VSPACE www.massimodecarlo.com T. +39 02 7000 3987 [email protected] adjacent Ethridge Roe photo, Hot Nathalie with white, and blue American theme inSwimmers abstractnessthe of form and understated the red, laughter…or derisive mockery. Amplifying both ambiguous expression of either flirtatious guy’s gesture and, particularly, woman’s the complicates it through defensiveness the of the Humphrey interaction this sexualizes but graphicthe construction of painting. the andformally makes with bodies their us aware of order of representation from figures, the rhymes onfragment, abstraction, while adifferent whose bulbous greyform representing an abstracted car faces him/us. The foreground is occupied by a Black womanlaughing curvaceous inawhite bikini fromseen self-embracing behind his torso. A revealing top the trunks swim of his butt crack, is White tall a shirtless fitting man, clad blue inloose interaction. From other the sideof ared brick wall, a deceptively simple, but conspicuously interracial, For instance David Humphrey’s Swimmers each adjacent wall. conversation is “overheard” then and up taken on approaches to molding aviewer’s attention. This conversation through similar formal their two orOn each wall three pieces initiate a works. create unsolvable mysteries is what unites their here, way the work their engages my attention to known and evenwritten about most of artists the always readily apparent either. While Ihave met, motivations, not hidden,are while exactly not Ambiguities process, inthis arise whose engageways bodily attention. their they with interiority the of viewers’ minds is through the to photographic representation. Their connection Ulteriors are from total on abstraction aspectrum of attention constructs meaning. works the All in interiors, is an attempt to explore way the play this what is simply depicted. Ulteriors, similar to while and decisions motivations these reflect interior to attention decisions through make, particular they and looking at deliberately Artists art. orchestrate become my principle preoccupation painting when why? Noticing play the of my own attention has Wherefirst thing Isee? doIgo from there and When at Ilook Ifollow art, my gaze. What is the Kardon Dennis by Curated Ulteriors , depicts , the the , evade the seductive the charmsevade that conventional idiosyncratic As logic. abstract painters, migh they a sophisticated formal starchiness with an pictorial nature of abstraction. Their paintings pair abstract nature of pictorial representation and the background and negative emphasize space, they the foreground and positive space with what is versa.vice By confusing functions of what is Bardo Stephan’sis paired with Gary more purely abstract, that adjacent Anne wall, Neukamp’s painting Twirl Echoing forms and movements from paintings on through ocean. the and is asperiod, ponderous gliding as awhale has monumentality the of Picasso’s Neo-classical but formally thick moonlit abstract, whose figure overwhelming and confidential, representational quality, Moon and Double The paintingstiles. have on wall this abrooding middle, andthe end as an illuminated edge of pool window on move left, the of to rim the abowlin through paintings the that as edge start the of acar there are slivered the horizontal reflections rising triangular Moon piece of sky inDouble V-neck of dress the in2013 red vests reflective inFurlough without brushwork. juicy The cut V-shape of the and surfaces reflective are expressive moodily with about ideas darkness, chiarascuro, and own 2013, and Jordan Kasey’s Moon Double unite long the Matt wall. Bollinger’s Furlough my II , abstract nature of representational images also The formal structures that attention call to the categoriesthose first place. inthe questions what constitutes boundaries the between fashion, and editorial photography but that he simply that Ethridge blurs art, lines the between provocatively legs.It parted their between isn’t (years later, now Nathan) hand dangles left their coatstripes, buttons echoing stars, flag Nathalie red necklace, hair flowing like flag the crystal alabaster resting naked legs.Chin on wearing fist, a But note marring bruise the one of Nathalie’s mustard on its infront head of an American flag. flesh-coloredpale ketchup wiener squirting and wearing coat anavy sitting pea on apersonified, andDog Flag is more absurdly erotic. Nathalie is . Both present. Both images as abstract forms and , is simultaneously , and by finally the are by echoed the . And then , all play, all picture-making proffers, but its scent still lingers of Fine Arts, Dole, France; and the Bowdoin on their canvases. College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine. Recent solo exhibitions include Extended Present, South And anchoring the whole show are the large tall Bend Museum of Art, South Bend; and Labor Day, paintings by Judith Linhares and Melissa Meyer M+B, Los Angeles; the Armory Show, with Staver, which bracket the small painted and cut paper New York (2020). Forthcoming solo exhibitions collage by Anthony Iacono. In Lizzie Hazeldean include Mother’s Tankstation, Londo .n, 2021; and (after a strong-willed female character in an Edith Zürcher Gallery, New York, 2021. Wharton novella), Meyer is even more purely abstract than Stephan with improvisatory Roe Ethridge (b. 1969, Miami) lives and works in brushstrokes that nevertheless create forms floating New York. In his photographs, Ethridge uses the in a colorful, airy space. Its color and light is very real to suggest, or disrupt, the ideal, creating similar in impact to Linhares more allegorical images that are both generic and intimate, often Carry On, depicting a tall orange naked man treading between humor and cynicism. He transporting (or being commandeered by) a small received a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in mauve naked woman on his back. While reflecting 1995. In 2005 the Institute of Contemporary Art, on Humphrey and Ethridge’s teasing sexuality, the Boston, presented Ethridge’s first solo museum formal complexity to Linhares’ strange vignettes is exhibition, Momentum 4: Roe Ethridge. His work executed with energetic but measured brushstrokes was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial, and in which conjure ecstatic uneasiness pervading a New Photography 2010 at the Museum of Modern slightly seedy Arcadia. In both Linhares and Meyer Art, New York (2010). Ethridge was celebrated with there is an awareness of how the whole painting is a mid-career survey as part of the FotoFocus assembled in a way that is not planned, but is, Biennial 2016 in Cincinnati. His work is held in nevertheless, spontaneously deliberate. As much as the permanent collections of the Art Institute they use light to create a coherent image, they also of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, fracture attention by the awareness of how Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New abstractly everything is put together one stroke at a York; , New York; time. Anthony Iacono’s little cut paper piece SFMoMA, San Francisco; S.M.A.K., Ghent; Tate perfectly bridges the two. Mark presents the middle Modern, London, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; of an orange man in shaded underpants against a and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New red background, straddling a black Windsor chair York, among others. whose back and bars both imprison and striate the figure. A strange illumination at the base of the seat David Humphrey (b. 1955, American) lives and subtly illuminates and defines Mark’s penis. works in New York. For over forty years he creates Iacono’s delight in color, form, and composition formally inventive paintings that tells stories of camouflage his darker fetishist fascinations, whose vexed intimacy, socio-political reality, and minor off-color behaviors are executed with a suave imaginative projections crashing into the real. He brio that belies their kinky preoccupations. has been the subject of several solo exhibitions including McKee Gallery, New York; Sikkema Matt Bollinger (b. 1980, Kansas City) lives and Jenkins, New York; Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami; works in Ithaca, New York. His practice and Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati. His encompasses painting, animation, sculpture and work is in the collections of several museums and music. He earned his BFA at the Kansas City Art public collections including Walker Art Center, Institute in 2003 and his MFA at the Rhode Island Minneapolis; Carnegie Museum of Art, School of Design in 2007. His animations have Pittsburgh; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, been included in numerous film festivals and New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Saatchi screenings across the world. His work is in the Gallery, London. He is currently teaching in the collections of the Nerman Museum of MFA program of Columbia. He was awarded the Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Museum Rome Prize in 2008. Dennis Kardon (b. 1959, Des Moines, Iowa) lives Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and works in New York. He is a graduate of Yale Fellowship (1997), and three NEA awards (’79, ’87, University, took part in the Whitney Independent ’93). Her work is held in the permanent collections Study Program, and was a student of of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Yale and Al Held. The artist challenges painting’s University Art Gallery, and the Oakland Museum, potential by creating representational scenes that among others. materialize from loose abstract brushstrokes, treating the surface of his canvases as a field he Melissa Meyer (b. 1946, New York) lives and works endows with variousproperties like reflection and in New York. She is known for her calligraphic distortion creating representations pervaded with a abstract paintings where she gracefully navigates feeling of unexpected intimacy. Since the 1970s, transparency of line and form. She received both Dennis Kardon has widely exhibited in the United her BS and MA from . With States and beyond, and his work is part of public her first solo exhibition taking place in 1976, over collection such as, among others, the Museum of the decades that followed her paintings have been Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan written about by a number of artists, including Museum of Art, the Museum, the New Stephen Westfall and Robert Storr. The artist’s Museum, the National Museum of American Art in works are held in the collections of The Museum of Washington D.C., the Walker Art Center in Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Minneapolis, and the Los Angeles County Museum Art in Washington, D.C., and the Brooklyn of Art. Museum, among others.

Jordan Kasey (b. 1985, Chicago) lives and works in Anne Neukamp (b. 1976, Düsseldorf, Germany) lives Brooklyn. In her gigantically-scaled oil paintings, and works in . In her work she puts functional colossal and lonely figures painted in surreal signs and images from our consumer society in new moments belie notions of time and reality. She and different ways, stripping them of their univalent received her BFA at the Maryland Institute College meaning and stimulating the most diverse of Art in Baltimore in 2008. Kasey has exhibited interpretations. She received her MFA at Hochschule her work at Loyal Gallery, Stockholm (2020, 2018); für Bildende Künste, Dresden, in 2007. Solo Capsule, Shanghai (2019); Carl Kostyál, Malmö exhibitions of her work have been held at University (2019); Signal Gallery, Brooklyn (2018, 2016); Kate of the Arts Philadelphia, Philadelphia (2018); Galerie MacGarry, London (2018); MoMA PS1, New York Valentin, Paris (2018); Marlborough Contemporary, (2017); White Cube, London (2017); and New York (2017); Gregor Podnar Gallery, Berlin Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, Brooklyn (2016), (2015); Agustina Ferreyra, San Juan, Puerto Rico among others. Her work is held in the permanent (2014); Oldenburger Kunstverein, Oldenburg, collections of the Collezione Marimotti, Italy and Germany (2013); and Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, the Zabludowicz Collection, London. Ludwigshafen, Germany (2012). Her works have been included in group exhibitions at Columbia Judith Linhares (b. 1940, Pasadena) lives and works University, New York (2014); KW Institute for in Brooklyn. She received her BFA at the California Contemporary Art, Berlin (2011); Arthena College of Arts & Crafts in 1964 and her MFA in Foundation, Düsseldorf (2012); Kunstverein 1970. In her paintings she creates personal Heidelberg, and the 5th Prague Biennale (2011). mythologies, depicted in a raw and immediate style, featuring dark outlined figures against Gary Stephan (b. 1942, New York) lives and works luminous backgrounds. Since the 70s she has had between New York and Stone Ridge, NY. He received over forty solo shows and has been included in his MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1967. many important group exhibitions including the Since the late sixties, he has been showing his Venice Biennale in 1984. She is the recipient of the paintings, drawings and sculptures in the United Artists’ Legacy Foundation Artist Award (2017), States and Europe. Stephan’s work is included in the The Foundation Award (2013), John collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, For further information and materials: Press Office, MASSIMODECARLO T. +39 02 7000 3987 [email protected] www.massimodecarlo.com IG: massimodecarlogallery #massimodecarlogallery

New York; The Metropolitan Museum, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, among other museums. He is a recipient of awards from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and most recently a Joan Mitchell foundation Award. Stephan teaches in the MFA program at in NYC.