La pittura come forma radicale Painting as a Radical Form

1995 - 2007

Matthew Antezzo

Nato a / Born in Connecticut (USA), 1962 Vive e lavora a / Lives and work in Berlin

Il lavoro di Matthew Antezzo consiste principalmente nel recupero, e nella sostanziale rielaborazione pittorica di immagini della tradizione occidentale; “icone” cercate, trovate, e carpite in differenti fonti: spesso sono illustrazioni pubblicate su quotidiani o riviste, libri di storia dell’arte o di cinema, fotografie e più recentemente anche in internet. Le immagini scelte sono spesso quelle di personalità celebri (come quelle di artisti concettuali immortalati in occasione di mostre di portata storica o ritratti di importanti protagonisti del mondo della ricerca scientifica e culturale) nonchè fotogrammi di film conosciuti. Antezzo scegliendo e ri-dipingendo queste immagini, rimanda alla sua memoria culturale, nonchè visiva, creando il suo cosmo personale tra pittura e riflessione concettuale, mettendo in gioco il suo stesso ruolo d’artista tra legittimazione e autonomia. Utilizzando, e reiterando, immagini pubblicate allude al potere di suggestione della comunicazione contemporanea, estendendo il campo della pittura al mondo della tecnica e dei mass media.

L’opera in mostra When Attitudes Become Form, An Exhibition Sponsored by Philip Morris Europe (Pascali) (1997) può costituire un paradigma del lavoro dell’artista; il titolo allude alla storica mostra che celebrò l’arte concettuale nel 1969, mentre sulle tele si presentano, in una, la celebre fotografia di Pino Pascali alla Biennale di Venezia del 1968, e nell’altra, che funge da didascalia, compare il nome dell’artista e le date di nascita e di morte, in quattro lingue. Antezzo concerta qui una dialettica su più dimensioni e livelli, elaborando un processo di mis en abyme, visiva e concettuale: la riproduzione pittorica diviene icona ambigua tra il passato fotografico, la sua stessa memoria e la pittura presente, rinviando nel contempo paradossalmente all’Arte il cui “materiale” è il concetto, e che è di fatto “smaterializzata”. Matthew Antezzo è un “pittore della storia”, e la sua storia è quella dell’arte concettuale, che proclamava la fine della pittura: in questa prospettiva l’artista vuole dare un nuovo indirizzo, una nuova interrogazione sulla ricerca pittorica.

Matthew Antezzo's work consists mainly in the retrieval and substantial pictorial re-elaboration of images from Western tradition; “icons” which have been searched, found and taken from different sources: often they are illustrations taken from newspapers or magazines, art history books or books about cinema, photographs and more recently the Internet as well. The chosen images often depict celebrities (for example images of conceptual artists during exhibition of historical relevance, or portraits of important protagonists in the world of scientific and cultural research) as well as frames of well-known films. In choosing and re-painting these images, Antezzo refers back to his cultural and visual memory, thus creating his personal cosmos between painting and conceptual analysis and putting at stake his own role as an artist between legitimation and autonomy. By using and repeating published images he hints at the power of suggestion of contemporary communication, and expands the field of painting into the world of technique and mass media.

The exhibited piece, When Attitudes Become Form, An Exhibition Sponsored by Philip Morris Europe (Pascali) may be considered a paradigm of the artist's work; the title hints at the historical exhibition celebrating conceptual art in 1969, while the canvasses show – in one of them – the famous photograph of Pino Pascali at the Venice Biennale in 1968, and in the other, acting as a sort of caption, there is the name of the artist and the dates of his birth and death in four languages. Antezzo creates here a dialectics over several dimensions and levels, by elaborating a process of visual and conceptual mise en abyme: the pictorial reproduction becomes an ambiguous icon between the photographic past, its own memory, and today's painting, while paradoxically pointing at Art whose “material” is the concept, and which is de facto “dematerialized”. Matthew Antezzo is a“painter of history”, and his history is the history of conceptual art which announced the end of painting; in this perspective the artist wants to offer a new direction, a new query on painting research.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “The art of Conversation”, PSM Gallery, Berlin, 2012 “Matthew Antezzo”, Klosterfelde, Berlin, 2011 – 2012 “La independencia en Crecimiento”, Monterrey, Nuevo Leòn, 2011 “Zona Maco”, Monterrey, Arena Mexico, 2010 “TestBild” Springhornhof, Kunstverein, Neuenkirchen, 2010 “Gedankenstriche”, Kunstverein Göttingen, Göttingen, 2010 “Silberraum”, Die Schute, Hamburg, 2009 “Sun In My Hands”, Klosterfelde, Berlin, 2006 “Matthew Antezzo”, Galerie Vallois, Parigi, 2005 “Matthew Antezzo”, Michele Maccarone Inc, New York, 2005 “Matthew Antezzo”, Arena Mexico, Guadalajara, Jalisco, 2003 “Matthew Antezzo”, Sprüth Magers Projekte, München, 2003 “Matthew Antezzo”, Klosterfelde, Berlin, 2002 “Matthew Antezzo”, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens, 2001 “Matthew Antezzo”, Blum & Poe, Santa Monica, 2000 “Spy versus Spy”, Klosterfelde, Berlin, 1999 “Matthew Antezzo”, Basilico Fine Arts, New York, 1998 “Matthew Antezzo”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 1997 “Matthew Antezzo”, Le Case d'Arte, Milan, 1997 “Matthew Antezzo”, Klosterfelde, Berlin, 1997 “Matthew Antezzo”, Galerie Philomene Magers, Cologne (MN, USA), 1996 “Matthew Antezzo”, Gian Enzo Sperone, Roma, 1995 “Matthew Antezzo”, Galerie Georges Philippe Vallois, Paris, 1995

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Mehr als zuviel”, handmade Berlin, Berlin 2012 “Oh how time flies”, Bergen Kunsthalle Bergen, 2011 “PLAYTIME”, works from Klosterfelde Collection, Hamburg, LAC Narbonne, Sigean, 2011 “Proyecto Bicentenairio”, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, 2011 “Marea de nudos”, Tapices contemporáneos del Taller Mexicano de Gobelinos, Galería Jesús Gallardo, León, Guanajuato, 2010 “Apocalypse Now”, Kunstverein Hamburg, 2010 “Portrait of the artist as a biker”, Le Magasin, CRAC Grenoble, 2009 “Wright”, Klosterfelde Lienienstrasse 160, Berlin, 2009 “Unerreichbar ist gerade nah genug”, Galerie Alexandra Saheb, Berlin, 2009 “Project for a New American Century”, Rose Art Museum, Waltham, 2008 “remixed“, Galerie Alexandra Saheb, Berlin, 2008 “Moralische Fantasien – Künstlerische Strategien in Zusammenhang mit der Klimaerwärmung”, Kunstmuseum des Kantons Thurgau, Kartause Ittingen, 2008 “Freunde und Bekannte”, Sparwasser, Berlin, 2008 “Faces”, Eleni Koroneou, Athens, 2008 “In Attesa di Risposta”, Supportico Lopez, Napoli, 2007 “Historyteller”, Galerie Lautom, Oslo, 2007 “REF”, 1/9 unosunove arte contemporanea, Roma, 2007 “The Re-Distribution of the Sensibile”, Magnus Müller, Berlin, 2007 “Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture”, BXMA, Bronx (NY, USA), 2006 “Historyteller”, Galerie Lautom, Oslo, 2007 “The Re-Distribution of the Sensibile”, Magnus Müller, Berlin, 2007 “Down By Law, 2006 Whitney Biennial”, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2006 “Ex Post Facto”, Galerie Georges-Philippe Vallois, Paris, 2005 "Common Property / Allgemeingut. 6. Werkleitz Biennale", Volkspark, Halle (Saale), 2004 “Reanimation", Kunstmuseum Thun, Thun, 2004 "Arbeiten auf Papier / Works on paper", Sprüth Magers Projekte, München, 2004 "Likeness", CCAC Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, 2004 "Living with Duchamp", The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, 2003 Pedro Barbeito

Nato a / Born in La Coruna, 1969 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

L’opera di Pedro Barbeito esplora il rapporto tra la creazione d’immagini digitali e la pittura. In particolare, alcuni dei suoi lavori, rappresentano una riflessione sull’iper-realtà 3D dei nuovi videogiochi, in cui lo spazio si espande e diventa fisico, tattile. L’artista approfondisce il legame tra questa nuova dimensione e la tradizione antica del paesaggio e del ritratto, reinterpretando questo immaginario storico attraverso una tecnica fatta di pixel, ricreando sulla tela la piattezza luminosa dello schermo e, al contempo, traducendo le immagini dei videogiochi in pigmenti e texture di colore. L’artista elabora una sorta di paradosso iconico sul potere e sul limite della visione combinando immagini di diversa natura provenienti da più fonti: la Nasa, Scientific American Magazines, astronomia. Nei lavori che vanno dal 1997 a oggi, investiga l’impatto dell’immagine digitale sul linguaggio della storia della pittura, rappresentando le sconfitte e i successi della scienza. Barbeito considera la tecnologia e le immagini digitali come fenomeni che hanno alterato il nostro modo di percepire la realtà, poiché oggi non si definiscono più le cose solamente per come le vediamo; d’altra parte la pittura è definita astratta nei termini semplicistici del non riconoscibile o riconoscibile. Ogni tela ovale è strutturata su un sistema di griglie ricurve, come una suggestiva carta millimetrata che richiama le costruzione delle prime prospettive. I suoi quadri sono popolati da cubi dipinti che si combinano con le forme esistenti costituite da pixel in cui l’occhio è trasportato in un labirinto dove buchi neri e colori squillanti si alternano.

Digital Winter Landscape (1999) celebra il piacere formale della materia, e quello della pittura applicata ed elaborata intimamente da un artista che ama il suo medium. Il dipinto affascina sia la vista che il tatto come un contrappunto che ricorda l’insondabilità dell’opera senza l’uso combinato di tutti i sensi. L’artista costruisce queste anomalie strato su strato, per dare vita alla tela come se fosse soggetta, come il resto dell’universo, a eventi biologici, e ricrea costellazioni di vari elementi del Cosmo: la stessa forma ovale dell’opera ricorda la dimensione astratta dei pianeti visti da una certa distanza. Atmosfere suggestive e intriganti di uno spazio estremo in cui i componenti, come fuoco, vento, acqua e terra entrano in collisione ma coesistono.

Pedro Barbeito’s work explores the relationship between the creation of digital images and painting. In particular, some of his works represent a reflexion on the 3D hyper-reality of new video games, where space expands and becomes physical and tactile. The artist explores in depth the link between this new dimension and the old tradition of landscape and portrait painting, by re- interpreting this historical imagery through a technique made of pixels, and recreating the bright flatness of the screen while at the same time translating the images of video games in colour pigments and textures. The artist elaborates a sort of iconic paradox on the power and the boundaries of vision through the combination of different images coming from several sources: Nasa, Scientific American Magazines, astronomy. In his works from 1997 till today he has explored the impact of the digital image on the language of painting history, and represented the defeats and successes of science. Barbeito considers digital technology and images as phenomena that have changed our way of seeing reality, as today things cannot be any longer defined abstract solely by the way we see them; but painting is also defined in a very simple way, in terms of what is either recognizable or non-recognizable. Every oval canvas is structured over a system of round grids, like an evocative graph paper recalling the construction of earlier perspectives. His paintings are inhabited by painted cubes combining with existing shapes composed of pixels where the viewer's eye is driven through a maze where black holes alternate with bright colours.

Digital Winter Landscape (1999) celebrates the formal pleasure of matter and the pleasure of painting being applied and intimately processed by an artist loving his medium. The painting fascinates both sight and touch as a counterpoint recalling the fact that the work would be unfathomable without the combined use of all the senses. The artist builds these anomalies layer after layer in order to bring the canvas to life as if it were subject to biological events like all the rest of the universe, and recreates constellations of several elements of the Cosmos: the same oval shape of the work recalls the abstract dimension of planets seen from afar. Evocative and intriguing atmospheres of an extreme space whose components, like fire, wind, water and earth, mutually collide, but also share the same environment.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Pedro Barbeito. Pop Violence”, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield (CT, USA), 2012 “Pedro Barbeito”, CIRCA Art Fair, Charest-Weinberg Gallery, Puerto Rico, 2010 “Within an Arrows Range”, Charest-Weinberg Gallery, Miami, 2010 “Pedro Barbeito”, Galerie Jean-Luc et Takako Richard, Paris, 2008 “Knockout”, Galerie Jean-Luc et Takako Richard, Paris, 2007 “Us and Them”, Galeria Pilar Parra & Romero, Madrid, 2006 “The Conversation”, Lehmann Maupin, New York, 2005 “Digital Landscapes: 1565/2002”, Lehmann Maupin, New York, 2003 “Pedro Barbeito”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 2002 “Pedro Barbeito”, Lehmann Maupin, New York, 2000 “Pedro Barbeito”, Basilico Fine Arts, New York, 1999

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Colliding Complexities: Extreme Feats of the New York-New Aesthetic”, StorefrontBushwick, Brooklyn (NY, USA), 2012 “La Colecciòn (The Collection)”, Fundaciòn Barrié, La Coruna, 2012 “Data Panic”, Cuchifritos Art Gallery, New York, 2009 “Pedro Barbeito and Jason Gringler”, Charest-Weinberg Gallery, Miami, 2009 “Data Panic”, Cuchifritos Art Gallery, New York, 2009 “Deadliest Catch: Hamptons”, Hamptons, New York, 2008 “Expanded Painting”, Space Other, Boston, 2008 “Parangole: Fragments from 90’s”, Museum Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, 2008 “M*A*S*H”, Miami, 2007 “Irrational Exuberance”, Maddox Arts, London, 2007 “Strictly Painting”, KLF, New York, 2006 “The Gallery Show”, Pilar Parra & Romero, Madrid, 2006 “Baroque and Neo Baroque: The Hell of the Beautiful”, DA2, Fundacion Salamanca Ciudad de la Cultura, Salamanca, 2005 “Druid: Wood as Superconductor”, Space 101, Brooklyn, 2003 “On and Off the Wall”, Phillips, de Pury&Luxembourg, New York, 2003 “The Physics of Spirituality”, Westwood Gallery, New York, 2003 “Under Pressure”, The Cooper Union, New York, 2003 “New Economy Painting”, Acme Gallery, Los Angeles, 2002 “Off the Grid”, Lehmann Maupin, New York, 2002 “I Love New York Art Benefit”, Lehman Maupin, New York, 2001 “Glee: Painting Now”, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield (CT, USA); Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Palm Beach, 2000 “World Healt Organization”, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 2000 “Cyber/Cypher”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 1999 “The Choice”, Exit Art, New York, 1998 “Abstract Painting”, Rose Art Museum, Waltham (MA, USA), 1996 “New Talent”, Alpha Gallery, Boston, 1996

David Bowes

Nato a / Born in Boston, 1957 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in Newton and Torino

L’arte di David Bowes appare come un’onirica mappatura antropologica, letteraria e botanica: una geografia fatta di viaggi di conquista e seduzioni intellettuali, che unisce insieme scrittura e illustrazione. Forte è il rimando alle forme dell’arte dell’illustrazione sia nelle forme dell’incisione europea sia nei codici di rappresentazione nipponici, attraversando l’intera storia della pittura americana, dagli American Scene Painters (come Thomas Hart Benton e Grant Wood), ai ritratti di famiglia di Arshile Gorky, fino ai segni vibranti dell’Espressionismo Astratto di Adolf Gottlieb e Willem de Kooning. Il suo decorativismo porta su uno stesso piano soggetto e sfondo, storia e paesaggio. La dissoluzione dell’unità di spazio, spezza ogni rapporto logicamente determinato tra figure del quadro e le loro relazioni proporzionali: il risultato è un movimento di figure reali in uno spazio irrazionale e fantastico. Così, sin dai primi anni Ottanta e per tutta la sua attività artistica, Bowes dà vita a una imaginerie libera da vincoli e condizionamenti ideologici, descrivendo un mondo esuberante di arabeschi, motivi araldici, capitelli corinzi, calligrafie arabe, tessuti Déco, mitologie precolombiane e graffiti metropolitani, in una personale ricerca dell’Arcadia. L’immagine si rinnova continuamente a mostrarci non un presente fantastico e irreale, ma piuttosto un “qui e ora” che diviene reale proprio perché immaginato in modo così pieno e appassionato.

