Doppelgängers clad in Freudian slips line the walls of the Gallery like a tiny wooden army of the psyche. These are the creatures that populate our waking dreams each conjectured to reflect some aspect of the dreamer. Blocked feet tether surreal bodies to terra firma, wisps of smoke and tufts of hair sprout from misplaced appendages. Like a modern day Geppetto, Eric Fertman skillfully imparts a humanity and emotional range to a simple block of wood. There is a familiarity to these strange apparitions, we experience both a horror and a comfort in that flash of recognition as the dream fades and the aspect of the dreamer is revealed, warts and all.
Eric Fertman was born in 1974 in Boston, MA. He received a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art and Science and has exhibited nationally, with solo shows at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, NC; The Kemper Museum in Kansas City, MO and in a two-person presentation at Time Equities, Inc., NYC for The Art-in-Buildings Program. Reviews of his work have appeared in Artforum, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times and Sculpture Magazine among others.
Erika Rothenberg makes satirical and political art dedicated to exposing American exceptionalism and its hubris, corruption, privilege, and prejudice. Her work pushes the envelope of acceptability and taste. In 1992, the Museum of Modern Art invited Rothenberg to have a one-person exhibition for which she created House of Cards, a series of hand-painted greeting cards. Arranged in sections such as Politics, The Economy, Racism, Religion, etc., the cards are an anthology of abominations, a compendium of ignorant slights and slurs, and a hilarious spin on the Hallmark card and its ilk. Eerily prescient today, and in light of the upcoming Midterm Elections, the cards reveal a brilliantly skewed take on the absurdity of life in America. The Gallery is pleased to bring House of Cards back to New York.
Also included in the exhibition are Freedom of Expression Drugs, recently shown in "Brand New: Art and Commodity in the 1980s" at the Hirshhorn Museum; Misogynist/Feminist, a recent greeting card piece; and America, A Shining Beacon to the World, a new church signboard edition.
A native New Yorker, Erika Rothenberg lives and works in Los Angeles. Before becoming a full-time artist, she was the first woman art director at McCann-Erickson advertising agency in NYC. Her work has been exhibited at major art institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum, DC; Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany; and is in private and public collections. Rothenberg is also recognized for her public art installations, including Freedom of Expression National Monument, commissioned by Creative Time, and The Road to Hollywood in Los Angeles.
