FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Radical Cheerleader artists Nicole Gugliotti and Agatha Wara Romero stage "This Means War," a sculptural installation and performance at new alternative art space the Bas Fisher Invitational

Opening reception: October 14th, 7-10PM
Closing reception: November 11th, 7-10PM
Design District Second Thursdays

Miami, FL - As the precarious November elections loom ahead, artists and activists Nicole Gugliotti and Agatha Wara Romero are staging a performance in a life sized sculptural installation of a gas station convenience store and a Hummer SUV. This exhibition, "This Means War," is a fun yet pointed political investigation into America's preoccupation with convenience, comfort, and gas.

Convenience

The artists will recreate an entire convenience store, including cashier's box, gasoline pumps and merchandise, built entirely out of cardboard. There will be a video projection and the artists will perform opening and closing nights.

The video will set the chronology for the performance, showing the artists in a real gas station (the one used as the model) arriving for work, customers at the pump, and traffic on US 1. The performance will feature the artists working the register (merchandise will be for sale) and conversing about politics and everyday matters in a casual manner.

Agatha says "We'll be mimicking real life, the powerful and the banal will occur in the same sentence..."

"The installation is about what gas and convenience mean politically, what the implications are for others, it is not about gas station culture" says Nicole.

They are using cardboard from Wal-Mart to create their work. Reusing materials from a huge corporation that epitomizes consumer culture, they are taking their trash and making something meaningful from it. They do not want to create more than was already there.

Comfort.

There is a part of us that subconsciously prefers big bright corporations over less predictable mom and pop shops. There is safety in familiarity, security in convenience and that comfort and security are so important to us we are willing to turn a blind eye to what occurs in the name of getting it.

Gas.

This Means War.

Nicole Gugliotti was the co-organizer of 2001's Radical Womyn's Art Show in West Palm Beach and has been a long time participant with Lake Worth Radical Cheerleaders, performing in various street actions such as the International Monetary Fund and Republican National Convention protests, as well as part of and "Publikulture," at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art in 2000.

Agatha Wara Romero is the co-founder of the all girl art collective Las Cabronas. Her artwork has been featured in numerous exhibitions such as the last show at Miami's alternative art space "The House," and is presently in "The Presidency," at Exit Art, New York.

Gugliotti and Romero are both recent graduates of FAU's art program.