Events

NEW YORK, NY (March 9, 2009) — Jonathan LeVine Gallery is proud to present Paperweight, a solo exhibition of new works by Phil Frost. For his first show at the gallery, Frost has created a new series of works on paper, including paintings and original drawings. As his first exhibition in New York in the past three years, Paperweight marks a highly anticipated event for this celebrated artist.

Using mediums such as ink, aerosol, gouache and oils, beneath a layer of correction fluid, Frost has been known to paint elaborate installations on found objects such as baseball bats, windowpanes, and old barn doors. Oscillating between modernist design and primitivism, abstraction and representation, Frost’s work is tied together cohesively by his signature top-layer of crisp white patterning—remarkably drawn free-hand with a correction fluid pen, without the use of stencils. This white-out element often appears to form a code or language, composed of letters, hearts, dots and mask-like faces, reminiscent of tribal and indigenous art. These symbols, which the artist refers to as “glyphic distinctions,” are painted on top of heavily textured backgrounds. The overall effect is a masking yet highlighting of negative space, like a delicate lace of personal faith and truth, veiling the decay of humanity. Frost’s deep pantheistic spirituality is expressed through imagery such as in the open-heart motif, which represents the surrender of self to a higher purpose. 

NEW YORK, NY (March 9, 2009) — Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to announce Hindi Love Song, a solo exhibition of new works by Gary Taxali. For his fist solo show in New York, the artist has created a series of mixed-media paintings and sculptures in what will be his largest collection of original work to date, both in quantity and in scale. Highly explorative when it comes to application methods, Taxali combines layers of collaged materials and silk-screening techniques. His images are produced using a variety of mediums—ink, oil, acrylic, enamel, and gouache—applied to a number of different surfaces including: paper, plywood, masonite, steel, aluminum, and vintage book covers.

Hindi Love Song features Taxali’s anachronistic aesthetic, evoking nostalgia for an era before his own time. Expanding upon his signature style, works in the show feature playful imagery inspired by vintage animation and packaging, often combining the artist’s hand-rendered typography with geometric patterns to compliment his figures. In a Los Angeles Times review, Holly Myers wrote: "The work of Gary Taxali takes a basically juvenile bibliophilic impulse—doodling in the leaves of borrowed books—to a more artistically sophisticated level. There is an appealing sense of play, drawn from childhood but supported by a mature iconographic sensibility."

An award-winning illustrator, Taxali’s process in creating commercial work remains void of digital assistance (a rare trait in an increasingly electronic industry) which perhaps has led to the appeal and stylistic development of his retro-looking visuals. The same is true of his approach to gallery work, which is based on a deep love of drawing and hands-on printmaking methods. Taxali’s subjects, with their minimalist yet exaggerated facial expressions and gestures, are painted in flat color onto found materials and other non-traditional canvases. Some of his characters have been created in three-dimensional form, first as a series of vinyl figures, and later in fiberglass. For this show, one of Taxali’s reoccurring characters makes his debut appearance as a limited edition bronze sculpture. Gary Taxali’s new line of limited edition gold and porcelain cufflinks, produced by Hobbs & Kent, will also be on view and available for purchase during the exhibition.

Todd Schorr—Book Signing Event on Saturday, 10/10/09

Previously Exhibited Artist Todd Schorr will be having a book signing event here at the gallery for his newly released monograph American Surreal this Saturday, 10/10/2009, from 3—5pm.

Please join us!

American Surreal
Todd Schorr
Published by Last Gasp
10" x 15" Quarterbound
120 full-color pages
$39.95

jonathanlevinegallery.com

jonathanlevinegallery.com

This major career retrospective on Tim Burton (American, b. 1958), consisting of a gallery exhibition and a film series, considers Burton's career as a director, producer, writer, and concept artist for live-action and animated films, along with his work as a fiction writer, photographer and illustrator. Following the current of his visual imagination from early childhood drawings through his mature work, the exhibition presents artwork generated during the conception and production of his films, and highlights a number of unrealized projects and never-before-seen pieces, as well as student art, his earliest non-professional films, and examples of his work as a storyteller and graphic artist for non-film projects. The opposing themes of adolescence and adulthood, and the elements of sentiment, cynicism, and humor inform his work in a variety of mediums—drawings, paintings, storyboards, digital and moving-image formats, puppets and maquettes, props, costumes, ephemera, sketchbooks, and cartoons. Taking inspiration from sources in pop culture, Burton has reinvented Hollywood genre filmmaking as a spiritual experience, influencing a generation of young artists working in film, video, and graphics. 

Director, producer, writer, and artist Tim Burton makes a personal appearance in conjunction with his major career retrospective at MoMA, signing copies of the Tim Burton exhibition catalogue, as well as the newly published The Art of Tim Burton, a comprehensive, 434-page compilation of forty years of Burton’s artistry. 

The signing takes place in MoMA Books, on the second floor of the Museum. Museum admission is required for entry. Both books will be available onsite at MoMA Books and the MoMA Design and Book Store. No other books or collectibles will be signed at this event.

Giant Robot is proud to host Paul Hornschemeier and Jay Ryan as they hit the road together in November and December for an extensive book tour to promote their respective new releases, All and Sundry and Animals and Objects In and Out of Water.

Paul Hornschemeier began self-publishing his experimental comics series Sequential in college. Graduating with a degree in Philosophy, he moved to Chicago and began his series Forlorn Funnies, producing the graphic novels Mother, Come Home, The Three Paradoxes, Life with Mr. Dangerous, and the short story and illustration collections Let Us Be Perfectly Clear and All and Sundry. Hornschemeier's work has been translated into multiple languages and won international acclaim and awards, including honors at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. His clients include, Intel, CNN/Mother Industries, the Wall Street Journal, Life magazine, This American Life, Brooks Running, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Books UK, Marvel Entertainment, DC Comics, and Nickelodeon. He currently resides in Chicago, where he is still at work on Forlorn Funnies as well as various illustration, prose, and music projects.

Jay Ryan has been making screen-printed concert posters in Chicago since 1995, and at his own print shop, The Bird Machine, since 1999. Known for his hand-drawn type, humorous animal subjects, and muted color selections, he has worked for thousands of indie bands such as the Melvins, Shellac, Andrew Bird, Fugazi, the Flaming Lips, and the Jesus Lizard, as well as clients like Patagonia Clothing, Converse Shoes, and the BBC. When he's not playing bass in his band, Dianogah, Jay lectures to students and shows his prints at universities and galleries across the US and Europe.