In You Are Here (2006) in un irrealizzato, onirico paesaggio chiuso, un medievale hortus conclusus, le figure stanno in piedi, allineate rigidamente come Santi di un mosaico bizantino, mentre una settima figura, posa, seduta a terra, con un'acconciatura di piume e fiori. Grande è l’attenzione nella resa della vegetazione dello sfondo e del bordo di erbe e fiori, alcuni già sfioriti ma sempre più grandi del normale, che chiudono il primo piano, interrotto solo, sul lato sinistro, da un araldico gatto nero. I sei giovani personaggi con aureola, sono vestiti secondo mode differenti, quattro sfoggiano tra le loro mani un oggetto emblematico, un attributo tratto dai dipinti religiosi classici. Sono tutte figure femminili o androgine, costruzioni dentro e fuori scala, sia religiose che secolari, che punteggiano il paesaggio dell’Eden, e che si avvicinano nel significato ai giardini mitici dei Preraffaelliti. L’artista accenna in questa rappresentazione a un’innocenza ottenuta come una possibile evocazione dei Figli dei Fiori degli anni Sessanta, trasformandolo così, inaspettatamente, in un differente genere di pittura storica, nel quale solo lo spazio diventa segno dei tempi.

David Bowes’s art appears to be a dreamlike anthropological, literary and botanical mapping: a geography made of conquest journeys and intellectual seductions, merging together writing and illustration. Reference to the art forms of illustration is strong, both in terms of European etching and Japanese representational codes, and traveling through the entire history of American painting, from American Scene Painters (such as Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood), and family portraits by Arshile Gorky, down to the vibrant signs of Adolf Gottlieb’s and Willem de Kooning’s Abstract Expressionism. His Decorativism brings subject and backdrop, history and landscape at the same level. The dissolving of the unity of space breaks down all logically-established relationship between the figures in the painting and their relations in terms of proportion: the result is a movement of real figures within an irrational and fantastic space. Thus, since the early Eighties and throughout his activity as an artist, Bowes has created an imaginerie free from ideological constraints and conditioning, by describing an exuberant world made of arabesques, coats of arms, Corinthian capitals, Arabic calligraphies, Art Deco fabrics, Pre-Columbian mythologies and metropolitan graffiti in a personal search for Arcadia. The image is constantly renewed as it shows us not a fantastic and unreal present, but rather a “here and now” becoming real because it has been imagined so thoughtfully and passionately.

In You Are Here (2006) in an un-made, dreamlike close landscape, a Medieval hortus conclusus, figures stand stiffly aligned like Saints in a Byzantine mosaic, while the seventh figure is portrayed sitting on the ground with a headgear decorated with feathers and flowers. There is a great attention paid to the way the greenery in the backdrop and the flowers and herbs in the border are depicted, with some of the flowers already withered but still much larger than usual, which complete the close-up, interrupted as it is by a heraldic black cat on the left. The six youth with a halo are dressed with garments from different fashion, four of them carry an emblematic object, an item drawn from classic religious paintings. These are only female or androgynous figures, constructed within or out of scale, either religious or secular, dotting the Eden-like landscape and approaching the mythical gardens of the Pre-Raphaelites in its meaning. In this representation, the artist hints at an innocence possibly attained through an evocation of the Flower Power from the 1960’s, thus unexpectedly changing the work into a different genre of historical painting where only space becomes the marker of times. Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “The Pleasant Land”, Galleria Antonio Battaglia, Milano, 2011 “David Bowes. Living on earth”, Studio d’arte Raffaelli, Trento, 2009 - 2010 “David Bowes. Palermo ispanica”, Palazzo Sant’Elia, Palermo, 2008 “David Bowes”, Duetart Gallery, Varese, 2006 “You are here”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 2006 “La Belle Epoque”, Galerie Pièce Unique, Paris, 2005 “David Bowes”, Arcadian, Galleria in Arco, Torino, 2005 “David Bowes”, Annina Nosei Gallery, New York, 2002 “Opere Recenti”, Galleria in Arco, Torino, 1997 “David Bowes”, Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm, 1996 “David Bowes”, Galerie Pièce Unique, Paris, 1994 “David Bowes”, Gian Ferrari Arte Contemporanea, Milano, 1993 “David Bowes”, Gian Enzo Sperone, Roma, 1993 “David Bowes”, Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm, 1993 “David Bowes”, Galeria Ramis Barquet, Monterrey, 1993 “La Commedia dell’Arte, David Bowes”, Galleria Lucio Amelio, Napoli, 1992 “David Bowes”, Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York, 1992 “David Bowes”, Vrej Baghoomian Gallery, New York, 1989- 1990 “David Bowes”, Fred Hoffman Gallery, Santa Monica, 1990

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Transition. Painting at the (other) end of the art – La pittura alla fine dell’arte”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2009 “Vent’anni con gli amici”, Galleria in Arco, Torino, 2007 “The Downtown Show, The New York Art Scene 1974-1984”, Grey Art Gallery, New York University, Andy Warhol Foundation, Pittsburgh, 2006 “Ma l'amore no: omaggio a Lucio Amelio”, Galleria Mimmo Scognamiglio, Napoli, 2004 “Rough Edge: Selections from The Broad Art Foundation”, Crocker Art Museum,\~Sacramento, 2000 “Noa Noa una stagione in paradiso”, Galleria In Arco, Torino, 1995 “Terrae Motus”, Reggia Reale, Caserta, 1992 “Landscape Paintings”, Annina Nosei Gallery, New York, 1991 “Sanoja - Words - Paroles. An Exhibition of Artists Poems”, MUU Gallery, Helsinki, 1998 - 1999 “1979-1989 American, Italian and Mexican Art from the Collection of Francesco Pellizzi”, Hofstra University, Hempstead (NY, USA), 1989 Ann Craven

Nata a / Born in Boston, 1974 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

Le opere di Ann Craven presentano una rivisitazione poetica di processi di ri-produzione di immagini della natura tratte da fotografie, originate quindi da una esperienza indiretta della natura, tipica della cultura odierna. Su una stessa tela, l'artista unisce il figurativo e l'astratto, figure ben delineate e zone più “confuse”, utilizzando colori brillanti e ingrandendo a dismisura le dimensioni dei soggetti, rendendoli affascinanti, ma anche spiazzanti e quasi spaventosi. La sua ricerca si è concentrata in particolar modo sulla rappresentazione degli uccelli, che divengono icone ripetute serialmente (anche se sempre leggermente variate per dimensione, forma o colore), sfidando la concezione tradizionale che identifica l'essenza della pittura con la creazione di qualcosa di unico e restituendo un'importanza fondamentale al gesto pittorico, alla sua sensualità e all'azione fisica della pennellata come cardine del processo di duplicazione. Le sue opere così interpretano la differenza nella ripetizione cambiando la dimensione della tela o il colore dello sfondo piatto. Anche il numero, la forma e la densità delle pennellate cambiano da una riproduzione all’altra, e se la scala e il colore dell’immagine resta la stessa cambiano le tonalità sia del primo piano che dello sfondo.

Ann Craven giustappone in Nevermore (2003) un campo rappresentazionale (un uccellino in primo piano, immagine di derivazione fotografica, con una pianta nel piano mediano, disegnata dalla natura) a uno astratto (il nero non naturalistico dello sfondo), complicando un approccio sistematico alle immagini con una elaborazione intuitiva del modo di dipingere. L’uccello è un Eastern Bluebird che viene rappresentato con il becco leggermente aperto e con le zampe che stringono un ramo spezzato. Dietro, un fondo nero, probabilmente afferisce all’interiorizzazione del Romanticismo alienato di Richter piuttosto che enfatizzare il ciclo della vita e della morte nella natura. L’opera assume in sé il gesto dell’Espressionismo astratto, la fiducia nelle immagini di massa della Pop Art e le relazioni spaziali del Minimalismo, il primato della mente del Concettualismo, l’enfasi del Neoespressionismo sull’iscrizione di immagini costruite con risonanze storiche e infine i dipinti fotografici di Gerhard Richter.

Ann Craven’s works present a poetic re-visitation of the re-production processes for nature images taken from photographs, thus originated from an indirect experience of nature, which is typical of today’s culture. On the same canvas, the artist merges the figurative and the abstract, well- outlined figures and more “blurred” areas, by using bright colours and expanding the subjects out of all proportions, and making them fascinating, as well as disconcerting and even somewhat frightful. Her research has focused mostly on the representation of birds which become icons serially repeated (although slightly changed in size, shape or colour), thus challenging the traditional notion identifying the essence of painting with the creation of something unique and giving a fundamental importance to the painting gesture, its sensuality and the physical action of the brush stroke as the pivot of the duplication process. Her works interpret the difference in repetition by changing the size of the canvas or the colour of the flat background. The number, shape and density of brush strokes change from one reproduction to the other, and if scale and colour remain the same in the image, the tones in the fore and back grounds remain the same.

In Nevermore (2003) Ann Craven overlaps a field of representation (a small bird in the foreground, an image derived from a photograph, with a plant in the middle ground, drawn from nature) to an abstract plane (the non-realistic black of the background), thus complicating a systematic approach to the images with an intuitive elaboration of the painting style. The bird is an Eastern Bluebird portrayed here with the beak slightly ajar and the claws clasping a broken twig. Behind -a black background- probably hints more at interiorizing Richter’s alienated Romanticism than at emphasizing the cycle of life and death in nature. The piece takes up in itself the gesture of abstract Expressionism, the belief in the mass images of Pop Art and spatial relations from Minimalism, the primacy of mind in Conceptualism, the emphasis of Neo-Expressionism on the inscription of images built with historical reverberations and finally Gerhard Richter’s photographic paintings.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Ann Craven: Summer”, Southard Reid, London, 2012 “Ann Craven”, Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, 2011 “Ann Craven. Flowers”, Maccarone Gallery, New York, 2010 “Ann Craven”, Blancpain Art Contemporain, Geneve, 2010 “Ann Craven. Shadows moon”, CIAP, Hasselt (Belgium), 2009 “Ann Craven. Puff Puff”, Conduits, Milano, 2009 “Ann Craven, Against the Stream”, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, 2008 “Ann Craven, Shadow’s Moon”, Fonds regional d’Art Contemporain, Frac-Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, 2008 “Ann Craven. Moon Birds”, Knoedler & Company, New York, 2008 “Deer and Beer LA”, Mandrake, Los Angeles, 2007 “Ann Craven”, Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels, 2006 “Ann Craven”, Klemens Gasser + Tanja Grunert, Inc., New York, 2006 “Deer + Beer”, Klemens Gasser + Tanja Grunert, Inc., New York, 2006 “A Poppy is a Poppy is a Poppy”, The New York Horticulture Society, New York, 2005 “After Nature”, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Domestic, Los Angeles, 2004 “Ann Craven”, Galleria Paolo Curti/Annamaria Gambuzzi & Co., Milano, 2004 “This Way no This way (Aut Aut)”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2004 “Ann Craven”, Klemens Gasser + Tanja Grunert, Inc., New York, 2002 “Ann Craven”, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, 2002 “Ann Craven”, Curt Marcus Gallery, New York, 2002 “Ann Craven”, Gallery Ha Ha, Knoxville (TN, USA), 2002 “Ann Craven”, Lauren Wittels Gallery, New York, 1997 “Ann Craven”, Lauren Wittels Gallery, New York, 1995

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “The spirit Level”, Gladstone Gallery, New York, 2012 “8 Americans”, Serge Maruani & Alain Noirhomme Gallery, New York, 2011 “Conduits”, ReMap, Athens, 2011 “CAA Exhibition”, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago, 2010 “Hello, Mr. McGrudder”, Benson-Keys Arts, South Hampton, New York, 2009 “No Bees No Blueberries”, Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York, 2009 “Transition. Painting at the (other) end of the art – La pittura alla fine dell’arte”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2009 “Whitney Art Party”, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2009 “Tales of the Grotesque”, Karma International, Zürich, 2008 “Fair Market”, Rental, New York, 2008 “Thank You For Coming, Triple Candie 2001-2008”, Triple Candie, New York, 2008 “Accidental Modernism”, Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York, 2008 “Birds”, Dwight Hackett Projects, Santa Fe, 2007 “Joe Bradley/Ann Craven/Dana Frankfort/Keith Mayerson”, Zach Feuer Gallery, New York, 2007 “Carrerond in Parris”, Centre Culturel Suisse (CCS), Paris, 2007 “New Work”, Klemens Gasser + Tanja Grunert, Inc., New York, 2006 “Modest Sublime”, The Carpenter Center for the Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, 2005 “Neo-Baroque”, Biblos Center for the Arts, Verona, 2005 “Chao Manhatten”, Perugi Arte Contemporanea, Padova, 2005 “Ann Craven and Keith Meyorson”, Scope Art Fair, New York, 2004 “She’s Come Undone”, Artemis Greenberg Van Doren, New York, 2004 “AC”, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, 2004 “The Collector's Cabinet: for Marsha”, Marc Selwyn Fine Art at Domestic, Los Angeles, 2004 “For The Birds”, ArtSpace, New Haven (CT, USA), 2004 “Bird Space”, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, 2004 “Art Basel Miami / 2003”, Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert; Allston Skirt Gallery, Miami, 2003 “Giverny”, Salon 94, New York, 2003 “Art Basel Miami / 2002”, Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert, Miami, 2002

Andy Cross

Nato a / Born in Richmond (VA, USA), 1979 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in Brooklyn (NY, USA)

Andy Cross realizza opere dipingendo su supporti atipici e sperimentando nuovi materiali. La sua pittura è immediata come nell’affresco e a un essenziale uso del pigmento corrisponde un’elaborata e articolata composizione figurativa. L’artista indaga la storia, soprattutto americana e occidentale, attraverso un’esplorazione a tutto tondo (geografica, scientifica, politica e culturale) ponendo particolare accento sul “giovane maschio bianco americano”, sulla sua identità e sul ruolo svolto dal suo paese nella politica internazionale. Per Cross la società occidentale tende a dominare tutto ciò che viene scoperto, cosicché “esplorazione” e sfruttamento risultano strettamente connessi. Cross riconsidera i suoi ideali, critica la moderna politica mondiale interrogandosi su cosa sia realmente cambiato rispetto al passato e manifesta il suo disagio con tratti violenti nella sua pittura.

Il titolo dell’opera The Wheel Is Broken but the Revolution Is Still Intact (2005), che trae origine dal romanzo Tropico del Cancro di Henry Miller, rappresenta in modo magniloquente e critico l’epopea statunitense, caratterizzata da lotte intestine ed esterne che hanno cambiato la storia della Nazione e del mondo intero: dalla Rivoluzione a tutte le guerre innescate dalla volontà egemonica americana. Chiaro è il rimando all’iconografia classica della lotta per l’indipendenza dello Stato e della società, cioè La libertà che guida il popolo di Eugène Delacroix: Cross ne ribalta il punto di vista, spostando l’attenzione non solo sui personaggi, ma anche sul paesaggio, che in questo caso pare essere la sconfinata frontiera americana. Sono qui raffigurati personaggi in marsina e tricorno, al contempo giocatori di football e indiani nativi che paiono icone rock: molteplici sono i rimandi alle etnie che compongono la società americana e il ricco eclettismo della rappresentazione è dovuto ad immagini apparentemente fuori contesto. Lo stesso supporto di cui si avvale l’artista per il dipinto (polistirene rosa) sta ad indicare il suo approccio critico nella rappresentazione di un tema che appartiene alla “pittura storica celebrativa”.

Andy Cross makes his art works by painting them on unusual surfaces and experimenting on new materials. His painting is immediate as in frescoes, and an elaborate and articulated figurative composition corresponds to an essential use of the pigment. The artist explores history, in particular American and European history, through a full-round exploration (geographical, scientific, political and cultural) with a special attention to the “young white American male”, his identity and the role played by his country on the international political arena. For Cross, Western society tends towards dominating everything that is being discovered, to the point that “exploration” and exploitation are closely linked together. Cross reconsiders his ideals and criticizes modern world politics, and questions what has truly changed with respect to the past, while showing his discomfort by the violent strokes of his painting.

The title of the work, The Wheel Is Broken but the Revolution Is Still Intact (2005), drawn from the novel, Tropic of the Cancer by Henry Miller, represents in a grandiose and critical fashion the US epos characterized by internecine and foreign struggles that have changed the history of the nation and of the entire world: from the Revolution to all the wars triggered by the American hegemonic thrust. The reference to the classic iconography of the struggle for independence of the State and Society is clear, namely Freedom leading the people by Eugène Delacroix: Cross reverses the point of view, shifting attention not only onto characters, but also the landscape, which in this case seems to be the boundless American frontier. Characters in frock coat and tricorn hat are shown here, together with football players and native Americans depicted like rock icons: there are multiple references to ethnic groups comprising American society, and the rich eclecticism of representation is due to images apparently out of context. The same material being used by the artist for the painting (pink Styrofoam) shows his critical approach in the representation of a topic belonging to the “historical celebration painting”.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Andy Cross. House Painter”, Martos Gallery, New York, 2012 “Andy Cross. The Greener side of the law”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2006 “Unfinished Business”, Kravets/Wehby Gallery, New York, 2005 “Andy Cross. The Wheel is broken but the Revolution is still intact”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2005 “The Exploitation of Exploration”, MFA Thesis Exhibition, Hunter College, New York, 2004

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “The double dirty dozen”, Freight + Volume, New York, 2012 “LANY: Kevin Appel, Andy Cross, Benjamin Degen, James Melinat, Luis Rabbia, Daniel Rich and Kara Tanaka”, Peter Blum, New York, 2011 “Small Oil Paintings”, Galerie Mikael Andersen, Berlin, 2010 “Separated Entities”, Musum 52, New York, 2009 “Birds”, Dwight Hackett Projects, Santa Fe, 2007 “Stranger than Fiction”, Rare Gallery, New York, 2007 “Drawn”, Kravets/Wehby Gallery, New York, 2005 “Everything Word”, Kravets/Wehby, New York, 2004-2005 “Rowdy Remix”, ATM Gallery, New York, 2004 “Landscape”, Gary Tatinsian, New York, 2004 David Dupuis

Nato a / Born in Holyhoke (MA, USA), 1959 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

La ricerca pittorica di David Dupuis verte, sin dagli inizi, sulla rappresentazione artistica tra astrazione e figurazione: non è casuale che la sua prima attività si concentri sull’analisi dell’immagine, partendo dal grado zero: il colore bianco - luce, e la forma - labirinto. I primi quadri - collages erano esclusivamente bianco su bianco, carta bianca su tela bianca e colore bianco sulla carta: “Volevo dipingere un oggetto senza dipingerlo. Per questo ho usato la carta e ho costruito l’immagine sulla tela invece di dipingerla”. I riferimenti primari per l’artista sono i grandi pittori di luce del passato: Rembrandt, Goya, El Greco, Tiziano e non ultimo Leonardo da Vinci di cui Dupuis apprezza soprattutto la straordinaria capacità espressa nel disegno che coniuga la perfezione della rappresentazione formale e la minuziosa indagine scientifica che lo accompagna. A differenza dei primi lavori, le opere degli anni Novanta sono caratterizzate da un ampio uso della gamma cromatica e da forme ripetute ossessivamente. Di questo periodo sono The Scarlet Stairmaster e Up the Downside, opere sulla forma-non forma del labirinto, che - al contempo - diviene gradino-scala-meandro: una successione infinita di geometrie ad angolo retto che focalizzano il percorso della rappresentazione tra certezza visuale e impossibilità di determinarne un centro formale, nonché i limiti e le potenzialità della percezione, metafore della ricerca pittorica e del proprio sé, aspetti pregnanti nel dibattito sull’impotenza della pittura negli anni Novanta.

Di qualche anno più tarda è l’opera The Swell, (1995) il titolo di per sé identifica non solo la sua iconografia, ma ne diviene anche evocazione onomatopeica. Lunghe linee colorate si susseguono in sinuose ondulazioni liquide immerse in un azzurro oltremare. A differenza della prima produzione artistica Dupuis non utilizza più la carta per determinare la forma, ma ritorna all’antica pratica del pennello: la forma è decisa ri-proposizione e replica della linea rimanda alla tradizione pittorica: dai lirici disegni di Toorop alla rigida determinazione formale di Mondrian innervata dalla presenza di copiose colature che restituiscono il forte legame dell’artista con l’arte di Pollock. Una grammatica formale e concettuale che si innesta in una riflessione più profonda sull’esistenza e sulla spiritualità teosofica.

David Dupuis’s painting research has focused from the start on the artistic representation between abstraction and figuration. It is not therefore by chance that his first activity was based on the analysis of the image, starting from the zero degree: the colour white – light, and the labyrinth- form. The first collage works were exclusively white on white, white paper on white canvas and white colour on paper: “I wanted to paint an object without painting it. For this reason I have used paper and built the image on the canvas instead of painting it.” The artist’s primary references are the great painters of the light from the past: Rembrandt, Goya, El Greco, Tizano, as well as Leonardo da Vinci whom Dupuis appreciates mostly for his extraordinary skills in drawing, which combine the perfection of formal representation with detailed scientific research. Differently from the early works, the ones from the Nineties are characterized by a wide recourse to the colour range and obsessively repeated forms. Works such as The Scarlet Stairmaster and Up the Downside date from this period, and explore the form-non form of the labyrinth which – at the same time – becomes step-ladder-meander: an endless sequence of right-angle geometries highlighting the pathway of representation between visual certainty and the impossibility to determine a formal center, as well as the boundaries and potential of perception, as metaphors of research in the realm of painting and one's self, weighty features in the debate on the powerlessness of painting in the Nineties.

The work The Swell (1995) was conceived a few years later, and its title per se identifies not only its iconography, but even becomes an onomatopoeic evocation. Long colour lines follow one another in winding liquid undulations plunged into an ultramarine blue. Here, differently from his early artistic production, Dupuis does no longer use paper to determine shape, but comes back to the old practice of the brush: the form is a marked re-proposition and repetition of the line referring back to pictorial tradition - from Toorop’s lyrical drawings to Mondrian’s strict formal determination vivified by the presence of many drippings conveying the artist’s strong link with the art of Pollock. A formal and conceptual grammar grafted in a deeper analysis on life and theosophical spirituality.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Green, Green, Grass of Home”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2011 “David Dupuis”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2007 “David Dupuis”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2006 “David Dupuis”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2005 “David Dupuis”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2003 “David Dupuis”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2001 “David Dupuis”, Schmidt Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2000 “David Dupuis”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 1999 “David Dupuis”, White Columns, New York, 1997 “David Dupuis”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 1995 “David Dupuis”, Turner & Byrne, Dallas, 1994 “David Dupuis”, Rubenstein / Diacono Gallery, New York, 1992 “David Dupuis”, Thomas Solomon’s Garage, Los Angeles, 1991 “David Dupuis”, Karsten Schubert, Ldt., London, 1991 “David Dupuis”, Petersburg Gallery, New York, 1991 “David Dupuis”, Simon Watson Gallery, New York, 1989 “David Dupuis”, Thomas Solomon’s Garage, Los Angeles, 1989

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “It’s Always Summer on the Inside”, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, 2012 “Cut and Hung”, Bryan Miller Gallery, Houston, 2012 “Utopia/Dystopia” Construction in Photography and Collage, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, 2012 “Salad Days”, The Journal Gallery, Brooklyn, 2010 “The Tree”, James Cohan Gallery, Shanghai, 2009 “Blue, Blue”, Maloney Fine Art, Los Angeles, 2009 “Salt Peanuts, Inman Gallery, Houston, 2009 “How To Cook A Wolf: Part One”, Dinter Fine Art, New York, 2008 “Summer Group Exhibition”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2008 “Written on the Wind: The Flag Project”, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2007 “Memento Mori”, Mireille Mosler, Ltd., New York, 2006 “Art on Paper 2006”, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro (NC, USA), 2006 “Drawn”, Dinter Fine Art, New York, 2006 “Variegate Radiant Dream Plot”, Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, 2006 “Seriality”, Axel Raben Gallery, New York, 2005 “Pencil Me In”, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington (MA, USA), 2004 “Under the Sun”, Greener Pastures Contemporary Art, Toronto, 2004 “Colored Pencil”, KS Art, New York, 2004 “Happy”, OH+T Gallery, Boston, 2004 “Rendered”, Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York, 2003 “Nina Bovasso, David Dupuis, Andrew Masullo”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2002 “Accumulations”, Kent State University, School of Art Gallery, Kent, 2001 “Not a. Lear”, Gracie Mansion Gallery, New York, 2001 “Lemon Tree Hill”, Asprey Jacques, London, 2000 “Nina Bovasso, David Dupuis, Kate Shepherd”, Inman Gallery, Houston, 2000 “The Circle Show”, bona fide, Chicago, 2000 “Free Coke”, GreeneNaftali inc., New York, 1999 “Parallel Lines: Mix and Match”, Karen McCready Fine Art, New York, 1999 “Mary Beyt & David Dupuis”, Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, 1995 “Circumscribed Imagination on the Ruins of Tradition”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 1994 “Works on Paper”, John Good Gallery, New York, 1994

Matthew Day Jackson

Nato a / Born in Panorama City (CA, USA), 1974 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in Brooklyn (NY, USA)

Ispirato dal Costruttivismo russo, Matthew Day Jackson rappresenta un diverso tipo di giovane pioniere che ripropone “simboli di frontiera” con obiettivi politici. Le sue opere recenti assumono come punto di partenza alcune fra le più leggendarie icone della storia statunitense. Interessato a ciò che il passato americano continua a trasmettere nell’attuale dimensione socio- politica e a come questo possa agire sul futuro, Jackson elabora sculture con oggetti trovati e materiali naturali, che suggeriscono una “narrativa storica” dell’immagine e della storia, determinando nuovi percorsi. L’uso di materiali di recupero, trovati nell’immondizia o tra gli scarti di lavorazioni, diviene gesto etico e morale, che dona nuova vita, bellezza e senso a questi oggetti: un modo di ripensare alla loro struttura formale e di meglio comprendere il mondo. “L’arte è un atto d’immaginazione e l’immaginazione pervade ogni cosa… Nel fare arte cerco di comunicare molte cose simultaneamente: la mia fede politica, la mia assunzione di responsabilità nell’arte come un autoritratto. Sono interessato a quel fare arte che diviene uno specchio del tempo in cui sono, arte come microcosmo”.

Oracle (Days of Future Passed) (2005-2006) è un pannello di legno dipinto di nero, e parzialmente combusto, sul quale sono stati applicati particolari preziosi quanto ordinari: madreperla e filo di lana colorato, conchiglia e vetro. L’opera è sostenuta da due piedistalli dalle curiose protomi zoo- antropomorfe: un’aquila rovesciata e un ceppo di betulla ramificato sul quale è stata montata una mano umana guantata: metafora d’artista (vi compare un tatuaggio di Matthew Day Jackson). Al centro del pannello appare un monumentale gufo di madreperla e conchiglia, con occhi di pantera tassedermizzata; è appollaiato su di un ramo curvo disegnato da un dedalo di fili di lana multicolore: albero della Vita senza foglie che disegna un ponte metafisico su di un monte Ruschmore “caduto” a terra. Le stelle sono costituite da piccoli pezzi rotondi di madreperla e da occhi vitrei, di diversa tipologia (sedici differenti specie animali) e disegnano la costellazione dell’orsa minore, con la stella polare che ricorda gli ancestrali culti nativi. La grande tavola lignea vuole richiamare alla memoria l’artigianato indiano, inteso come arte primaria del continente americano. Il gufo per Jackson è un simbolo totemico, un futuro già estinto (come indica il titolo): un passato soppresso nel suo significato, ma anche un futuro represso nel suo avvenire.

Inspired by Russian Constructivism, Matthew Day Jackson represents a different kind of young pioneer in his presenting “symbols of the frontier” with political goals. His recent works take as a starting point some of the most legendary icons of US history. Interested in what the American past continues to convey in today’s socio-political dimension and how this may develop in the future, Jackson creates sculptures with salvaged objects and natural materials, hinting at a “historical narrative” of image and history, by establishing new pathways. The use of salvaged materials, found in the garbage or scraps, becomes an ethical and moral gesture providing these objects with new life, beauty and meaning: a way of rethinking their formal structure and better understanding the world. “Art is an action of imagination and imagination pervades everything… In making art I have tried to communicate many things simultaneously: my political beliefs, my taking responsibility in art as a self-portrait. I am interested in that way of making art which becomes the mirror of time where all this takes place, art as a microcosm.”

Oracle (Days of Future Passed) (2005-2006) is a wood panel painted in black and partially burnt out, on which precious and everyday details have been applied: mother-of-pearl and colour wool yarn, shells and glass. The work is held by two pedestals with odd zoo-anthropomorphic protomes: an upside-down eagle and a birch-tree stump with shoots on which a gloved human hand has been mounted: an artist’s metaphor (a tattoo of Matthew Day Jackson is shown). In the middle of the panel there is a monumental owl of mother-of-pearl and shells, with the eyes of a stuffed panther; it perches on a bent branch drawn by a maze of multicolor wool yarn: a leafless Tree of Life sketching a metaphysical bridge spanning a mount Rushmore “fallen” to the ground. The stars are composed of small all-different (sixteen animal species) round mother-of- pearl pieces with glassy eyes, and design the constellation of the Small Dipper, with the Pole Star recalling ancestral native cults. The large wooden board intends bringing back to memory Native art, as the first art form in the American continent. For Jackson the owl is a totemic symbol, an already extinct future (as indicated by the title): a suppressed past in its meaning, but also a future repressed in its unfurling.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Matthew Day Jackson. In Search Of…”, Peter Blum Chelsea, New York; MAMBO, Bologna, 2011; Kunstmuseum Luzern, 2011-2012; Gemeente Museum Den Haag, L’Aia, 2012 “Matthew Day Jackson - Heel Gesellig”, GRIMM Gallery, Amsterdam, 2011 “Culture Now: Matthew Day Jackson”, ICA, London, 2011 “Matthew Day Jackson - Everything Leads to Ankther”, Hauser and Wirth, London, 2011 “Matthew Day Jackson. The Tomb”, Peter Blum Soho, New York, 2010 “Matthew Day Jackson – High, Low & In Between”, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 2009 “Matthew Day Jackson. The Immeasurable Distance”, MITList Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, 2009 “Matthew Day Jackson/Rashid Johnson”, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery for FIAC, Paris, 2009 “Matthew Day Jackson. Drawings from Tlön”, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York, 2008 “Matthew Day Jackson”, Ballroom Marfa, Miami, 2007 “Diptych”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2007 “Matthew Day Jackson: The Lower 48”, Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, 2007 “Paradise Now! (Limbo) featuring "Looking for Mother Nature", Cubitt Artists Space, London, 2006 “Oracle (Days of Future Passed)”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2006 “Matthew Day Jackson”, Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, 2005 “Fortunate Son”, Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York 2005 “By No Means Necessary”, The Locker Plant, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, 2004

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Common Ground”, Public Art Found – City Hall Park, New York, 2012 “Matthew Day Jackson, Jessica Kackson Htchins, Jay Heikes, Karthik, Erin Shirreff. Trieste”, Federica Schiavo Gallery, Roma, 2012 “Born in Dystopia”, Rosenblum Collection and Friends, Paris, 2011 “The Shape we’re in”, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2011 “Il Mondo Vi Appartiene”, Palazzo Grassi, Venezia, 2011 “Nobody’s Property: Art, Land, Space, 2000–2010”, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, 2011 “Tauba Auerbach, Matthew Day Jackson, R.H. Quaytman etc”, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, 2010 “How Soon Now”, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, 2010 “Curators Choice Portfolio, Rochelle School, Arnold Circus, London for CUBITT Home and Origin”, Bukowskis, Stockholm, 2010 “Roundtrip: Beijing – New York, New Selections from the Domus Collection”, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2010 “Born in Dystopia”, Rosenblum Collection, Paris, 2010 “Hope!”, Palais des arte set du festival, Diabrd, 2010 “(LEAN)”, Nicole Klagsbrun, New York, 2010 “The Word is Yours”, Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen, 2009 “Transition. Painting at the (other) end of the art – La pittura alla fine dell’arte”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2009 “Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune: An Exhibition od a film of a Book That Never Was”, The Drawing Room, London, 2009 “Matthew Day Jackson and Sara Krajewski: The Violet Hour”, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, 2008 “Martian Museum of Terrestial Art, Mission: To Interpret and Understand Contemporary Art”, Barbican Gallery, London, 2008 “Huma Bhabha and Matthew Day Jackson: Sculptures and New Print Editions”, Peter Blum Gallery, New York, 2007 “Uncertain States of America – American Art in the 3rd Millenium”, Herning; Serpentine Gallery, London, 2006; Museum Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, 2006; Reykjavik Art Museum , 2006; Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, 2005 “Mommy! I! am! not! an! animal!”, Capsule Gallery, New York, 2004 “K48: Klubhouse”, Deitch Projects, Brooklyn, 2003

Jules de Balincourt

Nato a / Born in Paris, 1968 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in Brooklyn (NY, USA)

Jules de Balincourt è conosciuto per le sue pungenti critiche sociali e per uno stile che ha la qualità abbozzata e ingenua dell’outsider art. La pura astrazione è un punto di partenza per de Balincourt, noto soprattutto per le immagini di giganteschi tavoli da conferenza e per le mappe degli Stati Uniti. Nei suoi quadri, che possono rappresentare mercati, uffici, città, paesaggi, sono spesso presenti parole in forma di slogan, citati o re-interpretati, estrapolati dalla memoria collettiva ed elaborati attraverso l’esperienza personale. La sua arte fonde la dimensione narrativa (quella delle storie reali di vita quotidiana negli Stati Uniti) con quella onirica, evocata nelle sue opere da contesti strani e improbabili. De Balincourt sviluppa un’antropologia contemporanea, in cui gli uomini si trovano nel costante pericolo di diventare simulacri del passaggio tecnologico, giocattoli della loro stessa civilizzazione, pupazzetti di una società teatrale o caricature del mondo politico.

