Exhibitions

IN SIDE OUT

9 Dec 2010 - 29 Jan 2011 Spanning decades and generations, the works in “In Side Out” question the place of a warm and invested aesthetics within the field of abstraction. Working around the strategies of austerity, coolness, and bravado, each emphasizes the interplay of measured craftsmanship and intuitive processes: bodily energy and internal states are cut, pasted, and layered into expressive compositions that conjure unexpected depths. Read more

WILLIAM VILLALONGO

BATHING NYMPH 21 Oct - 4 Dec 2010 Paying tribute to the ornate stylings of the Late Baroque period, William Villalongo fills his canvas with frolicking maidens, nymphs and satyrs. Wooded glades, iridescent pools, and leafy bowers set the stage for what were traditionally fanciful idylls. Villalongo’s tales however take place not in the time of Louis XV’s Regence debauchery but in our own present day equivalent. Not simply a pretty picture, they tell a tale of lust and depravity, greed and envy. Watteau and Boucher gave us the gods and goddesses of the aristocracy, William Villalongo gives us Man. Read more

ERIC FERTMAN

10 Sep - 16 Oct 2010 We look onto a darkened stage with sets built of battered planks, hot pink, sheltering a ragtag collection of apparitions and shades. Shadows to solids, this mysterious band of umbraes would be impossible to identify were it not for the characteristic tilt of the head, the isolated gesture, the defining bulge. We look for the familiar clues, seeking to fill the void and projecting bits of ourselves onto their blank screen. These props or sculptures become receptacles for our most private thoughts and memories, dream-catchers for the insomniac. Read more

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

MCMAHON, MULLICAN, WELLING, 1970‑1976 9 Jun - 23 Jul 2010 The work selected here represents an important moment in the development of these artists as they began to stake out their respective territories and develop what became their mature work. While both Mullican’s and Welling’s work was widely exhibited from the 1980s onward, McMahon chose to diverge from the traditional path by becoming a comedian, a musician, and small town entrepreneur in Woodstock, NY, only to reemerge with the opening of the exhibition at the Met. Read more

GREG SMITH

BEARDED 30 Apr - 5 Jun 2010 For better or worse, there are associations that go along with the beard: disguise, masculinity, Santa Claus, homosexuality, survivalism, fundamentalism, and wisdom, for example. My beard shape is used to build objects, mechanical devices, and a set; these in turn are used to construct a range of scenarios, including those that are well outside (and perhaps even antagonistic toward) these familiar associations and stereotypes. -Greg Smith Read more

SHAUN O'DELL

19 Mar - 24 Apr 2010 Herman Melville’s great American novel, Moby Dick, is many things, not least of which an examination of Man’s place in the Universe. Using Melville’s novel as personal guide, Shaun O’Dell here appropriates the author’s use of mirroring and vortex to illustrate the boundless nature of these metaphysical concerns. The artist channels the same volatile dynamic into his drawing and film. Read more

BRUCE CONNER

THE LATE BRUCE CONNER 28 Jan - 13 Mar 2010 Bruce Conner was no stranger to death. On September 12, 1959, the first exhibition of THE LATE BRUCE CONNER opened at the Bay Area Spatsa Gallery. While the work was in fact late work, to Conner’s mind every piece, whether collage or assemblage, was composed of objects that had experienced a previous life. The Gallery represented a sepulcher containing beings no longer of this world, intended to be revered and worshipped from afar. Read more