The in-store appearances and book signings by Paul and Jay will take place from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Monday, November 16 at GRNY. For more information about the artist, the Giant Robot stores, or Giant Robot magazine, please contact:

Eric Nakamura
Giant Robot Owner/Publisher
eric@giantrobot.com
(310) 479-7311

myplasticheart presents "Saline" the latest exhibition featuring Atlanta based artist/designer Dosa Kim. Using the canvas as his soap box, Dosa looks at the world he inhabits and uses his medium of choice to give us a glimpse of how he sees society and the world around him. With a very specific point of view and no qualms about sharing it, Dosa skillfully expresses his thoughts and perspective metaphorically through his work. Please join us at the opening reception on December 18th from 6-9PM. Dosa will be in attendance to chat and discuss his work.

http://myplasticheartnyc.com

N/A v0.0, a group exhibition curated by Sidhant Bhagchandani, features the works of Amanda Wong, Bernarde & Muxtchefaire, CHOKRA and Warra Hugh. N/A v0.0 is a surface zero iteration of the reversible non applicable/non available art gallery group show sequence. It imbibes fractured notions of collectives and curatorial vision as traditional constituents for emerging N/A spaces. N/A v0.0 is essentially a deliberate delineation of the “non” as a self-reversing exercise that declares “all that isn’t, as is.”

Giant Robot is proud to host Playful Extremities, a group show featuring new works by Louise Chen, Hellen Jo, Sara Antoinette Martin, Tran Nguyen, and Sylvia Park.

Although Louise Chen is freshly graduated from UC Santa Cruz's art program, her work is uncommonly diverse and realized. She transfers the clean, effortless lines of her etchings and woodcuts to her drawing, seamlessly inserting them into otherworldly landscapes rendered with equal craft and tremendous atmosphere.

Hellen Jo was born in Starkville, MS in 1983 and lived in Florida and New Mexico, but is firmly entrenched in Northern California, where she plays in indie bands and makes indie comics. Her style is loose but attentive--as evidenced in her full-color issues of Jin & Jam, which combine the raw humor and honesty of underground comix with the precision of alternative manga.

Brooklyn-based Sara Antoinette Martin takes familiar subjects of cryptozoology, symbols of Freemasonry, and tattoo flash art and presents them in highly graphic and surreal forms. The bold arrangement of commonly-known-but-mysterious imagery forces viewers to revisit their preconceptions about truth, legend, and aesthetics.

The surreal art of Tran Nguyen has a faded, antique look, but the subjects are timeless.The Savannah, GA-based artist depicts young, beautiful subjects in dark settings--surrounded by melancholy and/or ectoplasm, if not actually emitting them from their pores. The effect is strangely hypnotic and hauntingly beautiful.

Sylvia Park is a New York City-based artist who depicts an imperfect real world with perfect lines. Using only contours, she is able to create out hyper real scenes with depth and feeling. Her precision line work is highly effective for editorial purposes publications, but wavers just enough to convey subtle emotion and urge closer viewing in a gallery setting.

Giant Robot was born as a Los Angeles-based magazine about Asian, Asian-American, and new hybrid culture in 1994, but has evolved into a full-service pop culture provider with shops and galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City, as well as an online equivalent.

A reception featuring many of the artists will be held from 6:30 to 10:00 on Saturday, January 16. For more information about the artists, GRNY, or Giant Robot magazine

http://farmanigallery.com/en/upcoming.php

Opening February 25th, Owls Have More Fun is a solo show of works by Danish artist Lisa Grue featuring the artist's bold and exuberant nature illustrations on custom-made wallpaper, handprinted porcelain plates, and more. Lisa, known for her playful and sometimes shocking illustrations that mix girlishness with feminism, puts her spin on owl and nature motifs, surrounding viewers with a magical world via domestic objects.

The show will comprise a large, custom-made wallpaper, 100 handprinted porcelain plates, and a rug, all customized with Lisa's black and white illustrations that mix owls, flowers, and words. Limited-edition prints will also be available.

Lisa's powerful and fun illustrations remind viewers to never forget the magic in everyday life. In addition, they make a statement to girls and women that wisdom and beauty go hand in hand. And of course, Lisa's artwork reminds us all to love and take care of our natural world.

Please join us and the artist for a cozy opening with (limited!) owl goody giveaways on Thursday, February 25th, at 7-9 pm!

In conjunction with this show, gallery hanahou is asking owl-lovers everywhere to share their own owl artwork in the new gallery hanahou Flickr group. We already have some wonderful owls posted - keep them coming!

galleryhanahou.com

RSVP: info@galleryhanahou.com

This March, Factory Fresh welcomes heliumcowboy artspace of Hamburg, Germany as we partner to presents the art of Boris Hoppek & Alex Diamond. Our two galleries will bring together German Artist Boris Hoppek & transient Alex Diamond’s work as they have received increasing international popularity in recent years. These artists have exhibited in solo and group shows in museums, galleries, festivals and art fairs in Europe as well as in the US. In a joint effort the artist will show new works on paper and Boris has promised an up the skirt installation.

Boris Hoppek, has been an acclaimed name in the Graffiti-world since the late eighties, more recently he has become an outstanding talent within the contemporary art scene. By thematizing sexuality, violence, racism and oppression in a very clean and accurate style, the artist isolates provocative themes for contemplation. Since 2004, the heliumcowboy artspace has exhibited his works in three solo shows and on diverse art fairs. In Basel and Miami 2007, Hoppek set up huge interactive cardboard installations at SCOPE, and today he is one of the most prominent European artists coming from a background in Street Art/Graffiti. For SCOPE Basel 2008, Hoppek was invited to convert the water taxis commuting across the Rhine into floating artworks, bringing his narrative potential away from the constrictions of a traditional booth scenario onto the water.

Alex Diamond is unseizable as a person and difficult to categorize as an artist, he is more fantasy than reality. His main issue always centres around his work and its presentation, but never around the personality of an individual. Alex Diamond appears always as a new and different creation of a role or character with every one of his shows. Not limited by a CV, a formative education or even a dedicated technique or style, Alex Diamond constantly develops a new specific presence for the “Artist behind the work“. Alex Diamond is an artist who apparently lives solely through the art he creates – and vice versa. He plays mind tricks with visual aids, pleasing at one moment, disturbing in the next. Independent from styles and techniques, he mirrors life and our constant fight for possession, superiority, survival and love in an almost nonchalant way. Having focused on his project Being Alex Diamond for the last year and a half (and of which also a catalogue has been published lately), the artist will now present a whole new body of drawings at Factory Fresh.

Hooray for the dreamers - the luckless and the odd balls. The old-timers, life-timers, the ground-breakers and the pioneers. Hey ho to the subway performers toiling away night and day and all those who paint their passion on the streets. Not on TV, not profiled in a magazine maybe, not famous - don't care.

Dreams can be big or small - we do what we can to fulfill them. Failure is not in it - not worth thinking about. Do what you love money and the money will follow? Nah - more likely dreams cost money and consume all your free time - everything. But it matters not if you're living a life that is fulfilling in some way every day. This show is a celebration of Living the Dream.

Featured artists: Gary Panter, Kaz Prapolenis, Matt Campbell, Stephen Bliss, Roy Calloway, Travis Millard, Mel Kadel, Karl Wills, John Hobbs, Bill Moulton, John Tymkiv, Yuri Shimojo, Chris Kapuzo, Ted Mcgrath, Reg Mombassa and Markus Oakley.