In Allweweresayingwasgivepeaceachance (2006), il titolo scorre in un flusso di lettere maiuscole lungo il margine inferiore del dipinto. Lo slogan, originario del movimento pacifista degli anni Sessanta reso celebre da una canzone di John Lennon, è declinato al tempo passato, suggerendo che è ormai troppo tardi: l’immagine rappresenta in qualche modo l’implosione della speranza. La composizione può essere letta in molteplici modi: sembra segnata, quasi imbrattata, ma al contempo appare visualmente e geometricamente sofisticata, con la sua serie ininterrotta di figure “a otto” dipinte nei colori dell’arcobaleno. La congiunzione al centro dell’opera potrebbe essere sia un buco nero, che risucchia tutta la luce e la materia, sia un big-bang, il momento della creazione riflettendo l’ambivalenza dello condizione in cui la generazione dell’artista è intrappolata, tra l’ottimismo della contro-cultura e il realismo rispetto la situazione contemporanea nel mondo.

In Blind Faith and Tunnel Vision (2005), un arcobaleno di luce esplode su di una strada urbana devastata e ricolma di detriti. La forza dell’esplosione si rispecchia nella cura dei dettagli e nella monumentale prospettiva della via cinta sui due lati da tristi palazzi dai colori ormai spenti e da pali della luce piegati da una immanente forza distruttrice. Un’ambivalenza quasi “romantica” tra l’esplosione-luce e la distruzione-monumentale che reca in sé molte delle inquietudini dell’età contemporanea e può alludere al fallimento della politica conservatrice statunitense che ha minato fortemente lo stato sociale americano.

Jules de Balincourt is an artist known for his biting social analyses and for a style showing the sketched and naïf quality of outsider art. The pure abstraction is just a starting point for de Balincourt, who is well known mostly for its images of giant conference tables and maps of the United States. In his paintings, which may represent markets, offices, cities, and landscapes, there are often words as in slogans, either quoted or re-interpreted, extrapolated from the collective memory and processed through personal experiences. His art blends the narrative dimension (that of real everyday life stories in the United States) with the dreamlike dimension, evoked in his works by odd and improbable contexts. De Balincourt develops a contemporary anthropology, where men find themselves under the constant danger of becoming simulacra of the technological landscape, playthings of their civilisation, puppets in a theatrical society or caricatures of the political world.

In Allweweresayingwasgivepeaceachance (2006), the title rolls in a flow of capital letters along the lower margin of the painting. The slogan, originating from the peace movement in the Sixties and made famous by a John Lennon’s song, is in the past tense, thus indicating that it is already too late: the image somewhat represents the implosion of hope. The composition may be read in several ways: it seems to be marked, almost stained, while at the same time appearing to be visually and geometrically sophisticated, with its continuous series of figure of “eight” painted in rainbow colours. The junction in the middle of the work could be either a black hole sucking all the light and matter, or a big-bang, the time of creation, thus mirroring the state of ambivalence where the artist’s creation ends up to be trapped, between the optimism of counter-culture and realism, given the world’s present situation.

In Blind Faith and Tunnel Vision (2005), a light rainbow explodes over a devastated city street full of debris. The strength of the explosion is reflected in the care for details and in the monumental perspective of the street surrounded on both side by sad and dull-coloured buildings and by the lampposts bent by an immanent force of destruction. An almost “romantic” ambivalence between the light-explosion and the monumental-destruction which carries on itself many of the anxieties of contemporary years and perhaps hints at the failure of US conservative policies which have strongly undermined the US welfare state.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Jules de Balincourt”, Victoria Miro, London, 2013 “Jules de Balincourt”, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, 2013 “Jules de Balincourt. Parallele Universe”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2012 “Jules de Balincourt”, Salon 94 Bowery, New York, 2012 “Jules de Balincourt”, Espace Luis Vuitton, Hong Kong, 2012 “Jules de Balincourt. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart”, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, 2011 “Jules de Balincourt Premonitions”, Deitch Projects, New York, 2010 “Jules de Balincourt. MAM PROJECT 011”, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2010 “Malpais”, Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, Paris, 2008 “Jules de Balincourt”, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville (TN, USA), 2008 “Unknowing Man’s Nature”, Zach Feuer Gallery, New York, 2007 “Allweweresayingwasgivepeaceachance”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2007 “Accidental Tourism and the Art of Forgetting”, Arndt and Partner, Berlin, 2006 “This is Our Town”, Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL), New York, 2005 “Armory Show”, LFL Gallery, New York, 2004 “Land of Many Uses”, LFL Gallery, New York, 2003 “Jules de Balincourt”, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, 2003 “Jules de Balincourt”, Space 743, San Francisco, 2000 “Jules de Balincourt”, Soapbox Gallery, Venice (USA), 1998

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “The double dirty dozen”, Freight + Volume, New York, 2012 “POSTHOLE a group show”, Salon 94, New York, 2012 “Visions”, Galleria Monica De Cardenas, 2011 “The 2011 Bridgehampton Biennial”, Martos Gallery, Bridgehampton, 2011 “New York Minute”, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, 2011 “Facemaker,” curated by Kathy Grayson, Royal/T, Los Angeles, 2011 “Not Quite Open for Business”, The Hole, New York, 2010 “Looking Back / The Fifth White Columns Annual”, White Columns, New York, 2010 “The Cannibal’s Muse”, Low Contemporary, Genéva, 2010 “The Secret Lives of Trees”, Monica de Cardenas, Milano, 2010 10th Havana Biennial, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, 2009 “Transition. Painting at the (other) end of the art – La pittura alla fine dell’arte”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2009 “Cave Painting”, PSM, Berlin Germany and Gresham’s Ghost, New York, 2009; Basement, New York, 2009 “New York Minute”, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome 2009 “FUTURESCAPE: Making of the Super City”, Contemporary Art Galleries, University of Connecticut, Storrs (CT, USA), 2009 “STAGES”, Deitch Projects, New York, 2009 “Cynicism vs. Hope”, Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, 2008 “USA TODAY”, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, 2007; Royal Academy of Art, London, 2006 “Artists of Invention: A Century of CCA”, Oakland Museum, Oakland (CA, USA), 2007 “Past, Present, Future Perfect: Selections from the Ovitz Family Collection”, H+R Block Artspace, Kansas City (MI, USA), 2007 “Prague Biennial 3”, Prague, 2007 “Down By Law”, Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2006 “Don’t Abandon the Ship”, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, 2006 “Notre histoire…”, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2006 “Greater New York”, P.S.1, New York, 2005 Benjamin Degen

Nato a / Born in Brooklyn (NY, USA), 1976 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

Le opere di Benjamin Degen sembrano influenzate dalla pittura rinascimentale e al contempo da quella orientale: di quest’ultima recupera la meticolosa tecnica pittorica ed anche un immaginario iconico che ricorda l’antica arte cinese in cui il paesaggio è restituito da metaforiche essenze arboree, tra rappresentazione e contemplazione. La forma grafica è importantissima per l’artista, ed è ben visibile nell’organizzazione del design, spesso realizzato al computer, così come in alcuni particolari dipinti, che appaiono come incisioni. I dipinti di Degen possiedono una luminosità che conferisce immaterialità all’immagine, come una velata evanescenza che può ricordare i paesaggi soft-pop di Hockney. La composizione obliqua, gli elementi pop naturalistici e morbidi, i colori innaturali e le forme volutamente primitive conducono il suo lavoro verso una direzione differente, quasi simbolica.

In Bricklayer (2007) la giustapposizione dei mattoni in tralice suggerisce un’attenta stereometria matematica, che è in parte scardinata dai raffinati arbusti che compaiono in diligente ordine sparso sulla tela; l’acqua-aria dell’oceano-cielo scorre e si mescola in una languida coltre notturna, in cui si abbandona la mente sognante dell’uomo disteso sui mattoni. Il disegno del corpo del muratore rielabora diverse tradizioni estetiche relative alla rappresentazione della figura umana: il nudo maschile classico occidentale (dalle pitture dei vasi greci al Rinascimento), e la raffigurazione orientale del Buddha dormiente, dall’India sino al Giappone. Il nudo non rappresenta una realtà fisica, le membra sono sia forma del corpo sia paesaggio e i mattoni sono al contempo cielo e terra: il corpo è orizzonte, punto d’incontro tra la terra e la volta celeste. La dimensione mentale, simbolica, mitica della rappresentazione proietta Bricklayer nel ciclico ritorno agli archetipi nell’arte contemporanea: in questo caso, quello di Psiche che rivela il suo Eros inconscio, o anche di Selene, la Luna, che durante la notte contempla Endimione, addormentato per sempre.

Benjamin Degen’s works seem to be influenced by Renaissance as well as Eastern painting: from the latter he retrieves the meticulous pictorial technique and also an iconic imagery reminding of ancient Chinese art where the landscape is rendered through wood and tree metaphors, in between representation and contemplation. The graphic form is extremely important for the artist, and it is clearly visible in the design layout, often computer-made, as well as in some painted details, looking like etching. Degen’s paintings show a brightness providing the image with immateriality, like a misted evanescence which may evoke Hockney’s soft-pop landscapes. The slanted composition, the naturalistic and soft pop elements, unnatural colours and intentionally primitive forms lead his work towards a different, almost symbolic direction.

In Bricklayer (2007) the overlapping of slanted bricks hints at a careful mathematical stereometry, which is partly unhinged by the elegant bushes appearing in a diligently scattered order across the canvas; the water-air of the ocean-sky flows and mixes in a languid night cover, where the dreaming mind of the man lying on the bricks loses itself. The drawing of the mason’s body reprocesses several aesthetic traditions relating to the representation of the human figure: the Western classic male nude (from the paintings in Greek vases to the Renaissance), and the Eastern representation of the sleeping Buddha, from India to Japan. The nude does not represent a physical reality, the limbs are both parts of the body but also of the landscape, and the bricks are at the same time sky and earth: the body is the horizon, a meeting point between the earth and the vault of heaven. The mental, symbolic, mythical dimension of representation projects Bricklayer in the cyclic return to the archetypes of contemporary art: such as those if Psyche revealing her unconscious Eros, or Selene, the Moon, who at night contemplates Endymion, forever sleeping.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Out of the dark, into the air” Museum 52, New York, 2010 “We Can’t Stop Living”, Guild & Greyshkul, New York, 2008 “Bricklayer”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2007 “A Tree is Falling”, Kantor/Feuer Gallery, Beverly Hills, 2006 “LandLives and Still Scapes”, Guild & Greyshkul, New York, 2004

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “The Brucennial: miseducation”, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, New York, 2012 “Graphomania”, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Barrington, 2012 “LANY: Kevin Appel, Andy Cross, Benjamin Degen, James Melinat, Luis Rabbia, Daniel Rich and Kara Tanaka”, Peter Blum, New York, 2011 “From Where You Just Arrived”, Pepin Moore Galery, Los Angeles, 2011 “Natural Renditions”, Marlborough Chelsea/International Public Art Ltd., New York, 2010 “Benjamin Degen / Jost Munster”, Artissima, Torino, 2010 “Cave Painting”, Basement, New York, 2009 “Pink Panter”, Kumukumu Gallery, New York, 2009 “Transition. Painting at the (other) end of the art – La pittura alla fine dell’arte”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2009 “Recent Acquisitions, Gifts, and Works from Various Exhibitions 1985-2007”, White Columns, New York, 2008 “Three Landscapes (or more) in the Modern Style”, Western Exhibitions, Chicago, 2008 “Where Are We”, Pearl Arts Gallery, Stone Ridge (NY, USA), 2008 “Painting as Fact - Fact as Fiction”, de Pury & Luxembourg, Zürich, 2007 “Occupation”, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington (MA, USA), 2006 “Eleven: Upstate”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2006 “Collection 2005/2006”, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, 2006 “Among the Trees”, The Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit (NY, USA), 2005 “Looking at Words”, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, 2005 “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes”, Guild & Greyshkul, New York, 2005 “General’s Jamboree”, Guild & Greyshkul, New York, 2005 “Strange”, D’Amelio Terras, New York, 2005 “Greater New York 2005”, P.S.1, New York, 2005 “Landings”, Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, 2005 “Colored Pencil”, KS Art New York, New York, 2004 “My Sources Say Yes”, Guild & Greyshkul, New York, 2003 “The New Topography”, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington (MA, USA), 2003

Steve di Benedetto

Nato a / Born in Bronx (NY, USA), 1958 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

Steve di Benedetto realizza una pittura astratta la cui geometria declina all’allucinazione e al suo potere di trasformare le cose. Il suo linguaggio epico-fumettistico enfatizza e unisce tecnologia e disordine presenti nel mondo. La sua ricerca artistica si esplicita a metà degli anni Novanta, con la presenza centrale della figura del polpo (con chiari riferimenti alla lettura di Terence McKenna) come animale simbolo di energia creativa e, al contempo, come struttura di partenza delle sue composizioni che spesso divengono vortici, radiali o altre simili strutture circolari nello spazio. La visione nera e viscerale della sua arte trova i suoi precursori nell’inquietante Max Ernst dei paesaggi lunari del 1920-1930, nella narratività lineare e precisa dell’Apocalisse di William Blake, nelle alchimie ambigue di Sigmar Polke, nella stregoneria dipinta di Gerhard Richter e nelle fantasiose disgiunzioni di Neo Rauch. La sua pittura, esuberante, espressionista fino alla bruttezza, schizzata, graffiata, incrostata di pigmenti stesi alla rinfusa, disturba tanto quanto incanta poichè l’immaginazione non indossa alcuna uniforme.

Raramente l’uomo partecipa al tumulto dei dipinti di di Benedetto, ma nell’opera Codex Maximus (2005) una figura umana è visibile, in piedi, sulla sinistra del dipinto. Davanti alla testa della figura appare un’altra testa più piccola, una spalla e un braccio, che forse ci suggeriscono uno stadio precedente dello sviluppo della figura stessa. Possiamo scorgere inoltre uno dei tentacoli del ricorrente polpo, attraversare la gamba destra della figura. L’immagine subisce una metamorfosi, il destino di trasformarsi da disegno in pittura: la figura diventa un feto quasi irriconoscibile, che è emanazione di luce. Ciò che comincia come figura umana, diviene “l’allucinazione” di un uomo in una realtà virtuale, la cui nudità di nervi indica la sua individualità in modo non convenzionale.

In Steve di Benedetto's abstract painting geometry veers towards hallucination and its transforming power. The artist’s epic-cartoonish language emphasizes and joins together technology and disorder that are present in the world. His artistic research took shape in the mid 1990’s with the pivotal figure of the octopus taking the center-stage (with clear reference to Terence McKenna’s reading) as the symbol of creative energy and, at the same time, as a departing element for his compositions which often turn into vortices, radial or other similarly circular structures in space. The black and visceral vision of his art would find its forerunners in Max Ernst’s disquieting moon landscapes from 1920-1930, in the linear and precise narrative of William Blake’s Apocalypse, in Sigmar Polke’s ambiguous alchemy, in Gerhard Richter’s painted witchcraft, and in Neo Rauch’s imaginative disjunctions. His exuberant painting, expressionistic to the point of becoming ugly, spattered, scratched, and encrusted with pigments spread at random, is disturbing as well as enchanting as imagination does not wear any given uniform.

Human figures take part in the turmoil of di Benedetto’s painting only rarely but in the work Codex Maximus (2005) a human figure can be seen standing on the left-hand side of the painting. Before the head of the figure there is another, smaller head, as well as a shoulder and an arm, which may indicate a stage before the development of the figure. One of the tentacles of the ever-present octopus may be also seen, around the figure’s right leg. The image undergoes a metamorphosis, the fate of changing from drawing into painting: the figure becomes an almost unrecognizable foetus which is an emanation of light. What has started as a human figure thus turns into the “hallucination” of a man in virtual reality, and whose nervous nakedness points at his individuality in a non-conventional fashion.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Steve di Benedetto. Who wants to know?”, David Noland Gallery, New York, 2010 – 2011 “Steve di Benedetto”, Central Connecticut State University Art Gallery, New Britain (CT, USA), 2009 “Edge Dwelling”, University Art Museum, SUNY Albany, New York, 2008 “Chaoticus”, David Nolan Gallery, New York, 2008 “Steve di Benedetto”, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, 2007 “Codex Maximus”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 2005 “Steve di Benedetto”, David Noland Gallery, New York, 2005 “Steve di Benedetto”, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, 2003 “Steve di Benedetto”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2002 “Steve di Benedetto”, Baumgartner Gallery, New York, 2001 “Steve di Benedetto”, Baumgartner Gallery, New York, 2000 “Steve di Benedetto”, Reali Arte Contemporanea, Brescia, 1997 “Steve di Benedetto”, Marella Arte Contemporanea, Sarnico, 1998 “Steve di Benedetto”, Lauren Wittels Gallery, New York, 1995 “Steve di Benedetto”, Marella Arte Contemporanea, Sarnico, 1995 “Steve di Benedetto”, Le Consortium, Dijon, 1991 “Steve di Benedetto”, Galerie Claire Burrus, Paris, 1991 “Steve di Benedetto”, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York, 1991 “Steve di Benedetto”, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York, 1990 “Steve di Benedetto”, Daniel Newburg Gallery, New York, 1989 “Steve di Benedetto”, T’Venster, Amsterdam, 1988 “Steve di Benedetto”, Cable Gallery, New York, 1988 “Steve di Benedetto”, Cable Gallery, New York, 1987

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Graphomania”, Geoffrey young Gallery, Barrington, 2012 “Steve DiBenedetto, Alexander Ross and James Siena: Morphological Mutiny”, David Nolan, New York, 2010 “Just what is it makes today’s painting so different, so appealing?”, Gering & Lopez Gallery, New York, 2009 “Morphological Mutiny”, David Nolan Gallery, New York, 2009 “Jr. and Sons”, Zach Feuer, New York, 2009 “Jekyll Island”, Max Henry and Erik Parker, Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, 2008 “Friends and Family”, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, 2008 “Mr. President”, University Art Museum, SUNY Albany, New York, 2007 “Block Party Part II”, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, 2007 “Twice Drawn”, Skidmore College, New York, 2006 “Hot Pics/06”, The Katonah Museum of Art, New York, 2006 “Parallel Visions II: Outsider and Insider Art Today”, Galerie St. Etienne, New York, 2006 “Nightmares of Summer”, Marvelli Gallery, New York, 2006 “Hybridity/Ambivalence”, Amos Eno Gallery, New York, 2006 “Block Party: An Exhibition of Drawings”, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, 2006 “The Hills Have Eyes”, Ingalls and Associates, Miami, 2005 “Curvaceous”, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, 2005 “Remote Viewing”, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2005 “Endless Love”, D.C. Moore Gallery, New York, 2004 “Drawing Out of the Void”, Vestry Arts, New York, 2004 “Colored Pencil”, K.S. Art, New York, 2004 “Earthly Delights”, MassArt, Boston, 2004 “Curious Crystals of Unusual Purity”, P.S. 1, New York, 2004 “Beat the Reaper!”, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, 2004 “20th Year Anniversary Show”, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, 2003 “Invitational Exhibition”, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, 2003 “Unforeseen”, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, 2003 “Drawings”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2003 Jason Fox

Nato a / Born in Yonkers (NY, USA), 1964 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

Già dall’inizio della sua attività artistica degli anni Novanta, Jason Fox, intrattiene una stretta relazione con la cultura popolare americana: sono espliciti i riferimenti al fumetto e alla rappresentazione iconica degli eroi della Marvel, ancor più chiari nei suoi disegni di questo periodo. L’apparente relazione con la cultura americana dei comics e delle graphic-novel non riesce a occultare completamente una ricca genealogia di rimandi visuali che derivano dalla tradizione artistica occidentale: dal Rinascimento di Michelangelo, sino a Caravaggio, poi Matisse, la Pop Art e gli anni Ottanta di David Salle. L’eclettismo di Fox non è immune nemmeno da un immaginario tratto dalla letteratura contemporanea fantascientifica e visionaria, come quella di Philip Dick e dal Cinema di Chaplin, Welles, Fassbinder. I caratteri di Fox, tra il comico e grottesco, distorcono sia la realtà storica della pittura sia la cultura iconica popolare: un’acuminata satira del nostro tempo attraverso la continua metamorfosi dell’immagine.

L’opera Sunrise at the Bottom of the Ocean (2007) si struttura su due livelli cromatici: una striscia inferiore in monocromo color terra di Siena bruciata, si espande con colature verticali, dal basso in alto, e uno sfondo squillante, rosso cadmio. La fascia inferiore monocroma (che diviene una sorta di predella moderna, probabilmente suggerita dalle composizioni geometriche di Halley e di Stella) sostiene una figura femminile distesa su tutta la lunghezza della tela. L’anatomia della donna, che pare quasi aliena, è suggerita dal celebre Cristo di Holbein del Kunstmuseum di Basilea: al centro il ventre-vulcano trabocca di lava, e rimanda a una geologia archetipica dove le forze naturali si uniscono ad una evocazione a-temporale e soprannaturale. Anche la sagoma-ombra di un uomo, dipinto al centro della tela, colto nell’atto di afferrare le pistole, ricorda apparizioni surreali e visionarie generando un’inquietudine che pervade e caratterizza tutta l’opera.

From the start of his artistic career in the Nineties, Jason Fox has established close ties with America’s popular culture: references to cartoons and the iconic representation of the Marvel heroes are explicit, and the more so in the drawings from that period. The clear relationship with the American culture of comics and graphic novels cannot fully conceal a rich genealogy of visual cross-references deriving from Western artistic tradition: from Michelangelo’s Renaissance to Caravaggio, then Matisse, Pop Art and David Salle in the 1980’s. Fox’s eclecticism is not even exempt from the imagery drawn from contemporary science-fiction and visionary literature, such as Philip Dick, and the cinema of Chaplin, Welles, Fassbinder. Fox’s characters, ranging between the comic and the grotesque, distort both the historical reality of painting and the popular iconic culture: a sharp satire of our time through the constant metamorphosis of the image.

The work Sunrise at the Bottom of the Ocean (2007) is developed on two colour levels: a lower block colour band in burnt Sienna expands, with vertical bottom-up drippings, and a bright cadmium red background. The lower block band (becoming a sort of modern altar step, probably suggested by the geometric compositions made by Halley and Stella) supports a female figure lying down across the whole length of the painting. The anatomy of the woman, almost alien in her traits, reminds of the famous painting of Christ by Holbein in Basel’s Kunstmuseum: in the middle of the painting, the bowels-volcano overflows with lava, recalling an archetypal geology where natural forces merge in a timeless and supernatural evocation. Even the shadow-outline of a man, painted at the centre of the canvas, and frozen in the act of drawing out his guns, recalls surreal and visionary apparitions, thus engendering a feeling of anxiety pervading and characterizing the entire work.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Jason Fox. Eating Symbols”, Peter Blum Gallery Chelsea, New York, 2012 “Jason Fox. Stations”, Peter Blum Gallery Chelsea, New York, 2010 “Jason Fox. Sunrise at the Bottom of the Ocean”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2007 “Jason Fox, The Upper Depths”, Peter Blum, New York, 2009 “Jason Fox”, Alexandre Pollazzon Ltd, London, 2006 “Jason Fox”, Feature Inc, New York, 2005 “The Year of Who Knows When”, Greener Pastures Contemporary Art, Toronto, 2005 “Jason Fox”, Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, Mexico City, 2004 “Jason Fox”, Feature Inc, New York, 2003 “Jason Fox”, Feature Inc, New York, 2001 “Jason Fox”, Museo de las Artes de la Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, 2000 “Jason Fox”, M du B, F H & g, Montréal, 2000 “Jason Fox”, The A.N Gallery, Karachi (Pakistan), 1998 “Jason Fox”, Feature Inc, New York, 1997 “Cokkie Snoei”, Rotterdam, 1997 “Jason Fox”, Cabinet Gallery, London, 1996 “Jason Fox”, Feature Inc, New York, 1995 “Desonicator and Sleeping Bags”, Feature Inc, New York, 1994 “Jason Fox”, Cabinet Gallery, London, 1993 “Desonicator and Sleeping Bags”, Kim Light Gallery, Los Angeles, 1993 “Druidyssey”, Feature Inc, New York, 1991

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “POSTHOLE a group show”, Salon 94, New York, 2012 “A visual Sympathy for Modernism. Rita Ackermann, Jeff Elrod and Jason Fox”, Franklin Parrasch Gakkery, New York, 2010 “Cave Painting”, Gresham’s Ghost Gallery, New York, 2009 “Pink Panter”, Kumukumu Gallery, New York, 2009 “Huma Bhabha, Joe Bradley, Jason Fox, Baker Overstreet, Aurel Schmidt”, Paolo Curti/ Annamaria Gambuzzi & Co, Milano, 2009 “Jason Fox and Huma Baba. Atlas Mountains”, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, 2009 “Every Revolution is a Roll of the Dice”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2009 “That Was Then ... This Is Now”, P.S.1, New York, 2008 “Every Revolution is a Roll of the Dice”, Marfa Ballroom, Marfa, 2007 – 2008 “Drunk vs Stoned 2”, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise and GBE, Passerby (NY, USA),2005 “The sun rises in the evening”, Feature Inc, New York, 2005 “Greater New York 2005”, P.S.1, New York, 2005 “Versus, Huma Bhabha and Jason Fox”, Arena Mexico, Guadalajara, 2004 “Radicales Libres”, Central de Arte WTC, Guadalajara, 2004 “Beat The Reaper!”, Alison Skirt Gallery, Boston, 2004 “Dum Dum Grown-Up Art”, Hereart, New York, 2004 “Lumpenedlyness”, Lump Gallery/projects, Raleigh (NC, USA), 2003 “The Melvins”, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, 2003 “The Burnt Orange Heresy”, Space 101, Brooklyn (NY, USA),, 2003 “Trans-National Monster League”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 2003 “Guide to Trust No.2”, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, 2003 “Dear Dead Person”, Momenta Art, Brooklyn (NY, USA), 2003 Wayne Gonzales

Nato a / Born in New Orleans, 1957 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

Il lavoro di Wayne Gonzales si muove tra astrazione e figurazione esplorando in modo provocatorio alcuni temi con grande virtuosismo pittorico. Per comprendere la ricerca artistica di Wayne Gonzales fondamentale conoscerne i primi anni di attività. Alla fine degli anni Ottanta l’artista è a New York, assistente di Peter Halley, in questo stesso periodo entra in contatto con il lavoro di Andy Warhol: una delle esperienze artistiche più importanti per la sua ricerca relativa ai processi di elaborazione dell’immagine e della duplicazione serigrafica; anche Gerhard Richter diviene uno degli autori di riferimento per l’artista, soprattutto per la riflessione socio-critica relativa all’incidenza della fotografia sulla pittura: uno dei temi esplorati nella sua ricerca è l’interrogazione sulla fotografia e sulla sua relazione con la pittura. Gonzales impiega spesso immagini fotografiche anonime e generiche, spesso prese da internet, che poi riproduce su tela con diversi livelli cromatici; abbraccia in tal modo sia la natura astratta sia rappresentazionale dell’immagine, che viene spesso rivisitata in base alle nuove tecnologie di riproduzione.

M-Noremac (2000) fa parte di un corpus di dipinti per i quali è stata adottata la medesima strategia pittorica: il quadro è stato concepito come una rappresentazione che funge da finestra proiettata su un oggetto fatto di finestre, che di per se soggiace al linguaggio dell’oggetto dipinto, cioè a se stesso. Gli altri dipinti, che appartengono a questa serie, sono di dimensioni più grandi (come le finestre di un grattacielo), dalle quali è possibile immaginare di affacciarsi per vedere un altro edificio. Il cambiamento di piani e il riflesso caotico afferiscono a un malfunzionamento che non è possibile rappresentare se non attraverso ciò che si percepisce sulla superficie dell’edificio/dipinto: come nelle strade strette di Wall Street. L’opera non fa riferimento a nessun edificio particolare ma prende spunto genericamente da architetture moderniste degli anni Cinquanta di cui la Lever House è un prototipo. Gonzales ha preparato il progetto come una griglia e l’intervento cromatico sul quadro è stato realizzato in base a molti studi preparatori; ha tagliato la griglia in orizzontale e l’ha riconfigurata in modo da renderla disallineata. Questo ha un evidente riferimento alla Op art da leggersi in chiave metaforica e narrativa. La caotica attività sulle finestre potrebbe agire come riflessione di ciò che accade effettivamente tra lo spazio dell’osservatore e lo spazio del dipinto.

Wayne Gonzales’s work moves between abstraction and figuration by provocatively exploring some topics with great pictorial virtuosity. Getting acquainted with Wayne Gonzales’s early years of activity is essential to understand his artistic research. In the late Eighties the artist lived in New York, working as an assistant for Peter Halley, and came into contact with the work of Andy Warhol - one of his most important artistic experiences for his research concerning the techniques of image processing and silk-screen duplication. Gerhard Richter also became one of the authors of reference for the artist, especially in terms of social analysis and critique regarding the influence of photography on painting: one of the themes explored in his research refers to photography and its relationship with painting. Gonzales often uses anonymous and generic photographic images, taken from the Internet, which are then reproduced on canvas with different colour levels; in this way the artist embraces both the abstract and representational nature of the image, which is often revisited through new reproduction technologies.

M-Noremac (2000) belongs to a corpus of paintings for which the same painting strategy has been applied: the painting is conceived as a representation acting like a window projected on an object made of windows, which per se pertains to the language of the painted object, namely itself. The other paintings, which belong to the series, are bigger (like the windows of a skyscraper), from which one may imagine to look out at another building. The shift of planes and the chaotic reflection infer at a malfunction which can be represented only through what is perceived on the surface of the building/painting: as in the narrow streets of Wall Street. The work does not refer to any building in particular, but is generally inspired by Modernist architecture from the Fifties of which Lever House is a prototype. Gonzales prepared the project as a grid and the colour application on the canvas was made possible after many preparatory studies; the artist cut the grid horizontally and configured it in a way to make it look out of alignment. This approach makes a clear reference to Op Art to be interpreted in a metaphoric and narrative key. The chaotic activity on the windows could work as a reflection on what really takes place between the space of the viewer and the space of the painting.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Wayne Gonzales”, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, 2012 “Wayne Gonzales”, Cac Màlaga, Centro de arte contemporaneo de Màlaga, Malaga, 2012 “Wayne Gonzales”, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, 2010 “Wayne Gonzales”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2010 “Wayne Gonzales”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2009 “Wayne Gonzales: Free and Clear”, online Project Room, Sinter Fine Art, www.dinterfineart.com/html/project.html, 2008 “Wayne Gonzales: Crowd Paintings”, Seomi Gallery, Seoul, 2008 “Crowd Paintings”, Patrick de Brock Gallery, Knokke-Heist (Belgium), 2008 “Wayne Gonzales”, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, 2008 “Wayne Gonzales”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2007 “Judge - Vincent Katz and Wayne Gonzales”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2007 “project.3 - Wayne Gonzales”, Mason Gross Galleries, Rutgers university,2006 “Wayne Gonzales”, New Brunswick (NY, USA), 2006 “Wayne Gonzales”, QED, Los Angeles, 2006 “Wayne Gonzales. Painting and drawing”, Conner Contemporary Art, Washington, 2005 “Wayne Gonzales”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2005 “Wayne Gonzales”, Patrick de Brock Gallery, Knokke-Heist (Belgium), 2004 “Wayne Gonzales”, Galerie Almine Rech, Paris, 2004 “Wayne Gonzales”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2003 “Wayne Gonzales”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2003 “Wayne Gonzales”, Le Consortium, Dijon, 2002 “Wayne Gonzales”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2001 “Wayne Gonzales”, Reali Arte Contemporanea, Brescia, 2000 “Wayne Gonzales”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 1998 “Wayne Gonzales”, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, 1998 “Wayne Gonzales”, Lauren Wittels Gallery, New York, 1997 “Wayne Gonzales”, Galerie Art & Public, Genève, 1995

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “The 2011 Bridgehampton Biennial”, Martos Gallery, New York, 2011 “We Regret To Inform You There Is Currently No Space Or Place For Abstract Painting”, Martos Gallery, New York, 2011 “Reprise”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2010 “Cave Painting”, Gresham’s Ghost Gallery, New York, 2009 “Empires and Environments”, The Rose Art Museum, Waltham (MA, USA), 2008 “Close Encounters: Facing the Future”, The Katzen Arts Center at American University, Washington, 2008 “You Said He Said She Said”, Seiler + Mosseri-Marlio Galerie, Zürich, 2008 “The Object is the Mirror”, Layr Wuestenhagen Contemporary, Wien, 2007 “Painting as Fact - Fact as Fiction”, de Pury & Luxembourg, Zürich, 2007 “An Ongoing Low-Grade Mystery”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2006 “Adrian Piper, Eric Baudelaire, Josephine Meckseper and Wayne Gonzales”, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, 2006 “The Gold Standard”, P.S.1, New York, 2006 “Looking at Words”, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, 2005 “Editions Fawbush: A Selection”, Sandra Gehring Gallery, New York, 2004 “Bill Adams, Wayne Gonzales, Cameron Martin: Paintings”, KS Art, New York, 2004 “Tobias Putrih - Wayne Gonzales”, Galerie Almine Rech, Paris, 2004 “Gravity Over Time”, 1000 Eventi, Milano, 2002 “From the Observatory”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2002 “New Paintings, Wayne Gonzales, Jacqueline Humphries, Jonathan Lasker, Blake Rayne, Dan Walsh”, Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, 2001 “Drawings & Photographs”, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, 2000 “Glee: Painting Now”, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield; Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Palm Beach, 2000 “Hex Enduction Hour by the Fall”, Team Gallery, New York, 2000 Scott Grodesky

Nato a / Born in Warren (OH, USA), 1968 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in Long Island City

La pittura di Scott Grodesky racconta il tempo. Lo fa attraverso due soggetti d’elezione: l’architettura e la famiglia, la città e la casa. Il dentro e il fuori cambiano e si fondono tra di loro. L’artista investiga gli spazi e gli oggetti della relazione attraverso una 'Prospettiva inversa' (‘Reverse Perspective’), non convenzionale: una struttura visiva e concettuale che illustrata “a rovescio” la realtà. La prospettiva in tal senso non è solo una struttura matematica di rappresentazione del mondo, ma anche una revisione del passato passando dal presente; prospettiva dunque come modo per trascendere la normale percezione del tempo. La Prospettiva inversa, mutuata dall’arte bizantina, non è un semplice espediente tecnico, ma una modalità di visione, per cui l’icona diveniva una finestra verso l’infinito nella quale lo spettatore poteva affacciarsi e entrare a far parte dell’opera. Ugualmente nell’opera di Grodesky lo spettatore viene coinvolto all’interno delle sue prospettive che trascendono la normale percezione dello spazio: gli oggetti più lontani sono rappresentati più grandi, il concavo sembra convesso, il dentro si confonde col fuori. Nonostante i soggetti siano estremamente personali i loro tratti sono indefiniti, archetipici e appartengono a chiunque.

Untitled (1992) risale ad un periodo di grande cambiamento stilistico per l’artista: una fase in cui si interroga su un nuovo modo di dipingere lo spazio. Nel 1990 abbandona tutti i materiali che negli anni precedenti avevano definito la sua pittura, riducendoli alla matita e alla polvere di grafite su acrilico su tela, e riporta la rappresentazione ad una forma elementare e primordiale. L’intento è quello di dare avvio ad una stagione di ricerca pittorica ripartendo da forme estremamente semplici che, nel corso del tempo, si arricchiranno, sia formalmente sia nell’uso di materiali impiegati. Di questo periodo sono evidenti le influenze di Agnes Martin, Roy Lichtenstein e dei dipinti di thangka tibetani.

Scott Grodesky’s painting narrates time. And it does so through two objects of choice: architecture and family, the city and the house. Inside and outside change and merge with each other. The artist explores spaces and objects through an unconventional ‘Reverse Perspective’: a visual and conceptual structure illustrating a “reverse” reality. Perspective then is not solely a mathematical structure in the representation of the world, but also a review of the past passing through the present; the perspective as a way to transcend the normal perception of time. The Reverse Perspective, derived from Byzantine art, is not a mere technical device, but a mode of seeing, for which the icon becomes a window towards the infinite where the viewer can look inside and become part of the work. Likewise, in Grodesky’s work, the viewers are involved inside his perspectives transcending the normal perception of the space: faraway objects are depicted bigger, the concave seems convex, the inside gets blurred together with the outside. Although the subjects are extremely personal, their traits are undefined, archetypal and may belong to anyone.

Untitled (1992) refers to a time of great transformation in the artist’s style: a phase where he explored a new way of painting space. In 1990 he dropped all the materials that in the previous years had marked his paintings, using only pencil and graphite powder on acrylic on canvas, and bringing representation back to an elementary and primordial form. The aim is to start a season of pictorial research by going back to extremely simple forms which – with the passing of time – would be further enriched both formally and in the use of the adopted materials. In this period the influence of Agnes Martin, Roy Lichtenstein and the Tibetan thangkas is clear.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Scott Grodesky. Table”, Horton Gallery, New York, 2009 “Scott Grodesky. Boucing Around the Sun”, Galleria Glance, Torino, 2008 “Scott Grodesky”, Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL), New York, 2006 “Scott Grodesky. More Paintings About Family & City”, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, 2004 “Family + City”, Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL), New York, 2003 Baumgartner Gallery, New York, 2000 “Scott Grodesky”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 1994 - 1995 “Art and Public”, Pierre Huber, Genève, 1993

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Wall to Wall”, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, 2010 “The Meaning of Life”, Galleria Glance, Torino, 2008 “Feed Your Head”, Heskin Contemporary, New York, 2007 “todays man”, John Connelly Presents (JCP), New York, 2003 “DemonClownMonkey”, Artists Space, New York, 2002 “Ten Realist”, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, 2002 “Self Made Men”, DC Moore Gallery, New York, 2001 “Urban Romantics, part 2”, Lombard/Freid Fine Arts, New York, 1999 “Tableaux aux murs, oeuvres de la collection du Consortium”, Frac Bourgogne, Dijon, 1998 “In-Form”, Bravin Post Lee Gallery, New York, 1997 “Scott Grodesky, Prudencio Irazabal, Erika Ranee, Christian Schumann, Lisa Yuskavage”, Yale Summer School of Music and Art, Norfolk (VA, USA), 1996 “Alice’s Looking Glass: A Glimpse at the Non-Linear”, Apexart, New York, 1996 “Jack Featherly, Scott Grodesky”, Team Gallery, New York, 1996 “Michael Joaquin Grey, Scott Grodesky, Donald Judd, Matthew Ritchie, Robert Smithson”, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, 1994 “Speed Trials”, Team Gallery, Washington, 1994 “The Circumscribed Imagination on the Ruins of Tradition. Maria Beyt, Richmond Burton, David Dupuis, Scott Grodesky, Matthew Ritchie”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 1994 “Live in Your Head”, Heiligenkreuzerhof, Wien, 1993 “Steve Di Benedetto, Scott Grodesky, Bill Komoski, Peter Nagy, Lari Pittman, Lisa Ruyter”, Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York, 1993 “Emergency: An Essay on Liberation”, Biennale, Venezia, 1993 “Slow Art: Painting in New York”, P.S. 1, New York, 1992 “Steve Di Benedetto, Scott Grodesky, Peter Halley, Steve Parrino”, Andrea Rosen Gallery Project Room, New York, 1992 “Painting Today”, Galerie Pierre Huber, Genèva, 1992 “Off Balance”, Jason Rubell Gallery, Palm Beach, 1992 “1968”, Le Consortium, Dijon, 1992 “Concurrency”, Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York, 1992 “Scott Grodesky, Dan Walsh”, Rubenstein/Diacono, New York, 1992 Nicky Hoberman

Nata a / Born in Cape Town, 1967 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in London

Nicky Hoberman realizza figure partendo direttamente da uno scatto fotografico di Polaroid. Modifica e distorce poi i soggetti rappresentati, unendo in tal modo fotorealismo e caricatura. La sua produzione è caratterizzata dal frequente uso di immagini di bambine o di giovani adolescenti che l’artista stessa dichiara essere la sua fonte primaria di interesse: per la loro possibilità di essere modellate, plasmate fisicamente, e psicologicamente (“fattore Marshmallow”). La rappresentazione dei soggetti è deformata: le teste sono gonfiate fino a diventare grottesche, gli occhi si fanno sporgenti, mentre i corpi si ritirano a proporzioni infantili; le figure galleggiano liberamente su sfondi colorati e piatti con posture assunte in ambienti onirici che trasformano stralci di memoria in maliziosi panorami di una realtà contemporanea da Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie.

Nell’opera Spider Spell (2002) l’ampia tela imita, nelle dimensioni, lo schermo cinematografico, nel quale sono “proiettate” alcune immagini di giovani bambine, immerse in uno sfondo dorato, decontestualizzato, a suggerire la tradizionale rappresentazione su fondo oro della pittura medievale e della Secessione Viennese. Le due bambine sono ritratte mentre eseguono esercizi ginnici. L’espressione dei volti non sembra riflettere l’impegno o l’attenzione su quello che fanno, bensì è l’emblematica rappresentazione di un’apatia che non ha nulla a che vedere con il mondo felice dell’infanzia, ma afferisce all’attonita reificazione del profondo scoramento dell’adulto: una riflessione sull’isolamento e un’investigazione sull’identità dell’uomo.

Nicky Hoberman makes figures starting directly from a Polaroid photographic shot. She then modifies and distorts the subjects being represented, thus merging together photo-realism and caricature. Her production is characterised by the frequent use of images of baby girls and adolescents who are – in the artist’s words – her primary source of interest because they can be modeled, physically and psychologically moulded (the “Marshmallow factor”). The representation of the subject is misshapen: the heads are overblown to the point of appearing grotesque, the eyes are bulging, while the bodies are shrunk to child’s size; figures float freely over flat colour backdrops with postures taken in dreamlike settings which change fragments of memory into naughty landscapes of contemporary reality taken from Alice in Wonderland.

In the work Spider Spell (2002) the wide canvas imitates in its size the cinema screen where some images of young girls are “projected”, surrounded by an out-of-context golden field, suggesting the traditional representation on a gilded background of Medieval painting and Viennese Secession. The two girls are portrayed while doing physical exercises. The expression in their faces does not seem to convey any effort or attention on what they are doing, but rather the apathy which has nothing in common with the happy world of childhood, as it infers at the astounded reification of adults’ profound dejection: a reflection on isolation and an exploration of human identity.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Nicky Hoberman”, Hof and Huyser, Amsterdam, 2008 “Nicky Hoberman”, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, 2008 “Far side of the Moon”, Mudimadrie Gallery, Antwerp, 2007 “Nicky Hoberman - Play Time”, Galerie 20.21, Essen; Kinz, Tillou + Feigen, New York, 2004 “Nicky Hoberman. Spider Spell”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston 2003 “Nicky Hoberman”, Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, 2003 “Nicky Hoberman”, Kinz, Tillou + Feigen, New York, 2002 “Nicky Hoberman”, Robert Gould Gallery, Melbourne, 2002 “Nicky Hoberman”, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, 2001 “Nicky Hoberman”, Feigen Contemporary, New York, 1999 “Bewitched”, Bob van Orsouw, Zurich, 1999 “Nicky Hoberman”, Feigen Contemporary, New York, 1998 “Nicky Hoberman”, Entwistle, London, 1998 “Nicky Hoberman. Truly Scrumptious”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 1998 “Chrysalis”, Studio d’Arte Cannaviello, Milano, 1997 “Sweet Nothings”, Entwistle, London, 1996 “New Contemporaris”, Tate, Liverpool, 1996 “Nicky Hoberman”, Jason & Rhoades, London, 1996

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Jerwood Drawing Prize”, London, 2008 “Offspring: Representations of Children in Contemporary Visual Culture”, Boston University Art Gallery, Boston, 2006 “Life and Limb”, curated by David Humphrey, Feigen Contemporary, New York, 2005 “Fragile, Analix Forever”, Geneva, 2005 “Out of Place”, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis, 2004 “Skin Deep”, Cook Fine Art, New York, 2004 “Time Travel”, Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, 2004 “Innocente Found”, DFN Gallery, New York, 2004 “Dead Bird Show”, Whitechapel Project Space, London, 2003 “Prospect Drawing Prize”, Truman Brewery, London, 2003 “Interview With Painting”, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venezia, 2003 “Jerwood Painting Prize Exhibition”, London, 2002 “New Works”, Feigen Contemporary, New York, 2001 “Unexpected: Stages of Regression”, Biagiotti Arte Contemporanea, Firenze, 2001 Helmhaus, Zurich, 2000 “Girl”, The New Art Gallery, Walsall (UK), 2000 “51° Premio Michetti, Differenti Prospettive nella Pittura/Different Perspectives in Paintings”, MuMI- Museo Michetti, Francavilla al Mare (CH), 2000 “Kinder des 20. Jahrhundert”, Galerie der Stadt Aschaffendburg, 2000 “Painting Lab”, Entwistle, London, 1999 “Welcome”, Stillis Gallery, Edinburgh, 1999 “The Paintings Show”, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco 1998 “Head”, Houldsworth Fine Art, London, 1998 “Alice”, Cornerhouse, Manchester, 1998 “Me and You”, Walsall Museum and Art Gallery, Walsall (UK),1998 “Juvenescence”, Champman Universitry, Orange, 1998 Jacqueline Humphries

Nata a / Born in New Orleans, 1960 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

Jacqueline Humphries inizia nei primi anni Ottanta a dedicarsi all’astrazione - che ritiene in linea con la coscienza contemporanea - in un periodo storico in cui le tendenze prevalenti sono il neoespressionismo e il ritorno alla figurazione. La sua pittura, potente e talvolta aggressiva, tende a coinvolgere lo spettatore che viene trasportato in un evento fisico drammatico. Non sfugge il riferimento alla tradizione e alle tecniche del primo Astrattismo americano (dripping, all over) che vengono impiegate in un linguaggio completamente nuovo; la sua pittura riflette la dimensione del movimento e del processo, recuperando la presenza fisica dell’artista nel lavoro e trasmettendo una sorta di ritmo musicale che deriva dal processo di sviluppo, da tracce e gesti della costruzione. La pittura, per l’artista, può e deve creare un’esperienza simile a quella della musica, sul piano del rapimento e del piacere. Le serie di opere alludono alla continuità e circolarità: le tele infatti sono spesso numerate da 1 a 0 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0) come se esse potessero riprodursi indefinitamente. “Pensavo a delle azioni ripetitive, fisicamente ristrette... Volevo riprodurre il rigore di movimenti del corpo predeterminati come pittura e immagine. Partendo da queste restrizioni ciò che rende l’opera interessante è l’imprevisto, la casualità che l’artista non può predire, e che sembra contraddire il rigore della loro realizzazione. I risultati provengono da ciò che il materiale stesso apporta alla creazione dell’opera.”

Le opere come Sunset: Blue (1996) si riferiscono al mondo dei fenomeni naturali: l’astrazione che li caratterizza è costituita da segni semplici, densi di energia e allude ad una dimensione ironica: la natura di cui la Humphries ci parla è natura ridotta a codice (bar code) “impacchettata e servita” in gusti standard: giallo, rosso e blu.

In the early Eighties Jacqueline Humphries started to look at abstractionism - considered in line with contemporary consciousness - in a period of time when prevailing trends were Neo- Expressionism and return to figuration. In her powerful and at time aggressive painting, the artist tends to involve the viewers who are carried away into a dramatic physical event. The reference to the tradition and techniques of early American Abstractionism (dripping, all- over...) which are used in a totally new language is clearly present; her painting reflects the dimension of movement and process, thus retrieving the physical presence of the artist in her work and conveying a sort of musical rhythm deriving from the development process, traces and gestures of construction. For the artist, painting can and must create an experience similar to that of music, in terms of rapture and pleasure. The series of works hint at continuity and circularity: in fact the canvasses are numbered from 1 to 0 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0) as if they could be reproduced endlessly. “I was thinking at repetitive, physically constrained actions... I wanted to reproduce the stiffness of predetermined body movements as in painting and image. Starting from these constraints, what makes the work interesting is the unexpected, the randomness that the artist cannot foresee, and which seems to contradict the strictness of their creation. Results come from what the material contributes to the work itself.”

Works life Sunset Blue (1996) refer to the world of natural phenomena: the abstraction characterising them is made of simple signs, full of energy, hinting at an ironic dimension: the nature Humphries speaks about is a nature reduced to a code (a bar code) “wrapped up and served” in standard tastes: yellow, red and blue.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Jacqueline Humphries”, Green Naftali, New York, 2012 “Jacqueline Humphries”, New Works”, Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, 2011 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Stuart Shave Modern Art, London, 2010 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, 2009 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Mercury’s Moon, Andrew Jensen Gallery, Auckland, 2007 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Albert Merola, Provincetown (MA, USA), 2007 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, 2007 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, 2006 “Jacqueline Humphries: New Work”, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, 2006 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Black Light Paintings, NyeHaus, New York, 2002 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Lawing Gallery, Houston, 2002 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, 2001 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, 2000 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Heinz Holtmann Gallery, Koln, 1999 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Galerie Simone Stern, New Orleans, 1999 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 1996 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Galerie Simonne Stern, New Orleans, 1996 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Rena Bransten, San Francisco, 1996 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, 1995 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Rena Bransten, San Francisco, 1995 “Jacqueline Humphries”, Universal Fine Objects, Provincetown (MA, USA), 1994

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Verschiebungsersatz”, Kimmerich, New York, 2011 “Painting...EXPANDED”, Espacio 1414, Santurce, Puerto Rico, 2011 “The Lords and the New Creatures”, Brown + Nye, Los Angeles, 2011 “A PAINTING SHOW”, Harris Lieberman, New York, 2011 “Provisional Painting”, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, 2011 “Abstraction”, Albert Merola Gallery, Provincetown (MA, USA), 2011 “Painting Extravaganza”, Cardi Black Box, Milano, 2010 “Re-Dressing”, Bortolami, New York, 2010 “The Big New Field”, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, 2010 “Spray”, D’Amelio Terras, New York, 2010 “The Living and the Dead”, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, 2009 “Prospect.1 New Orleans”, New Orleans, 2008 “Affinities: Painting in Abstraction”, CCS Bard Hessel Museum, Annadale-on-Hudson, 2007 “Under Pressure”, Galerie Art Concept, Paris, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, 2006 “The Mom Show”, Rivington Arms, New York, 2005 “POST-MoDERN”, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, 2005 “Selections from the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston”, Nagoya Museum, Nagoya, 2004 “Grisaille”, JG Contemporary, New York, 2003 “Against the Wall: Painting Against the Grid, Surface and Frame”, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, 2001 “Superimposition”, Caren Golden Fine Art, New York, 2001 “New Paintings”, Kevin Bruk Fine Arts, Miami, 2001 “Painting Abstraction”, New York Studio School, New York, 2000 “Trailer”, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, 2000 “Vanishing PT”, Cynthia Broan Gallery, New York, 1999 “Encyclopedia”, Turner & Runyon, Dallas, 1998 “I LOVE NEW YORK - crossover of contemporary art”, Museum Ludwig, Koln, 1998 “E Pluralus Nihil”, American Fine Arts Co., New York, 1998 “Alive & Well. New Painting”, Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, 1997 Jutta Koether

Nata a / Born in Köln, 1958 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

Pittrice, performer, critica e musicista, Jutta Koether, ha collaborato a diversi progetti con Tom Verlaine e Kim Gordon. E’ stata riduttivamente considerata la risposta femminile ad artisti come Martin Kippenberger e Sigmar Polke; negli anni ha creato un personale spazio di ricerca, in cui dominano la sperimentazione e l’interconnessione tra diverse forme di espressione. La sua arte esplora molti ambiti, dalla poesia ai graffiti, e prende forma attraverso le tecniche più svariate. Le superfici vibranti delle sue opere pittoriche sono caratterizzate da colori accesi e fluorescenti, pennellate espressive, immagini frammentate e citazioni. Il lavoro della Koether definisce la pittura come “multiuso”: con sguardo di sfida interroga la rappresentazione, la tecnica e l’estetica.

Homohomo (2002) raffigura un grande volto dai tratti difficilmente riconoscibili, primitivo, ma al contempo proiettato nel futuro: pare ricordare figure totemiche, idoli archetipici, senza spazio ne tempo, tra “ritratto” contemporaneo e volto-icona di un medioevo futuro. Fa parte di una serie di tredici lavori precedenti più piccoli, rappresentandone la concentrazione ma ne è anche un’espansione. L’intero dipinto si caratterizza per la presenza di un’ardente corona che si irradia da un quadrato argenteo, dal centro ai limiti della tela, sovrapponendosi, sorpassando, penetrando i tre volti rappresentati. La testa di una Medusa post-punk, emerge come un fantasma dalla superficie della tela, ostacolata da un bavaglio argenteo nel suo tentativo di urlare, o di respirare: immagine pare concepita da una mente sofferente, vittima del dolore e della paura di vivere, che si manifesta in impulsi autodistruttivi. Homohomo è un autoritratto psicotico: sintomo principale di questo isterismo iconografico è la pittorica raggiera – aureola che conferisce all’immagine una sorta di “maledetta” santità, associabile alle teste visionarie di Blake: terrore e trascendenza si fondono quasi in un’apparizione- visione escatologica.

Painter, performer, critic and musician, Jutta Koether has collaborated with Tom Verlaine and Kim Gordon in several projects. The artist has been considered quite superficially the female counterpart of artists like Martin Kippenberger and Sigmar Polke; throughout the years, she has created a personal space of research, where experimentation and interconnection between diverse forms of expression dominate. Her art explores many fields, from poetry to graffiti, and takes form through very disparate techniques. The vibrant surfaces of her painted works are characterised by brilliant and fluorescent colours, expressive brush strokes, fragmented images and quotations. Koether’s work defines painting as “multipurpose”: it questions representation, technique and aesthetics in a challenging way.

Homohomo (2002) depicts a large face with rather unrecognizable traits, primitive, but at the same time projected into the future: it seems to recall totemic figures, archetypal idols, without space and time, between a contemporary “portrait” and a face-icon of future Middle Ages. It is part of a series of thirteen smaller and previous works, representing their concentration but also an expansion. The entire painting is characterised by the presence of a burning crown irradiating from a silver square, from the middle to edges of the canvas, and overlapping, by-passing and penetrating the three depicted faces. The head of a post-punk Medusa emerges like a ghost from the surface of the canvas, its attempt to cry or even breathe muffled by a silver gag: an image seemingly conceived by a suffering mind, the victim of pain and fear of life, manifesting itself in a self-destructive impulse. Homohomo is a psychotic self-portrait: the main symptom of this iconographic hysteria is the painted halo of rays – conferring the image a sort of “cursed” sainthood which can be associated with Blake’s visionary heads: terror and transcendence almost merge in an eschatological apparition-vision.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Jutta Koether. Fifth Season Act, Apotheosically”, Artists Space, 2012 “Jutta Koether”, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin, 2011 “Jutta Koether”, Moderna Museet, Stoccolma, 2011 “Sovereign Women in Painting”, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles, 2009 “New Yorker Fernster”, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Köln, 2008 “The fact that you place your bet on red does not mean that the black is not still there”, Galerie Francesca Pia, Zürich, 2008 “JXXXA Leibhaftige Malerei”, Sutton Lane, Paris, 2008 “Anderungen aller Art”, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, 2007 “love in a void”, Akademie der Bildenden Kunste, Wien, 2006 “Fantasia Colonia”, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln, 2006 “Susanne Vielmetter”, Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles, 2006 “Kim Gordon and Jutta Koether, Talk and Performance at Tate Modern”, Tate Modern, London, 2005 “Her Noise”, South London Gallery, London, 2005 “Hysterics (Male)”, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Culver City (CA, USA), 2005 “I Is Had Gone”, Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, 2005 “Fresh Aufhebung - Kunstlerisches Interesse am philosphisch verneinten Wunderglauben”, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln, 2004 “Fresh Aufhebung”, Reena Spaulings Fine Arts, New York, 2004 “Desire is war”, Galerie Meerrettich, Berlin, 2003 “Europe Extreme III: Farbenfieber”, Performance, Pro qm, Berlin, 2003 “Extremes Europa”, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Köln, 2002 “Black Bonds”, Jutta Koether and Steven Parrino, Swiss Institute, New York, 2002 “Ladies of the Rope”, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Köln, 2000

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Whitney Biennale”, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 2012 “Wait for me at the Bottom of the pool”, Martos Gallery, New York, 2010 “Transition. Painting at the (other) end of the art – La pittura alla fine dell’arte”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2009 “Epileptic Seizure Comparison”, Green Naftali, New York, 2007 “24 November - 22 December”, Sutton Lane, Paris, 2007 “Jutta Koether / Rodney McMillian”, Susanne Vielmetter Berlin Projects, Berlin, 2007 “If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution”, deApple, Amsterdam, 2006 “Music is a better noise”, P.S.1, New York, 2006 “Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial” 2006, Nigata-ken (Japan), 2006 “An Ongoing Low-Grade Mystery”, Paul Cooper Gallery, New York, 2006 “Whitney Biennial 2006”, Whitney Museum, New York, 2006 “Replay - The Aesthetics of Art and Music/Punk”, MAGASIN - Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Grenoble, 2006 “Trade”, White Columns, New York, 2005 “Jetzt und zehn Jahre davor”, KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2004 “The Big Nothing”, ICA Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 2004 “Curious Crystals of Unusual Purity”, P.S.1, New York, 2004 “eutschemalereizweitausenddrei”, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt/Main, 2003 “Unknown Pleasures”, Daniel Reich, New York, 2002 “Hex Induction Hour by the Fall”, Team Gallery, New York, 2000

Damian Loeb

Nato a / Born in New Haven (CT, USA), 1970 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

I dipinti di Loeb traggono origine da immagini della pubblicità, dai film e dal fotogiornalismo, e sono realizzati con una tecnica che intrattiene un debito verso le illustrazioni patinate dei periodici degli anni Quaranta e Cinquanta. Loeb seleziona e compone in collages le immagini reperite da queste fonti e da fotografie che lui stesso scatta in varie situazioni nella città, le quali divengono uno sfondo per le sue opere. Loeb ha inciso nelle lenti della sua camera due linee nere parallele che immediatamente configurano in un grande schermo le sue istantanee conferendo loro un aspetto filmico ready made. Con questa traduzione in cinescope della realtà, Loeb riformula trame di film esistenti che ama, chiudendoli nella cornice di un singolo evento pittorico con l’uso della sua personalissima scena. L’idea di estrapolare elementi di film o di “congelarne” particolari momenti, come fossero fotografie, ha permeato tutta la sua ricerca.

Deliverance (2005) fa riferimento al titolo del film del 1972 di John Boorman, che ebbe a suo tempo una grande eco sui mass-media per gli inusuali e poco ortodossi temi trattati. Per due terzi la tela è occupata da una Lincoln nera dietro cui si intravede un paesaggio montano e un’autostrada, in un’immagine estrapolata, come il fermo immagine da una sequenza di vita urbana. La macchina sembra allontanarsi da un uomo di cui noi vediamo solo una parte dei jeans. Tutti i particolari risultano chiari allo sguardo: il jeans, le prime due lettere della targa, il cielo, gli alberi come in un moderno fotoracconto. La carrozzeria fiammante della macchina riflette il paesaggio e l’ombra oscura della figura umana. Il blu sfocato delle gambe in primo piano è in contrapposizione con il nero nitido e brillante dell’auto. Questa strategia visiva era già stata impiegata da Veermer (suo artista preferito) nei dipinti in cui talvolta le figure in primo piano sono sfocate contrariamente a quelle ricche di particolari poste in secondo piano.

Loeb’s paintings draw their origin from images in advertising, cinema and photo-journalism, and are made with a technique partly owing to the glossy illustrations of periodicals from the Forties and Fifties. Loeb picks and assembles in collages images coming from these sources and photographs that he has taken around town in different settings, which become the backdrops for his finished pieces. Loeb has engraved in the lenses of his camera two black parallel lines that outline his snapshots at once which projected on a large screen and provide them with a ready-made cinematic aspect. Through this cine-scope translation of reality, Loeb reformulates the plots of real films that he loves, by framing them within an individual pictorial event through the utilisation of his very personal scene. The idea of extrapolating elements from movies or to “frieze” some special moments, as if they were photographs, has permeated his entire research.

Deliverance (2005) makes reference to the title of a 1972 film by John Boorman, which at the time stirred a big interest in mass-media for its unusual and unorthodox themes. For two third the canvas is occupied by a black Lincoln partially hiding a mountain landscape and a highway, in an extrapolated image, as the freeze-frame of a city life sequence. The car seems to move away from a man; we see only part of his jeans. All the details are clearly shown: the jeans, the first two letters of the plate, the sky, the trees, like a modern photo-tale. The shining body of the car mirrors the landscape and the dark shadow of the human figure. The faded blue of the legs in the foreground counters the shiny and clear black of the car. This visual strategy was used also by Veermer (his favourite artist) in his paintings where at times the figures in the foreground are out of focus in contrast with those much more detailed in the background.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Damian Loeb”, Acquavella Galleries, New York, 2011 “Synesthesia, parataxic distortion, and the shadow”, Acquavella Gallery, New York, 2008 “Homecoming”, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield (CT, USA), 2006 “New Paintings”, Jablonka Gallery, Köln, 2006 “Deliverance”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2005 “Metropolitan”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2004 “Horror/Sci-Fi”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2003 “Public Domain”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2001 “I can stop anytime”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2000 “Mangoes”, White Cube, London, 1999 “Damian Loeb”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 1999 “White Rooms”, White Columns, New York, 1997

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Transition. Painting at the (other) end of the art – La pittura alla fine dell’arte”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2009 “New Location”, Team Gallery, New York, 2006 “I Love My Scene/Scene 3”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2006 “The Charged Image”, 2004, Joseloff Gallery, Hartford (CT, USA), 2004 “Airtight Plan for Killing”, Buia Gallery, New York, 2003 “View Five: Wsetworld”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2001 “Hypermental”, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 2001; Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich, 2001 “Generator”, Trevi Flash Art Museum, Trevi, 2000 “Facts and Fictions, Part 4”, Galleria In Arco, Torino, 2000 “Tension”, Robert Miller Gallery, New York, 1998 Christopher Lucas

Nato a / Born in New York, 1958 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in Poughkeepsie (NY, USA)

L’artigianalità per Christopher Lucas è parte fondamentale della sua esperienza artistica; le barche, le slitte, gli aerei, che caratterizzano la sua produzione fin dall’inizio, sono costruiti con complesse tecniche di ebanisteria, decorati con sigilli e simboli: icone segrete e mistiche. Il suo lavoro è permeato da un pensiero che attinge da diverse culture (giudaico cabalistica, induista, coreana, shintoista) e dal suo universo individuale popolato di fantasmi e spiriti, di immagini araldiche e di giocattoli per bambini. Le sue opere/oggetto dunque tendono a rompere la divisione tra mondo reale e funzionale e la dimensione magica dell’arte crea una correlazione tra movimento spaziale, un viaggio e una esperienza spirituale: in tal modo l’oggetto decontestualizzato diviene veicolo di esplorazione consapevole.

Nell’opera Daughter of the Assembly (Weightlessness) (2002) Lucas si serve di una raffinata tecnica artigianale: apparentemente, la forma delle cinque fanciulle replicate sulla tela, sembra campita e disegnata grazie alla giustapposizione di isole di colore traslucido che pare acquerello; invece, come se fosse un antico smalto, la figura è creata grazie a spessi strati di resina che assumono un loro carattere indipendente, in cui il colore reca in sè tutto il suo portato simbolico. Alla domanda “Che cosa è il Colore?” l’artista risponde “è la pelle del medium, un tempo in evoluzione, vestigia del movimento liquido, stampo, strato legame genetico – che può continuare”. Lucas pare interrogarsi, o interrogarci, sulle direzione e sui percorsi di ricerca mistico-spirituale: tra oriente ed occidente, tra rappresentazione e simbolo.

For Christopher Lucas craftsmanship is an essential component of his artistic experience; boats, sledges, airplanes, which have characterized his production from the start, are built with complex wood-working techniques, and are decorated with seals and symbols: secret and mystical icons. His work is permeated by a thinking drawing from diverse cultures (Jewish Cabalistic, Hindu, Korean, Shintoist) and from his individual universe peopled by ghosts and spirits, heraldic images and children's toys. His works/objects tend therefore to break away from the division between real and functional world, while the magic dimension of art creates a correlation between spatial movement, a journey and a spiritual experience: thus, the de-contextualized object becomes the vehicle of an aware exploration.

