On Friday, April 30, FLATFILEcontemporary will open Advise & Dissent. The show will feature mixed media installations by Frederick Holland and photography by Lewis Koch. The exhibit marks the first anniversary of the gallery.

Frederick Holland, who received his BA from the University of Illinois and is now an Adjunct Professor at the School of the Art Institute, has shown in a variety of venues in Chicago, New York, Michigan, and Oregon. Prior to joining the FLATFILE stable, Holland has shown with the gallery as a guest artist. His work has been reviewed in the Chicago Tribune, the Sun Times, New Art Examiner, and Artforum. In the ARTFORUM review, Donald Kuspit relayed that the sculptural objects Holland was showing at in a two-person show at Deven Golden Fine Art were enigmatic, evocative objects and relics of some forgotten ritual, or ornaments of some new one. Holland's current work is far more political in nature, and now might be more aptly described as provocative than evocative, but it is certain that Holland would never settle for creating art that does not incite thought, not only upon viewing, but for a long time after.

Lewis Koch's work was once described in these words by writer Michael Wm Doyle: Absolutely brilliant! His (Koch's) camera's eye is like a fist that punches the daylights out of the nightmares we call life. His word shots are the ransom note we write to death. Koch was educated at Copenhagen University in Denmark, Beloit College, and ICP/NYU and the Educational Alliance in New York. Koch has shown in Belgium, The Netherlands, the UK, Canada, Denmark, and across the US. He has received a variety of awards and grants, as well as several artist-in-residence grants. Koch has been written about in half a dozen languages, and has work in over 50 private and public collections including Bank One, Chicago and Tokyo, the Biblioteque National, Paris, Deutsche Bank, New York and Frankfurt, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Corcoran, Washington, DC, and the MCA and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago.