Branch Gallery is pleased to present its summer exhibitions, "Casa de Carton" and "Up Against the Wall: Ilka Hartmann", opening Friday, June 20, 2008.

"Casa de Carton" features a range of works by eight artists from across the United States representing various generations. The title of the exhibition alludes to the early twentieth-century prose "La Casa de Carton" (the cardboard house) by Peruvian writer, Martin Adán, whose seminal text captured a day in the life of the multi-landscapes in Lima seen through his idiosyncratic lens. The exhibition investigates the participating artists’ diverse, yet like-minded understanding of presence in clashed environments through sparse drawings and sculpture.

In conjunction with "Casa de Carton", Branch Gallery will present "Up Against the Wall", an exhibition of photographs by Ilka Hartmann, curated by artist William Cordova. Since emerging from the political momentum of the 1960s while still a student in the Northern California Bay Area, German-born and American-based photographer Ilka Hartmann has attracted international attention for her poetic ability to record the quotidian—whether encountered on the street or the most personal corners of daily life—in new and compelling ways through images layered in meaning. In this exhibition, vintage prints and other ephemera (including newspapers, magazines, and an assortment of literature provided by the base Collective) will be on view—a whole milieu of imagery featuring revolutionary organizations like the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, I Wor Kuen, and the United Farm Workers.