About the curator: Matt was one of the founding partners of the Riviera Gallery in Williamsburg Brooklyn 2003 - 2008. Originally from NZ, Matt moved to NYC in 1994 after 4 years in Tokyo where he designed, drew or painted on everything he could get his hands on. Although now mostly living in NZ Matt has kept close ties to NYC where he returns often for work art and play. For this show he has put together a collection of his favorite dreamers to represent a theme that is close to his heart.

“Living the Dream,” Group Show curated by Matt Campbell runs March 27 through April 17, 2010, at Fuse Gallery, 93 2nd Ave (between 5th & 6th Sts, 2nd Ave stop on the F), NYC, NY. The opening reception, on Saturday March 27th, from 7 to 10 pm, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Fuse Gallery at 212.777.7988 or fusegall@fusegallerynyc.com.

CHRISTINA RAY is pleased to present Mark Price’s second New York solo exhibition, Designer End Game Strategies. The exhibition includes a series of new works on panel in which the human, the machine and the global city have merged into a broken landscape of crisis. The exhibition opens with a reception on April 22nd, 7–9pm, and runs through May 23rd.

Designer End Game Strategies merges fantasy with reality in the depiction of a contemporary state of emergency induced and performed by an irrational and panicked society. Bodies are sacrificed into abstract remains under the cultural mismanagement of capital and technology. Fluids are exchanged between populations – gold for blood, blood for oil – while actual events are lost and forgotten. The populace becomes generalized and ambiguous as it slips between screens and ruptures at every point. Temporary solutions to problems that cannot be solved have been exhausted as end game strategies become fragile and few. The body now functions as a broken landscape, un-navigable and stuck, devoid of options for resolution.

As Guy Debord noted in his Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, “With the destruction of history, contemporary events themselves retreat into a remote and fabulous realm of unverifiable stories, un-checkable statistics, unlikely explanations and untenable reasoning.” Price grasps this sense of instability as he rips the foundation from his compositions, leaving a spatial casualty of jagged forms in toxic, hyper-saturated hues. In depicting the confused survival efforts of a technology-driven human population, Price’s highly stylized technique hints at the futuristic graphic novel. Yet the narrative of permanent, self-induced catastrophe is flattened – shattered at each turn into a crisp, pop-colored space punctuated with disaster.

Mark Price lives and works in Philadelphia. His work was recently selected by curator Aaron Betsky for inclusion in the internationally recognized Confines exhibition at the Institut Valencia d’Art Modern. Group exhibitions include Peer Pressure at The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and Locally Localized Gravity at The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Price was a member of the Philadelphia-based artist collective Space 1026 from 2004 – 2009.

Please join Bernstein and Andriulli for the launch of Olaf Hajek's first monograph "Flowerhead", published by Gestalten. The book presents his advertising and editorial work, commercial portraits, fashion illustration, as well as never before seen personal art.

Deitch Projects is pleased to present May Day, an exhibition of new work by Shepard Fairey, as its final project. Titled not only in reference to the day of the exhibition’s opening, the multiple meanings of May Dayresonate throughout the artist's new body of work. Originally a celebration of spring and the rebirth it represents, May Day is also observed in many countries as International Worker's Day or Labor Day, a day of political demonstrations and celebrations coordinated by unions and socialist groups. “Mayday” is also the distress signal used by pilots, police and firefighters in times of emergency. 

With energy and urgency befitting the title May Day, Fairey captures the radical spirit of each of his subjects, using portraiture to celebrate some of the artists, musicians and political activists he most admires. Says Fairey, "These people I'm portraying were all revolutionary, in one sense or another. They started out on the margins of culture and ended up changing the mainstream. When we celebrate big steps that were made in the past, it reminds us that big steps can be made in the future." 

Many of the steps Fairey refers to involve the advocacy of the working class, put forth in the songs of Joe Strummer and Woody Guthrie and the writings of Cornel West, and among the works of other heroes portrayed in May Day. International Worker's Day celebrated in nearly 100 countries throughout the world, commemorates the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago when a peaceful rally supporting workers on strike was disrupted by a bomb, and then a barrage of police gunfire. Because of negative sentiment surrounding the incident, U.S. President Grover Cleveland decided it was best to avoid celebrating the day, but it is precisely such sentiment that Fairey believes must be voiced: "It's a day to express frustration with the powers that be, but also a day for activists to pursue ideals." In May Day, he does both, with images supporting free speech and bemoaning the U.S. two party political system, pushing for renewable energy and critiquing corporate propaganda. 

In Fairey's mind, the persistence of difficulties across all of these arenas—political, environmental, economic, cultural—points to that third meaning of May Day: a distress signal. "By now we thought we would be in post-Bush utopia, but we're still having to call attention to these problems,” he remarks. Like any mayday call, however, the sounding of the alarm also brings hope for help on the way. "If we stay silent, there's no hope,” Fairey muses. "But if we make noise, if we put our ideas out there, then maybe we can make a change like the people in the portraits have done." 

Shepard Fairey is the man behind OBEY GIANT, the graphics that have changed the way people see art and the urban landscape. Fairey’s art reached a new level of recognition in 2008, when his “HOPE” portrait of Barack Obama became the iconic image of the presidential campaign and helped inspire an unprecedented political movement. As Shepard Fairey’s body of work reached its 20-year mark in 2009, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston honored him with a full-scale solo retrospective, which drew a record number of visitors for the museum. Entitled Supply and Demand, the exhibition shares its name with Fairey’s career-chronicling book, now in its second edition (Gingko Press). The exhibition traveled to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and will move to the Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, on view through August 22nd, 2010.

Thought provoking Street Artists AVOID pi & infinity team up for their first duo show together entitled Babel Code. Peering through a semiotic Petri dish intermixed with sub-conscious communication, Babel Code uses primitive and mystical sources as well as runic references, which charges the works of art with a power and energy beyond the objects themselves. 

Babel Code challenges the viewer to reconsider the basic notions of communication and cultural mutation, while providing a closer look into the artist’s own techniques of non-verbal interactions. Building upon a symbolic language shared by both artists, their influences range from a resonance of mixed signals and errant transmissions.

Their symbolism ranges from introverted Platonic deliberation and chemical structures to numerology and DNA; anything and everything from hobo marks and astronomy to grammar diagrams and physics equations.

About the Artists
AVOID pi was born the year IBM released the Personal Computer. He was raised in South Carolina, on a diet of freight trains, deep forests, punk rock, and DIY. He moved to the coast on the eve of the millennium to study both graffiti and philosophy among the flooded streets of Charleston. In 2006, he moved to New York in order to interact on a global stage. He is working on a language of abstractions in the public space, as well as empowering the political potentialities of graffiti.HTTP://WWW.AVOIDPI.COM

infinity was born in 1962 in the Midwest. His family moved to Manhattan in 1970. Obsessions with comic books, heavy metal, and graffiti eventually embraced studies in expressionism, semiotics, and the sciences. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin at River Falls in 1986 and The School of Visual Arts in 1989. He has followed an erratic career path, but always continued his aesthetic and scholarly research.

MF Gallery is excited to presentour newest show: "I Need Your Skull", In this show, over 30 international artists were asked to present a piece depicting a human skull... All the money raised from sales of the skull art will be used to build a giant skull on the facade of the MF Gallery building.

Skulls have long been used in art as symbols of mortality, religion, eternal life, rebellion, fear, poison and more. The skulls in "I Need Your Skull" are realized in a variety of different styles and mediums. Photo realistic skulls, gruesome skulls, cartoon skulls, psychedelic skulls, dark skulls and colorful skulls. From morbid to cute, 3D or flat, these skulls are made in a variety of materials from marble to paper; and were created by a group of diverse artists, some who use skulls as the subject matter for their normalwork, and some who were asked to create a skull piece just for this show.

The artists include: Jenny Bird Alcantara, Annie Aube, Nicoz Balboa, Dave Brockie, Candy, Fernando Carpaneda, Gene Coffey, Matt Dickson, Dennis Dread, Kirsten Flaherty, Christina Graf, Guicho, Death Head, Scott Holloway, Lance Laurie, Mike Maas, Drew Maillard, Sarah Antoinette Martin, Angie Mason, Rodrigo Melo, MCA, Chris Peters, Porkchop, Riot Queer, Ed Repka, Lou Rusconi, Frank Russo, John Russo, Martina Secondo Russo, Chad Savage, Anna Semenova, Joe Simko, James Wrona, Genevive Zacconi & More...

Our dream for the new MF Gallery in Brooklyn (A.K.A. The "Fortress MF") has always been to adorn the facade with a 20 foot 3-D skull. Made of fiberglass or a similar material, it will be reminiscent of an old Spook House ride, and would make The Fortress MF an unmissable Brooklyn Landmark! This is a big project that has been in the planning stages for a long time, but one that we have not yet been able to realize due to time and monetary constraints.

"I Need Your Skull" will help to make MF Gallery's Giant Skull Project a reality! All of the proceeds from this show will go towards building the giant skull. As a part of this show, we will be revealing concept sketches for the construction of the "Fortress MF Skull" for the very first time!

Please join us for a rock n roll Opening Party on Saturday May 22, from 7 to 10 pm. Many of the artists will be present, and refreshments will be served. Admission is free and open to all ages. The art in "I Need Your Skull" will be on view until June 20, 2010 and will also available for viewing and purchasing online at: www.MFgallery.net. Come buy some skull art and help us build our giant skull... We Need Your Skull!!!

MF Gallery is located at 213 Bond Street, between Butler and Baltic Streets in the Gowanus area of Brooklyn, NY. Take the F or G to Bergen, (Exit at Bergen and Smith, walk 2 blocks east on Bergen. Turn right on Bond. Walk south on Bond for 3 blocks.) the A to Hoyt/ Schermerhorn, (Exit at Schermerhorn and Bond. Walk South on Bond for 8 blocks.) or the R to Union. (Exit at Union and 4th ave. Walk west on Union for 3 blocks. Turn Right on Bond. Walk North on Bond for 4 blocks.)

For more information, to request high resolution images or to set up interviews, please contact Martina Secondo Russo at info@MFgallery.net or (917)446-8681.

featuring artists:

Daniel Rich

Wieland Speck

Affirmation Arts presents Street Smart. Starting with the founding fathers of graffiti and ending with the current generation of street artists, on view are works by:

Gary Baseman
Tim Biskup
Blek le Rat
D*Face
Date Farmers
Shepard Fairey
Doze Green
Keith Haring
James Jean
KAWS
Mark Ryden
Jeff Soto
Robert Williams
WK Interact

Tina Kim Gallery is pleased to present Kyung Jeon: Belle Rascal. For her second solo exhibition with the gallery, Jeon has chosen an approach that evokes her process – exhibiting a selection of small works, preparatory drawings, and pages from her sketchbook alongside two fully-realized large-scale paintings.

Drawing influences from such disparate sources as children’s fairytales, traditional Korean genre painting, and the eccentric worlds of Henry Darger and Hieronymus Bosch, Jeon’s works explore in-depth issues of portraiture and narrative. The mural-sized Little Persons, Big Steps and A Weeping Willow (both 2009) offer sweeping vistas of seemingly fantastical lands. Elaborately-rendered, these locales are inhabited by diminutive characters, deliberately simplified to function as archetypes of male or female, adult or child, who play out various scenarios in a full spectrum of emotion. Allegorical microcosms in-and-of themselves, these works are balanced by Jeon’s smaller paintings and drawings which focus more intently on individual characters and themes.

Kyung Jeon was born in 1975 in Jersey City, New Jersey, and received her MFA in 2005 from the School of Visual Arts, NY. The recipient of the Scope Emerging Art Grant (2005), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Fellowship (2003), Jeon was most recently awarded a grant from the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2009). Her work has been included in exhibitions in museums and galleries in Asia, South America, Europe and the United States, including the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul and the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Jeon lives and works in New York City and Los Angeles, California.

A catalog is available in conjunction with this exhibition.

Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present Inside the Outside, an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by the Southern California artist Greg Simkins. This is Simkins’ second solo show with the gallery.

A fantasist at heart, Simkins alternates between the unsettling and the sentimental—in his finely rendered work, the grotesque can turn sweet and vice versa. Fanged caterpillars become sad-eyed clowns, grow machine parts, or inflate into bulbous balloons that sprout other bizarre creatures and beings. Simkins’ vision weaves together influences as diverse as contemporary pop culture, twentieth- entury fantasy novels, old master paintings, carnival kitsch, and cyborgian amalgams of technology and nature. With Inside the Outside, inspired by his recent travels in Hawaii, Simkins approaches a new dimension of fantasy—a desire to break down boundaries found in the natural world.

In these 10 acrylic paintings and 20 ink and graphite on paper works, the artist harnesses his appetite for fantasy to challenge the rigid, seemingly arbitrary rules of nature. Whereas taxonomy categorizes the biological world into evolutionary branches, and physics dictates who swims, crawls, and flies, Simkins’ art allows the artist to transcend these limitations to propose a new dimension. He conceives this body of work as reaching “outside” a conventional understanding of the world into a pictorial space of imaginative inquiry—in other words, the native realm of the fantasist.

The almost fantastical beauty and variety of Hawaii’s natural environment is concentrated into works like A Branch in the Water, an acrylic-on-canvas painting where jellyfish possess the anatomy of roses and hibiscus and perch in coexistence with iridescent-feathered birds and hybrid insects of the imagination. Other works evoke the meandering, fluid quality of undersea environments where forms and textures interpenetrate with greater ease—here, Simkins is inspired by tropical fish and coral reefs, though never literally. In another painting, The Welcoming Party, for example, the artist introduces deer, geese, and even upholstered furniture into this environmental mash-up. There is something tantalizing and seductive in these extra-natural introductions between wildly diverse species, an “eco-fantasy” that clearly brings great pleasure to the artist even if existing only on canvas.

Born in 1975 in Torrance, California, Greg Simkins received a BA in Studio Art from California State University of Long Beach. Selected solo exhibitions of his work include: The Pearl Thief, Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight, Los Angeles (2009); It Wanders East, Joshua Liner Gallery, New York (2008). His work has been featured in the following selected group exhibitions: Sons of Baby Tattooville, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA (2009); Locked & Loaded, Joshua Liner Gallery (2008); KNOW Show, Mark Murphy Design (Art Basel Miami Beach, 2007); Bergamont Invasion II, Copro Nason Gallery, Santa Monica (2006).

Max Protetch Gallery is pleased to announce Borrowed From the Charnel House, an exhibition of new work by Saul Chernick.

Saul Chernick makes highly detailed ink drawings that combine masterful control of the individual mark with an incisive grasp of the history of image-making and various visual media. The exhibition brings together works that display Chernick’s penchant for borrowing from the relics of art history to transform them into the constituent elements of his own visual language.

On view are some of Chernick’s largest drawings to date, including a piece in extreme horizontal format, almost thirty-five feet long and comprised of roughly thirty drawings done en plein air at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. A meditation on mortality created from a position in the living world, it also proves to be a forum in which Chernick displays his mastery of the use of line and shifts in perspective. The cemetery is seen not only as a landscape but as a museum of funerary sculpture.

In fact, the exhibition’s title, Borrowed from the Charnel House, refers to the vaults where skeletons are stored, often after they have been dug up from crowded burial grounds; one of the most famous of these, and noted because it is still in use, can be found at St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, where the monks gather relics from the difficult, rocky soil for both practical and spiritual reasons.

Reflections on contemporary sexuality and technology are embedded into Chernick’s intensely detailed riffs on anatomical drawings, heralds, and etchings. The most evident reference is perhaps to the prints, manuscripts, and illuminations of the Northern Renaissance. But like the monks of St. Catherine’s relying upon their brothers’ relics as reminders of their own mortality, Chernick tweaks specific images and compositional methods from the past to shed light upon current cultural conditions. In this sense, he works like a musician improvising on an existing theme or a writer adapting an older idea for a new context.

Another of the large-scale drawings on view, ‘Ars Gratia Artis,’ depicts a lion’s head floating in a vast alpine landscape. Uncannily reminiscent of the roaring lion that serves as the logo for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, the piece seems to hint at both the history and future of cinema, drawing a connection to the logo’s roots in centuries-old coats of arms. Almost eight feet wide, the piece seems to exist at a hybrid scale, between the intimacy of the drawing and the expansive presence of the movie screen. The emotional power of the drawing, however, lies not only in the scope of its cultural references, but in the mysterious way that the lion himself is rendered.

This sensitivity to individual moments, and the subtleties of human and animal forms, lends Chernick’s work an immediacy that places it squarely in the present, and that engages the viewer outside of any specific art historical context. It is a question of both craft and poetry. On the surface it is clear that the artist’s technique is indebted to the achievements of the Old Masters, but the critical and psychological revelations on view in his drawings are wholly his own, and shed light on the future of our physical condition––in the short term with respect to technology, and in the long with respect to death.

Saul Chernick was recently the subject of a solo exhibition at Franklin Art Works in Minneapolis. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions across the United States, and reproduced in a variety of print and online publications.

CHRISTINA RAY is pleased to announce the upcoming launch of the new “Collection” section of its website devoted to online sales of curated artist editions, multiples and small works. Throughout the month of June, selected works from the gallery’s summer group exhibition, also titled Collection, will be added to the website and made available for purchase. Artists featured in the exhibition include Darlene Charneco, Beka Goedde, Alice Jarry, Heather L. Johnson, Jason Kachadourian, David Kesting, Zaun Lee, Roberto Mollá, Mark Price, Adrienne Reynolds, Swoon and Michael Zelehoski. The exhibition opens with a reception on June 10th from 7 to 9pm, and runs through June 27th. Online sales will remain an integral part of the gallery’s website following the close of the exhibition, with new works to be added on a regular basis.

Gallery Director Christina Ray states, “We’re thrilled to introduce prints, artist books, zines and original works in series by our artists in a special section of our website. We can now present work we wouldn’t otherwise have available in the gallery during exhibitions. By limiting the online collection to a selection of small and editioned works, we're keeping the prices accessible.”

The Collection exhibition in the gallery includes the work of represented artists side by side with that of artists new to the gallery. Darlene Charneco’s miniature landscapes offer a dreamlike bird’s-eye view of a candy-coated cyberspace, while Beka Goedde’s small works on panel with collage and encaustic echo current situations of cities in crisis where architecture has become fragile and fleeting. Alice Jarry’s series of monoprints reference the original engineering blueprints from Disneyland, where real and artificial worlds collide. Jason Kachadourian introduces a similarly puzzle-like group of collages in which bits of buildings and airplanes remain almost hidden under the cover of trees and clouds. Heather L. Johnson’s delicate embroideries are akin to hand-stitched memories – personal observations and places visited preserved in thread on white linen. David Kesting’s new work on small panels features hand-drawn characters engaged in the day-to-day life of the city. Roberto Mollá and Mark Price, along with gallery newcomers Zaun Lee and Adrienne Reynolds, bring bold, abstract interpretations of the landscape – ranging from formal awareness of grid-based patterns to fluid explosions of color and space. Michael Zelehoski, who will be featured in his first solo exhibition with the gallery in September, contributes to the theme of Collection with a series of miniature assemblages created from found wood. Swoon, whose recently-released book Swoonwill also be available online, brings to the exhibition small works created in conjunction with her current projects in cities ranging from Cairo to  Braddock, Pennsylvania.

CHRISTINA RAY is an innovative gallery and creative catalyst in New York whose mission, grounded by the concept of psychogeography, is to discover and present the most important contemporary artwork exploring the relationship between people and places. 
 
Contact: Christina Ray, Gallery Director
Phone: 212.334.0204
Email: info @ christinaray.com
Exhibition dates: June 10–27, 2010
Reception: Thursday, June 10, 7-9pm
Gallery hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 12-6pm
Location: 30 Grand Street, Ground Floor, between Thompson Street and 6th Avenue

Lombard-Freid Projects is pleased to announce Heat Wave, a group show of works by Fikret Atay (b.1976, Turkey), Bani Abidi (b. 1971, Pakistan), Maya Schindler (b. 1977, Israel), Mounira al Solh (b. 1978, Lebanon), Eko Nugroho (b. 1977, Indonesia) and Noa Charuvi (b. 1979, Israel).

