquiries please contact joshuabienko@gmail.com and charlesawestfall@gmail.com