ADELA LEIBOWITZ – THE UNTITLED

Posted on 2011-10-03

Defying easy categorization, the works – which utilize tropes of landscape and figurative painting while denying representation – are depictions of abstract notions of spirituality, mythology, and the elemental (and often invisible) fabric of life manifested in physical forms.

Inspired by a range of esoteric sources that include Egyptian objects of worship, the films of Alexander Jodorowsky, the color theories of Rudolf Steiner, music from the 1960s, and the practice of worldly Asceticism, Leibowitz’s compositions are lush, spectral, and otherworldly. Rather than being reflections of objects as seen by the eye, the works are conduits that allow viewers to open themselves to higher powers – earth, wind, fire, water, and depending on one’s own belief system, the deities that weave the web that connects everything, including our souls, to the natural world.

Opposite – Untitled (purple), 2011

Exhibition runs through to October 29th, 2011

HPGRP Gallery
529 West 20th St. 2W
New York
NY 10011

www.hpgrpgallery.com

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TIM BERG & REBEKAH MYERS – ON THE BRINK

Posted on 2011-10-03

Continuing with their exploration of ideas of material value and the consequences of the actions we take to satisfy
our desires, Berg-Myers have created a new body of works. This current exhibition is meant to provide the viewers with objects-situations where our choices are put to the test in how we understand the value of the things we do.Some of the works in the exhibition have titles such as “All that glitters” and “As good as gold” which echo marketing tools employed in our contemporary culture to attract with a promise of guaranteed satisfaction if consumed.

Other works, such as “Against the tide “ and “Souvenirs” are examples of how the polar bear could become extinct do to our treatment of the environment. Eventually nature will remain present in our culture in the form of manmade objects that represent what once was real. These man-made objects end up in our homes where we will value them without realizing that they represent the real thing.

Opposite – Here today, gone tomorrow, grape, 2010, Fiberglas, wood, paint

Exhibition runs through to October 29th, 2011

Dean Project
511 West 25th StreetRoom 207
New York
NY
10001

deanproject.com

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GREG DRASLER – ON THE LAM

Posted on 2011-09-26

Drasler, in these highly polished uncanny paintings, constructs the elsewhere and disruptions of travel as if reinventing the wheel. With auto interiors, patterns and suspended objects, the manifold directions of the imagination is a back seat driver steering into bursts of symbolic coincidence. The objects have the capacity of vehicles and the vehicles are all interior. Littered with cameras, trailers, books, tents and a ski lift, the paintings remain unusually vacant yet preoccupied. This pile up of instruments, tools, patterns and apparel accumulates and reads as words in a sentence, a visual sentence, which is the painting.

Taking its title from the largest painting in the show the exhibition insinuates encampment as a destination. On the Lam (70 x 160 inches) is crowded with trailers, tents and wagons that attract with a variety of doors, windows, vents and flaps. In the constructed panoramic sky, complete with camp fire plume, hovers a bicycle wheel, either spun out or loosened from its sprockets. In the place below, where the rubber hits the road, the painting gives us means-to-move and places-to-be.

Opposite – Rain Dance , 2011

Exhibition runs through to October 15th, 2011

Betty Cuningham Gallery
541 West 25th street
New York
NY
10001

www.bettycuninghamgallery.com

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CHRIS BARNARD – TOWARD TRINITY

Posted on 2011-09-26

Toward Trinity continues Chris Barnard’s personal and passionate exploration of the gap between the visible and invisible aspects of military representations and war time realities. Questioning the systems that celebrate destructive force and technological achievement, and the subversive measures used to eclipse the darker side of imperialist motives, Toward Trinity offers a fresh exploration of power and spectatorship.

It is an examination of contemporary American culture – one that is increasingly in a state of militarization and perpetual war – questioning the underlying structures of power that are framing the discussion and our understanding of these issues. Barnard implicates the role of art and visual culture in the process of social conditioning, exposing strategies that paradoxically disguise while also disclosing information.Employing techniques and mechanisms inherent to different pictorial traditions, such as history painting (popularly utilized to glorify imperial conquests), American 19th-century landscape painting (used to invoke Manifest Destiny, an ideological dominion over the land), and European religious paintings (produced to convey reverence and incite obedience), Barnard’s new work addresses the contentious relationship between the veneration of the American military-industrial complex and the ecological damage and human suffering caused by it.

Exhibition runs through to October 15th, 2011

Luis De Jesus Los Angeles
2685 S. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles
CA 90034

www.luisdejesus.com

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FERTILITY

Posted on 2011-09-26

Fertility, in all its literal or metaphoric meanings, is cyclic and timeless. At its most basic, to be fertile is to bear fruit-whether humans making children or the land producing crops. In a broader sense, fertility speaks to inventiveness, abundance, possibilities, ideas. Involved in the show are works from Marina Abramovic, Jonathan Borofsky, Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin, George Grosz, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Otto Mueller, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Andres Serrano and Daniel Spoerri.

Grouping works dating from the late 19th century to the contemporary moment by eleven artists, the show looks at its theme from many angles – factual and symbolic, erotic and tender, visceral and humorous. The contemporary artist Marina Abramovic immediately commands attention with the assertiveness of her female imagery. Abramovic’s 2005 chromogenic print “Women in Rain #2,” taken from her video piece “Balkan Erotic Epic,” shows traditionally dressed village women in a field lifting their skirts and thrusting their exposed vaginas to the heavens. In equal parts startling and comic, the image is part of Abramovic’s exploration of ancient Balkan beliefs in the power of human genitalia to ensure the fertility of the land.

Opposite – Louise Bourgeois, Pregnant Woman, 2008

Exhibition runs through to October 29th, 2011

Side by Side Gallery Akim Monet GmbH
Potsdamerstrasse 81b
10785 Berlin

www.alminerech.com

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THREE KINGS

Posted on 2011-09-19

In classic NYC Subway Graffiti lore, a “King” is one who has achieved the most recognition for not only excellence in style but for the mark they have made on the culture. For over thirty years these “3 Kings” have been at the top of the game, Fred Brathwaite aka Fab 5 Freddy, Lee Quinones and Leonard Mcgurr aka Futura 2000.
Their history-making rise to international prominence from the subway tunnels of New York City was recently chronicled in MOCA’s “Art In The Streets” exhibition.

Opposite – Spanish Harlem, 2011, Fab 5 Freddy

Exhibition runs through to October 8th, 2011

Subliminal Projects
1331 W Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles
CA 90026

www.subliminalprojects.com

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