Heat Wave brings together six fresh voices from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Turkey. Though varied in terms of geography, language and tradition, these international artists are bound generationally and unified by an interest in representing elements of cultural and political specificity through expressions and symbols of the everyday. Using humor, critique, irony and introspection, the work of each artist proposes a distinct strategy for active engagement – whether borrowing from popular culture (Atay, Nugroho) or photojournalism (Charuvi), expanding the language of documentary into the realm of fiction (al Solh) or examining tensions (Abidi) and repositories of national identity (Schindler).

Fikret Atay lives and works in his hometown of Batman, Turkey, a Kurdish city near the border with Iraq. In his most recent video work, Batman v. Batman (2009), the mayor of the city plays a superhero who brings a lawsuit against Warner Bros. over rights to the name of the famed comic book character. As with all his videos, narrative simplicity and modest filming techniques produce insightful works that insist on their local context without being didactic. Recent exhibitions include, Fikret Atay, Viafarini, Milan, Italy; Bonner Kunstverein, Germany; King of the Ring, E.N.S.A.D, Strasbourg, France; L’argent, Le Plateau, Paris, France. Atay has participated in the biennales of Lyon, Istanbul, Sydney and Cairo.

Bani Abidi’s Karachi series (2009) treats one of the central dilemmas of Pakistani nationalism at the level of quotidian experience. The six photographs that together constitute the series are all taken at dusk during the month of Ramadan when observant Muslims break the ritual daily fast. Each photograph stages an incongruous scene of a lone figure engaged in a domestic task under the glow of a street lamp. The names of the photographed, as indicated in the titles, call attention to the fact that they belong to the non-Muslim minorities (Christian, Hindu) in Pakistan. Abidi implicates the intersection of private and public space as the site of the increasingly problematic conflicts of this multi-religious city. Recent exhibitions include the 10th Lyon Biennale, France; Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan, Asia Society, NY; The View From Elsewhere, Queensland Art Gallery, Sydney; 7th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea.

Born in Jerusalem and living in New York, Maya Schindler addresses the aesthetics and semiotics of political, social and linguistic boundaries. Included in the exhibition will be, White Flags (2010), an installation of seven flags made of fiberglass and thick layers of white acrylic paint. The raw materiality of the colorless sculptural flags becomes a poignant way to reinvent a symbol and question expressions of allegiance that are commonly taken for granted. Recent exhibitions include, Present Progressive, California State University Art Museum, Long Beach; Seeing is Believing, Zaum Projects, Lisbon, Portugal; Wishful Thinking Wishful, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania.

Heat Wave will showcase two works from Mounira al Solh’s series, The Sea is a Stereo, which focuses on a group of men who sit on the beach in Beirut everyday, without concern for weather or war. In the 13-minute video, Paris without a Sea (2008), the boundaries between reality and fiction are blurred as the artist interviews the men and then voices-over their lines herself. The comic effect of this technique and light-hearted jest of the dialogue masks a more profound, yet present, reflection on the habits and routines one holds onto in the face of uncertainty. A series of four photographs entitled Elvis (2009), depict the gesture of one character showing the artist photographs of himself as a young man and of his son living abroad with his family. Recent exhibitions include, Volkskrant Prize, Stedelijk Museum Scheidam, Netherlands; 2009 Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; Be(com)ing Dutch, Van Abbemuseum, Netherlands and the Lebanese Pavilion, 2007 Venice Biennale, Italy.

A native of Yogyakarta, Eko Nugroho is a self-made artist whose work has come to international attention in the past several years. Working in a diverse range of media, from murals to shadow puppets, video projections to paintings, Nugroho’s images reflect Indonesia’s politically charged environment through fantastic and darkly humorous satires populated by surreal characters that fuse human, machine, animal and plant. Featured in Heat Wave will be new pieces including a vibrant large-scale embroidery and several smaller scale works of textile and watercolor, whose graphic comic book quality portrays figures with alien-like heads. Recent exhibitions include, It’s all about Coalition, National Museum of Singapore; 2009 Jakarta Biennial, Indonesia; Dorodoro, Doron!, Hiroshima Contemporary Art Museum, Japan; 10th Lyon Biennale, France; Beyond the Dutch, Centraal Museum, Netherlands.

New York based, Israeli artist Noa Charuvi paints from photojournalistic images taken in Gaza. Her colorful canvases abstract the demolished buildings ravaged by the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Bedroom (2010) depicts the traces of life in what was once a domestic setting; furniture and belongings are strewn across the interior as the torn walls expose the room as a destroyed landscape. The site-specificity of the source images, in contrast with her process of deconstructing the photographed forms creates a body of work that demands attention and observation.

Sloan Fine Art presents two summer group exhibitions, Nice to Meet You and Amuse Bouche.

In Nice to Meet You, the gallery invited 22 artists who had shown in the gallery previously, in group or solo shows, and asked each of them to invite two artists of their choice.

Justin Amrhein invited Scott Campbell and Charles Clary
Jennifer Coates invited Dana Carlson and Clement Coleman 
Roni Feldman invited Max Presneill and Jean-Pierre Roy
Julie Heffernan invited Zachary Wollard and Sarah Zar
Catherine Howe invited Nicole Etienne and Nicholas Rispoli
David Humphrey invited Matthew Bollinger and Dider William
Michael Kagan invited Jane Hamill and John Jacobsmeyer
Tricia Keightley invited Anthony Castro and Elizabeth Cooper
Colette Robbins invited Micah Ganske and Hidenori Ishii

Running concurrently with Nice to Meet You, in the project room, is Amuse Bouche, a collection of small works designed to give visitors a taste of the work of nine gallery artists: Mia Brownell, Clare Grill, Greg Hopkins, Elizabeth McGrath, Marion Peck, Kristen Schiele, Heather Sherman, Nathan Skiles and Aaron Smith.

Works in the show include a miniature rubber cuckoo clock sculpture by Nathan Skiles and a portrait of the Common Bushtit, one of the smallest perching birds in North America, by Marion Peck.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to present Lifecycle, an exhibition of new works by California-based artist Jeff Soto, in what will be his third solo show at the gallery. In conjunction with this exhibition, the artist will be painting a site-specific public mural in New York City, and releasing a new limited-edition print.

Soto conveys narrative subject matter with dramatic lighting and textural richness in detailed and dynamic compositions. His work often communicates themes of nostalgia, fear, hope, and environmental issues.

On his new series of paintings, the artist says,“My work has always indirectly told bits and 
pieces of my own story, my thoughts and past. This new body of work is still autobiographical without being self-portraiture, but whereas previous exhibitions focused on current events, environmentalism, politics, and war, this show deals with themes that are more personal, emotional and timeless.”

As the show title suggests, works in Lifecycle refer to birth, death, and the voyage in between. The artist’s interest in time, mortality, fatherhood and generational relationships—within his own family and humankind in general—are explored through visual metaphors and symbolism.

