SAN DIEGO, CA.- On November 10, Four Walls will stage a highly innovative performance art piece that turns the public into voyeurs of an artist portfolio review process taking place inside the gallery. Titled Formalities and Casualties, the performance is a joint effort by internationally exhibited artists and collaborators, Larry Caveney and Tim McGraw, which will result in an exhibition of the finalist’s work at the gallery through December 5, 2007.

In lieu of an opening reception, which the gallery would typically hold during Ray at Night -- San Diego’s largest art walk, drawing over 1,500 visitors -- Four Walls will be closed that evening so panelists can review “bodies” of artists’ work inside the window-front gallery space. Although the activity unfolding within will be completely visible to passersby from the sidewalk and street, the sense of transparency will be extended through a relay of strategically placed rear-view mirrors, similar to those used in passenger vehicles or handed to clients in beauty salons.

Deploying the format of artist portfolio review to critique and recuperate art world practices of image validation and representation, Formalities and Casualties highlights the staginess of protocol, questions the standards of expertise, and combines scripted performance with random variables such as personal chemistry and happenstance. The resulting exhibition awarded to the finalist will interweave transitory elements of artifice and artifact that foster multiple readings of art persona.

Larry Caveney is the Academic Director of Foundation Studies at the Art Institute of California - San Diego , where he is also an art instructor. Caveney earned an MFA from Vermont College, understudied with renowned performance artists Steve Kurtz and Sharon Hayes, and has exhibited locally and internationally for many years. Caveney’s collaborative approach and unassuming sense of humor often lends itself to reversals in dynamics or removal of distinctions between an audience and a work of art as seen in his video, “Art Opening Intervention,” of 2007, which may be viewed at http://video.saatchigallery.com/artist/profile/29296/Larry+Caveney/LarryCaveney.html.

Tim McGraw earned a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts and an MFA from Union Institute and University, which merged with Vermont College during the period when he and Caveney began working together. McGraw’s practice incorporates social dynamics and game theory into meticulously engineered site-specific immersive narratives that take place in streets, homes, and the lives of a select few participants. These customized experiences examine variances of power between the private realm and public space, explore collaboration and isolation, and suggest new kinds of exchanges within an individual’s everyday existence.

Reinventing Ray Street with each and every show, Four Walls presents thoughtfully conceived exhibitions of local and international artists, which have increasingly garnered the positive attention of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Art Week, San Diego City Beat, El Latino, and other publications.

Gallery Hours: The gallery is free and open to the public Thursdays and Fridays, 11: 00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., and is also open by appointment.