Larry and Debby Kline artists and provocateurs – installation, performances, and other works

“COFAC Premiers “The Candy Store: Dispensing Truth” – Pasadena / San Gabriel Valley News Journal, Oct. 29 – Nov. 4, 2009

Pasadena / San Gabriel Valley News Journal, Vol X1X Number 44, October 29 – November 4, 2009

COFAC Premiers “The Candy Store: Dispensing Truth”
Written by AS WE SPEAK By Dr. Gerda Govine Ituarte

Consejo Fronterizo de Arte y Cultura (COFAC)/Border Council of Arts and Culture (www.cofac101.org) based in Pasadena and Tijuana, Mexico unveils the work of internationally acclaimed artists Debby and Larry Kline.

Artists/Collaborators Debby and Larry Kline identify themselves as “provocateurs” who are constantly looking for ways to weigh in on social issues. Their work is about promoting dialogue and engagement by raising questions and helping people pay attention to specific things. For example, they created a piece entitled “The Game at Hand” with chess pieces representing American culture on one side and on the other side identical women with burkas, a loose garment usually with veiled holes for the eyes, worn by Muslim women especially in India and Pakistan. This Game traveled from 2004-2008 around the country creating all kinds of responses from anger to humor, at times entertaining and poignant, where two strangers sat down to talk and play. The Klines believe that the challenge and beauty of art is to get people to come together to discuss something important. The dialogue was not about them, the Klines; it was about the different emotions people projected onto the Game which ties into their upcoming exhibit.

Their new installation, “The Candy Store: Dispensing Truth,” as explained by Debby and Larry Kline, is a retail space that houses “inconsumable products” made out of controlled substances (e.g. tobacco Teddy Bears and Vioxx ceramic candies) adding meaningful visual spectacle and humor to the dialogue surrounding healthcare issues and bridging boundaries between art, science, sociology and activism.” They also poke at the escalating trend of United States residents crossing borders to buy medication from Mexico and Canada that they cannot afford to buy in the States. These two artists believe that they can change the world one exhibit at a time. The Klines tend to use humor in their work quite often as one way to diffuse anger and frustration around difficult issues. Hopefully, they make it more palatable so that instead of someone screaming, helping them in oddly beautiful, or funny ways to realize that underneath there is a deeper meaning. Check out their video at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/230960898/the-candy-store-send-a-medicine-show-art-exhibiti.

“The Candy Store: Dispensing the Truth” opens on Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. and runs through November 21, 2009 at Cofac’s La Casa del Tunel: Art Center (www.lacasadeltunelartcenter.org) located in Tijuana 50 feet from the San Diego-San Ysidro Tijuana border crossing. I asked the Klines why they chose to exhibit in the Center Tijuana. They said, “The venue at La Casa del Tunel, is an apropos location considering the hordes of US citizens who cross the border to save money on less expensive prescription medications. The added facet of a drug-smuggling tunnel transformed into a cultural venue transformed into a drug store makes the project even more significant, meaningful, timely and edgy.” On November 7, 2009 at 4:00 p.m. there will be a roundtable discussion focused on questions raised by the exhibition at the Center by the Klines, a pharmacist, a physician and an advocate for medical marijuana. The discussion is free and open to all members of the bi-national community.

Debby and Larry Kline have resided in San Diego for over 20 years. They began to collaborate in 2000. They possess a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Herron School of Art affiliated with Indiana University, Debby in painting and sculpture and Larry in painting. Larry graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a Masters in Fine Arts. They are Members of Public Address and Jurors for the Annual Best Fest Film Festival, (College and high school students from all over the world compete in the largest festival in the country), scheduled for November 2009 in San Diego. The Klines curated exhibitions at the Jewish Community Center in La Jolla (Gotthelf Gallery), Oceanside Museum of Art and several other smaller venues around the City. They lectured at University of California San Diego, California State University San Marcos and Southwestern University. Their solo exhibits in 2009 were at the California Center for the Arts, the Museum on the Seam in Jerusalem and the First annual “Beyond the Border Contemporary Art Fair” in San Diego. They have been featured in both fine arts and mainstream magazines and were nominated for Headlands Center for the Arts prestigious Bridge Residency. The Klines were awarded three grants from The Gunk Foundation in New York and a grant from the Potrero Nuevo Fund in San Francisco for their unusual approach to art in public spaces. For more information go to: www.jugglingklines.com or Dekline1@yahoo.com.

“The Candy Store: Dispensing Truth,” Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.

Roundtable Discussion, Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 4:00 p.m.

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