Soto’s paintings exude tension through iconographic imagery that has become the artist’s 
signature. His canvases feature ominous worlds where quasi-divine apparitions with organic 
tendrils writhe from the cavities of smoking, robotic shells, as their lumbering frames preside 
over sprawling urban landscapes. With background environments full of old machinery and 
industrial decay, Soto’s creatures inhabit desolate, forgotten spaces—figures duel, wild flowers 
bloom and rainbows thrive, as dark smog and storm clouds loom amidst floating skulls.

Jeff Soto was born and raised in Southern California, where he currently resides with his wife and daughters. In 2002, Soto graduated with Distinction from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. In 2008, his work was the subject of an exhibition at Riverside Art Museum. He has published multiple books on his artwork, which has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. The artist’s distinct color palette, subject matter and technique resonate with a growing audience: inspired by childhood toys, skateboarding, graffiti, hip-hop and popular culture. His bold, representational work is simultaneously accessible and stimulating.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to announce Mangle, new drawings and paintings of twisted ladies, an exhibition of works by Ottawa-based artist Dave Cooper, in what will be his second solo show at the gallery.

In Mangle, Cooper presents a new series of graphite drawings on polypropylene paper and oil paintings on canvas, featuring his subject matter of choice—fleshy females. Cooper’s unique aesthetic is informed by his obsession with creating billowy, gelatinous landscapes and stylized women with un-idealized physical appearances. The shapes of these nude or scantily clad figures are often exaggeratedly lumpy, with large heads, bulging eyes, shiny red cheeks and toothy grins. They interact with one another in ways that appear disturbingly violent, suggestively sensual, or both, implying bizarre narratives of perverse scenarios and intense human drama.

Through the challenging, disturbing quality of his imagery, Cooper continues to explore themes of libido, hedonism, body image, fantasy, and ambiguity with refined skill and technique. His process consists of building thin layers of sheer color and fine glaze to create smooth texture and translucent opulence to the round contours of his full-figured subjects and their surrounding environments. By applying details traditionally regarded as undesirable physical characteristics such as veiny skin, ruddy complexion and cellulite to every plump, dimpled fold of flab, Cooper’s paintings expose the artist’s admiration and fascination with the natural curves of the feminine form in zaftig proportions, beyond conventional health or beauty standards.

In the artist’s words: “A red rose is beautiful but how ubiquitous! I’d rather look in a dark corner for interesting patches of moss, lichen or mushrooms. Fashion models are utterly boring. Instead, my heart races at the sight of an awkward-looking girl with unique flaws and imperfections.”

Dave Cooper was born in 1967 in a small fishing village in Nova Scotia, Canada. He is currently based in Ottawa, with his wife and two children. Cooper is a self-taught artist, inspired by artistic mentors in his youth. He enjoyed a successful career in the American underground comic scene of the late 1990’s as the author/illustrator of award-winning graphic novels and as a designer, producer, and creator in the field of animation. In 2003, the artist decided to focus his energies on oil painting and refining his fine art. In the years since, his artwork has been exhibited at galleries in New York, Los Angeles and Paris. He has released two books featuring his oil paintings and a third is on the way, with introductions written by Hollywood celebrity collectors including comedic actor David Cross, as well as filmmakers David Cronenberg and Oscar-nominated writer/director of Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro.

For one night only, BARE BONES invades a corner of NYC as the trans-atlantic love affair continues.  Our first US exhibition will be on @ envoy enterprises will feature London/Euro-exports and a gang of NYC locals.  Following will be a tear-a-strip-off-it after party downstairs at Home Sweet Home from 9-11 with live performances by the mighty Jugger-Nut & The Giggle Fits.

Featuring: 


ART:
Harry Malt*, Chris Bianchi, Neal Fox, Frank Laws, Hannah Bays, Robert Rubbish, Kate McMorrine, Stephanie von Reiswitz, Billy Bragg, LeGun, Heretic Print Studio, Leigh Fox, Lie-Ins & Tigers, Nervous Stephen, Simon Dara, Amelia Johnstone, Hanna Hanra, Matt Lambert, Peter Rapp, Kate Merry, James Pecis, Tom Jennings and Zoe Taylor.

PHOTO:
Niall O’Brien*, Jamie Daughters, Ross McDonnell, Brian Daly, Shane Deegan, Richard Gilligan, Jacob Lillis and Andreas Laszlo Konrath.

LITERATURE:
Michael Smith*, Richard Milward, Gary Fairful, Sebestian Horsely, SC Breen, Svetlana Graudt, Gavin Bennett, Jamie Putnam and Slavko Vukanovic.

FILMS:
Matt Lambert* (dieLAMB), Sean Pecknold (Rokkit), Andy Martin (Passion Pictures), Matt Smithson aka Man vs. Magnet, (Curious Pictures), Niall O’Brien, Ross McDonald, Superelectric and several more film makers to be announced soon will be premiering original works. 

*group curator

Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present Curious Myths, an exhibition of new paintings by New York artist Travis Louie. This is Louie’s first solo show with the gallery.

Travis Louie’s acrylic-on-panel paintings are whimsical portraits of bizarre beings, most of them inspired by a youthful fascination with “Atomic Age” sci-fi and horror movies, circus sideshows, and Vaudeville magic acts. Richly rendered in black and white with fine shading, the work is also influenced by the lighting and atmosphere of German Expressionist and Film Noir motion pictures.

With Curious Myths, a suite of 15 new, small- to medium-sized works, Louie has directed his lively journal practice of tiny drawings and narrative vignettes toward the creation of a cohesive, imaginary world styled with Victorian and Edwardian effects. This fictive zone is both cozy and creepy, inhabited by human oddities, mythical beings, and otherworldly characters that have seemingly posed for formal portraits to mark both their existence and place in society. Each image/character is uniquely loaded with ungainly charm and ample backstory. The underlying thread connecting the characters is the unusual circumstances that shape them and how they’ve lived.

For example, from his journal entries the artist sets the scene for The Myth of Floaters: “There are many misconceptions about floaters. A popular myth is that they levitate over people and sprinkle seeds that sprout into small herbs on the tops of heads with receding hairlines,” depicted vividly in the painting. As for Phineas G. Gruffin, a one-eyed goat in double-breasted coat, Louie writes, “He was first discovered on a foggy field in the Scottish countryside. He was disguised as a sheep herder singing awful songs to cover up the sound of his shoveling for ‘skumpers,’ furry underground dwellers who are part potato and part vole.”

Elsewhere, “a large Krampus has turned himself in for child-juggling” in Krampus Mugshot, offering frontal and profile views of the goofy beast with fanged underbite. In other works, a man is cursed by a goat, an engine driver can’t stop vibrating in his sleep, and another figure overcomes his phobia of spiders… all told with Louie’s knack for evoking narrative through the visual. To achieve the dramatic mood in his paintings, Louie works in a strict palette of black and white or limited color on plate-finish illustration board or finely sanded and primed wood panels.

Born in 1968 in Queens, NY, Travis Louie received a BFA from Pratt Institute and currently lives and works in Red Hook, New York. Selected solo exhibitions include: Strange Grooming Habits, Copro Nason Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (2009) and Unusual Neighbors, Fuse Gallery, New York (2008). Group exhibitions include: Kokeshi, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles (2009); World on Fire (curated by will.i.am), Pacific Electric Lofts, Los Angeles (2009); The New Mythology, Dorothy Circus Gallery, Rome (2008); and Hard Left, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Berlin (2008).

Phantasmorganica (fan’taz/mor’ga’ni’ka): 1. an exhibition of illusions of organically-inspired forms; 2. a bizarre or fantastic combination, collection, or assemblage of natural-looking things

Allegra LaViola Gallery is pleased to present the group exhibition P h a n t a s m o r g a n i c a, co-curated with Danielle Mund. The exhibition showcases the work of seven artists who examine and transmogrify ideas and materials into complex, “organic” images through drawing, painting, collage, and photography. “Phantasmorganica” is a fabricated word fusing the lexical words “phantasmagoria” and “organic”, resulting in the idea of the natural intertwined with the fantastical.

The primitivistic quality of drawing makes it especially well-suited to the idea of the organic “other”. Tony Ingrisano’s intricate drawings often begin with familiar inanimate curves that seem to evolve into biotic forms, gaining detailed, snake-like features that drip, crawl, and slither across the paper. Similarly meticulous are Lauren Seiden’s graphite-on-paper drawings of miniscule marks, where she manipulates electronic images cultivated from the Internet into images that are instead personal and individualized, and thus seem to be part of the natural world.

Casey Jex Smith, whose work was recently shown at The Drawing Center, composes uncanny drawings of biomorphic creatures and Ensor-like architectural environments; these forms contrast and complement Kelly Wilson’s large scale graphite drawings, which propose imagined spaces and environments that draw upon his long-term interest in architectural imagery, organic forms, and the archeological fragments found in the “boneyards” of Rome.

Mixed-media collage paintings, which intrinsically play with surface and difference, likewise contend with the idea of earthly versus created realities. John Ros’ small collages, inspired by the intersection of industrial architecture and nature, juxtapose the tangibility of natural textures with the ephemerality of truth and meaning. Commonplace, man-made substances such as glue and ballpoint pen ink are a defining feature of Shane McAdams’ works, where his unusual use of materials transforms his compositions into raw-looking matter.

Kimberlee Venable’s photographs—inherently abstractions of an existing environment—examine fragments of an original context in order to direct the viewer’s interaction with these fragments and create a new narrative, such that the banal enters into the sublime.

Danielle Mund is an independent curator and art writer who has worked with Christie’s in New York and the Timothy Taylor Gallery in London. She earned her BA in Art History from Wellesley College and an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art.

99% Gallery presents…

Cannonball Press
“Born Under a Bad Sign”
A Coven of Black and White Friggatriskaidekaphemera

Opening reception: Friday, August 13th, 7pm—10pm

Neo-Pagan World Kings of scruffy pirate black and white hillbilly printmaking, New York’s legendary Cannonball Press hits Williamsburg’s 99% Gallery with a huge new pile of limited-edition prints, two massive Woodcut Collages of sordid debauchery, and huge new 4×8 foot woodcuts on canvas!!

For a sold decade, Martin Mazorra and Mike Houston have been publishing $20 high-quality limited-edition relief cuts and silkscreens, and are proud to represent the following wicken of grumpy, soulful, scabby, superstition charged printmakers: The Amazing Hancock Bros., Ms. Katy Seals, Joseph Velasquez, Prof. derrick riley, Bill Fick, Damara Kaminecki aka “Damara the Destroyer”, Meghan O’Conner, Bill “Creeper” McRight, Sean Star Wars, and many more!

99% Gallery
99 North 10th (between Berry and Wythe)
Brooklyn, NY 11211
www.ninetyninegallery.com
info@ninetyninegallery.com

ABOUT 99% GALLERY

99% perspiration, 1% inspiration. This old adage still makes sense in 2010. We at 99% Art Space produce the 99% perspiration, allowing the artists we work with to focus on the final 1% inspiration. We want to do the work to create a space which will be conducive to not only art exhibiting, but also to art appreciating, art learning and in the end art creating. We believe in the artist and the artwork they produce. This is the reason we, or any other art space for that matter, even exists. It’s about the artist and the inspiration and enlightenment their final art embodies.

99% is dedicated to doing everything in our power to support the artist and the work they create. We are also dedicated to art learning, through our upcoming series of lectures, classes, workshops and so much more. Of course we also are dedicated to working with the artists we want believe in to produce a regular schedule of exhibitions throughout the year.

Lastly, 99% is dedicated to underdogs. We will exhibit artists who been inspired by the worlds of comic books, animation, new media, graffiti, tattoos, illustration, folk art and many other forms of pop, subversive and outsider imagery.

99% perspiration, 1% inspiration. We like the way that sounds. We like the idea of working hard to create an environment for our artists to engage with comfortably, as they change the world one idea at a time!

P.S. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that the number on our building is 99! ;)

Cinders Gallery Presents:

“100 Records” by Sonny Smith

August 12th – September 5th 2010

Opening Reception Thursday August 12th 7-10pm

Music performance by Sonny Smith at 7pm

100 Records is the culmination of a massive year long project by artist and musician Sonny Smith, front man of the group Sonny & The Sunsets. Smith invited 100 artists to produce 100 7” record covers for fictional bands. Smith concocted the personas of these fictitious bands, then wrote and recorded one hundred songs to correspond with each 7” record. Recording with his band The Sunsets, as well as with members of notable bands such as the Sandwitches, Fresh N Only’s, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, and the Kelley Stoltz Band, each record stands on its own as a solid piece of music and spans a wide range from pop, concept ideas, spoken word, instrumentals, surf, garage, folk and rock n roll. 

The record covers recall the type of limited edition packaging that would make any good record collector sweat, as well as more out there interpretations of what a record cover can be. These hand drawn and painted covers will be on display in addition to a homemade custom built working jukebox loaded with all 100 songs that will play during the show. Some of the visual artists include Chris Johanson, Maya Hayuk, Brion Nuda Rosch, Paul Wackers, Ed Ruscha, Chris Duncan, Kyle Field, Laurent Impeduglia, Jeffrey Lewis, Esther Pearl Watson, Kyle Ranson, Reed Anderson, Harrell Fletcher, Jo Jackson, Joshua Abelow, Eric White, Alicia McCarthy, Kottie Polloma, Christine Shields, Erica Magrey, John Dwyer, Nathaniel Russell, Jim Long, and Mark Todd, Tucker Nichols, and many more.

A special live performance by Sonny Smith will kick off the opening at 7pm.

100 Records ‘Volume 1’, a limited edition of 40 box sets including reproductions of 12 of the art covers, with a CD of 16 original songs inside, will be available.