In the work Daughter of the Assembly (Weightlessness) (2002) Lucas uses a refine craftsmanship technique: at first sight, the shape of five young maids replicated on the canvas seems to be placed in the background and drawn thanks to the overlapping of translucent colour islands like watercolour; instead, as for an antique lacquer, the figure is created thanks to thick layers of resin taking their own independent feature, where the colour carries in itself all its symbolic value. To the question, “What is Colour?” the artist said that “it is the skin of the medium, a time in evolution, relics of the liquid moment, the mould, the genetic link layer – all of which can continue.” Lucas seems to question himself – and us perhaps – about the direction and course of the mystical and spiritual search, between East and West, representation and symbol.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “On the Corner 1984-1999”, Beacon Cultural Foundation, Beacon (NY, USA), 2006 “I am supernatural”, Atm Gallery, New York, 2005 “Daughter of the Assembly”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2003 “Christopher Lucas”, Guy McIntyre Gallery, New York, 1998 “Christopher Lucas”, Paolo Baldacci Gallery, New York, 1995 “Christopher Lucas”, John Good Gallery, New York, 1991 “Christopher Lucas”, John Good Gallery, New York, 1989 “Christopher Lucas”, John Good Gallery, New York, 1987 “Christopher Lucas”, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, 1984

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “GROW YOUR OWN”, Palais De Tokyo, Paris, 2007 “Home coming”, Epsten Gallery at Village shalom, Kansas City, 2006 “Deep Freeze” M E H R, New York, 2006 “ATMArtfair”, ATM, New York, 2006 “Curious Crystals of Unusual purity”, P.S. 1, New York, 2004 “American Idyll”, Green Naftali Gallery, New York, 2004 “Drawing”, Green Naftali Gallery, New York, 1998 “UT Scientia Pictura”, Paolo Baldacci Gallery, New York, 1997 “Body of Painting”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 1997 Illsan Sculpture Park (Commission), Illsan Korea, 1997 “Vehicle”, Paolo Baldacci Gallery, New York, 1996 “Four American Painters”, MIART 1995, Milano, 1995 “Italia - America. L’astrazione Ridefinita”, Logge dei Balestrieri, San Marino, 1993 “Beauty Show”, Four Walls, New York, 1993 “Possible Things”, Bardamu Gallery, New York, 1992 “Primal Abstractions”, Galleria Planta, Roma, 1992 “David Dupuis. Carl Ostendarp, Christopher Lucas, Matthew Wittenstein”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 1992 “The Collection of Contemporary Art from Jason Rubell”, Duke University Museum of Art, Durham (NC, USA), 1991 “3RD International Biennial of Paper Art”, Leopold-Hoesch Museum, Duren (Germany), 1990 “Semi Objects”, John Good Gallery, New York, 1990 “Shaman: Apfelbaum, Beuys, Lucas, Martin, Polke”, John Good Gallery, New York, 1990 “The Carl Apfelschnitt Benefit Exhibition”, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York, 1990 “Untitled”, John Good Gallery, New York, 1990 “The Case for Plywood”, Luise Ross Gallery, New York, 1989

Lisa Ruyter

Nata a / Born in Washington, 1968 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in Wien

Dal 1996, i quadri di Lisa Ruyter sono basati su fotografie che scatta in prima persona e che costituiscono una mappa dei suoi movimenti nel mondo così come pure della sua crescita personale. Ruyter seleziona una piccola percentuale di immagini, per iniziare il processo che le “fissa” attraverso il medium della pittura. L’artista “trascrive” le fotografie in disegno, seleziona le aree dell’immagine che desidera riportare, tralasciando dettagli che non ritiene significativi e focalizzandosi sugli altri. Una volta che l’immagine è stata disegnata, determina una mappa di colori che costiuiscono le campiture del disegno. Il fissaggio finale delle immagini avviene quando l’artista, solitamente in un’unica seduta, ricalca le linee con una penna, conferendo all’opera un focus preciso. Sia che dipinga folle, scene di party, modelle che sfilano in passerella, alberi o paesaggi esotici, il suo lavoro documenta il mondo circostante con una prospettiva distaccata, con una distanza “neutrale” in cui l’osservatore è sia presente che assente. Lei stessa afferma: “Ho coscientemente creato uno stile che rende l’opera interessante o rilevante, e questo creerà punti d’entrata per gli storici dell’arte così come per qualcuno che non ha mai considerato l’arte prima”.

Table for five (1999) incorpora riferimenti filmici e fotografici ponendosi in equilibrio tra narrazione e astrazione. Il titolo dell’opera è desunto da un film, ma la relazione tra il contenuto e il titolo è accidentale. Il riferimento infatti, oltre a creare un’aura sociale attorno all’opera, suggerisce che è la modalità rappresentazionale e narrativa del cinema a dettare la specificità delle sue immagini: Ruyter ambisce a riportare la qualità dello snapshot di un momento riccamente dettagliato del film. La suggestione è quella di una serigrafia warholiana, anche grazie all’uso dei colori non realistici, spesso brillanti e dai toni contrastanti, l’effetto ottenuto è una piattezza che congela la narrazione e la spinge verso l’astrazione. Le forme si confondono una dentro l’altra e si “scivolano addosso”. Lo specchio intensifica il senso di astrazione e suggerisce che la realtà della scena è sull’orlo di una rottura – ma proprio questo limite rende questo momento iconico.

Since 1996, Lisa Ruyter’s paintings have been based on photographs that she takes personally and that become a map of her movements in the world as well as her individual growth. Ruyter selects a small percentage of images to start a process that “fixes” them through the medium of painting. The artist “transcribes” photographs into drawings, by choosing the areas of the image that she wants to retain, and leaving out details which are not considered relevant while focusing on the remaining ones. Once the image has been drawn, the artist determines the colour map to be used for the drawing background. The final fixing of the images takes place when the artist traces over the lines with a pen, usually in a single setting, thus giving the work a precise focus. Whether she paints crowds, party scenes, models on the runways, exotic trees or landscapes, her work documents the surrounding world with an aloof perspective, with a “neutral” distance where the viewer is both present and absent. As she said with her own words: “I have consciously created a style making the work interesting or relevant, and this will create entry points both for the art historian, and for someone who has never consider art before.”

Table for five (1999) incorporates filmic and photographic references, striking a balance between narration and abstraction. The title of the work comes from a movie, but the relation between content and title is accidental. The reference in fact, beside creating a social aura around the work, suggests that it is the representational and narrative mode of cinema to govern the specificities of images: Ruyter aims at retrieving the snapshot quality of a richly detailed moment of the film. The suggestion points at Warhol’s silk-screen printing, also thanks to the use of non realistic, often brilliant and contrasting colours; the reached effect is a flatness freezing the narration and pushing it towards abstraction. Shapes blend together and “slide one on top of the other”. The mirror intensifies the feeling of abstraction and suggests that the reality of the scene is on the verge of breaking– but it is this constraint that makes this moment iconic.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Let us now Praise Famous Men”, Alan Cristea Gallery, London, 2012 “Lisa Ruyter. The Women, 2010”, Alan Cristea Gallery, London, 2010 “Living and working in Vienna III”, Kunsthalle, Wien, 2010 “Atoms For Peace”, Georg Kargl, Wien, 2008 “Lisa Ruyter”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, 2008 “The Comfort of Strangers”, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, 2008 “Crowd Scenes”, Mimmo Scognamiglio Arte Contemporanea, Napoli, 2007 “An Obvious Moment of Happiness”, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, 2006 “I Am A Camera”, Team Gallery, New York, 2006 “A Lady Mislaid”, Arndt & Partner, Berlin, 2005 “Stations of the Cross”, St. Wolfgang Church, Regensburg (Germany), 2005 “Can't See The Forest For The Trees”, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, 2004 “Lisa Ruyter”, Georg Kargl, Wien, 2003 “Lisa Ruyter”, Art & Public, Genève, 2003 “Follow The Boys”, Leo Koenig, New York, 2002 “The Sun Also Rises”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2002 “Imitation of Life”, Leo Koenig Inc., New York, 2001 “New Paintings”, Art + Public, Pierre Huber, Genève, 2000 “Lisa Ruyter”, Reali Arte Contemporanea, Brescia, 1999 “Going Places”, Rove/Kenny Schachter, New York, 1998 “Being There”, Mitchell Algus, New York, 1998 “Lisa Ruyter”, One Great Jones, New York, 1996 “Lisa Ruyter”, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, 1994 “Lisa Ruyter”, Wooster Gardens, New York, 1993

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Living and working in Vienna III. Stars in a plastic Bag”, Kunsthalle Wien, Wien, 2010 “Just what is it makes today’s painting so different, so appealing?”, Gering & Lopez Gallery, New York, 2009 “Transition. Painting at the (other) end of the art – La pittura alla fine dell’arte”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2009 “System Mensch”, MdM Rupertinum (Museum der Moderne), Salzburg, 2008 “Animals & Nature”, Jack Hanley Gallery, Menagerie, New York, 2008 “Lisa Ruyter and Thomas Ruff”, Leeahn Gallery, Daegu (Korea), 2008 “Imagery Play”, PKM Gallery, Beijing, 2007 “The Contemporary Self-Portrait”, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, 2007 “I Love My Scene”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2006 “Contemporary Voice”, Tottori Prefectural Museum, Tottori (Japan), 2005 “My Way Home”, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, 2003 “Pop-Thru-Out”, Arario Gallery, Chungcheongnam-do (Korea), 2003 “Shopping: Art and Consumer Culture”, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2002 “From the Observatory”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2002 “Ghost World”, CAIS Galerie, Seoul, 2001 “Come on, Feel the Noise”, Asbaek Galerie, Copenhagen, 2001 “Wayne Gonzales, Lisa Ruyter, John Tremblay”, Reali Arte Contemporanea, Brescia, 2000 “Greater New York”, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, 2000 “Jeff Elrod / Lisa Ruyter”, Pat Hearn Gallery, New York, 1999 “Looking at Ourselves: Works by Women Artists. From the Logan Collection”, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,San Francisco, 1999 “Painting Now and Forever”, Matthew Marks Gallery and Pat Hearn Gallery, New York, 1998 “Diamond Dogs”, Team Gallery, New York, 1997 “Saturday Night Fever”, Thomas Solomon's Garage, Los Angeles, 1995 “Disfunction, USA”, Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, 1994 “Punishment+Decoration”, Hohenthal Und Bergen Gallery, Köln, 1994 “Fluff from New York”, Christopher Grimes Gallery, Los Angeles, 1993 “Some artists I've been thinking about...”, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, 1993

Dana Schutz

Nata a / Born in Livonia (MI, USA), 1976 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

Dana Schutz dipinge, utilizzando colori accesi, opere fantasiose di una leggerezza solo apparente. Sulla tela, quasi nascosti dall’illusoria serenità, appaiono particolari “degenerati”: a volte solo grotteschi o osceni, più spesso orribili e raccapriccianti. L’artista controlla e mutila “le sue stesse creature con una sorta di crudeltà spensierata, dove i colori accesi e le fantasie audaci invece di nascondere questa sua vena spietata, la accentuano”; è il caso delle serie Self Eaters (Autofagi) e Face Eaters (Mangiatori di Facce) in cui si rappresentano corpi che si auto-divorano e che quindi, allo stesso tempo, si auto generano. In tal senso la Schutz riapre la questione magrittiana dell’incongruenza tra la rappresentazione e la cosa rappresentata, cioè tra realtà della pittura e la reificazione del soggetto-oggetto: “È molto importante che i dipinti non ci risucchino nel loro regno fantastico. Voglio che i dipinti tengano conto di ciò che accade fuori di loro”.

In Run (2003 – 2004) possiamo intravedere un gruppo di cinque figure dipinte con colori forti che corrono caoticamente verso un bosco: i corpi sbattono e cadono l’uno contro l’altro, a malapena evitano l’albero sulla sinistra, mentre il primo personaggio della fila, che appare nudo, va a scontrarsi contro il grosso tronco sulla destra. La rappresentazione è un insieme visivamente disconnesso, disarticolato, ma allo stesso tempo coerente: la composizione delle membra, definite con pennellate geometrizzanti tra forma, colore, restituisce una narrazione continua di movimenti: una “meta narrazione” che traduce un antico testo pittorico, La parabola dei ciechi di Breugel (1568), parabola archetipica di cadute morali ed esistenziali.

Dana Schutz paints fantastic works by using bright colours with just an apparent lightness. On the canvas, almost hidden by the illusory serenity, there are “degenerate” details: at time only grotesque or obscene, more often horrible and terrifying. The artist controls and maims “her creatures with a sort of light-hearted cruelty, where bright colours and bold imagination, instead of hiding her ruthless traits, highlight it”; this is the case of the series Self Eaters and Face Eaters where self-eating bodies which are also self-generating are represented. Thus Schutz re-opens Magritte’s question on the inconsistency between representation and the thing being represented, namely between the reality of painting and the reification of the subject-object: “It is very important that paintings do not engulf us in their fantastic kingdom. I want that the paintings take into account what happens outside them.”

In Run (2003 – 2004) we can see a group of five figures painted in strong colours running chaotically towards a wood: the bodies collide and fall on top of each other, they hardly manage to avoid the tree on the left, while the first figure in the line, seemingly naked, crushes against the big trunk on the right. As a whole the representation is visually disconnected, disarticulated, but at the same time consistent: the composition of the limbs, defined with brush strokes geometrizing between shape and colour, conveys a constant narration made of movements: a “meta narrative” translating an old pictorial text, Breugel's The blind leading the blind (1568), archetypal parable of moral and life downfalls

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Piano in the Rain”, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, 2012 “Götterdämerung”, The Metropolitan Opera, New York “Dana Schutz. If the Face Had Wheels, Miami Art Museum, Miami, 2012 “Dana Schutz, drawings”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, 2012 “Dana Schutz. If the Face Had Wheels, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, 2011 “Dana Schutz. Drawings & Prints”, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, 2011 “Dana Schutz”, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 2010 “Dana Schutz”, MART, Rovereto, 2010 “Dana Schtz: The Last Thing You See”, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, 2010 “Missing Pictures”, Zach Feuer Gallery, New York, 2009 “On From Here”, Guild & Greyshkul, New York, 2009 “If It Appears In The Desert”, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, 2008 “Stand By Earth Man”, Zach Feuer Gallery, New York, 2007 “Dana Schutz: Paintings 2002-2005”, MoCA, Cleveland; The Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University, Waltham (MA, USA), 2006 “Teeth Dreams and Other Supposed Truths”, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, 2005; Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, 2005 “Dana Schutz”, JCCC/Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park (KS, USA), 2004 “Panic”, Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL), New York, 2004 “Self Eaters and the People Who Love Them”, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris, 2004 “Run,” Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 2004 “Frank From Observation”, LFL Gallery, New York, 2002

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “No Object is an Island”, Cranbrook Art Museum, Cranbrook, 2011 “A Painting Show”, Harris Lieberman Gallery, London, 2011 “Cryptic: The Use of Allegory in Contemporary Art with a Master Class From Goya, Contemporary art Museum, St. Louis, 2011 “Tous Cannibales?”, La Maison Rouge, Foudation Antoine Galbert, Paris, 2011 “Dana Schutz, and Sterling Ruby”, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York 2010 “Art of Our Time: Selections from the Ulrich Museum of Art”, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Wichita (KS, USA), 2010 “Bendale Poseable: Anthea Hamilton, Mirabelle Marden, Dana Schutz, Brown Gallery, London, 2010 “ATOPIA: Art and the City in the 21st Century”, Barcelona Contemporary Culture Center (CCCB), Barcelona, 2010 “Sonic Youth etc.: Sensational Fix”, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 2009 “Accrochage”, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, 2009 “Encounters”, Pace Beijing, Beijing, 2008 “Two Years”, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2007 “USA TODAY”, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, 2007 “Fractured Figure”, DESTE Foundation, Athens, 2007 “From Here to Infinity”, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, 2007 “Hammer Contemporary Collection: Part II”, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2007 “Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation”, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2007 “Not For Sale”, P.S.1, New York, 2007 “Imagination Becomes Reality, Part V”, Sammlung Goetz, Münich, 2006 “USA TODAY”, Royal Academy of Art, London, 2006 “Take Two. Worlds and Views: Contemporary Art from the Collection”, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2005 “The Triumph of Painting”, The Saatchi Gallery, London, 2005 “Painting 2004”, Victoria Miro, London, 2004 “When I Think About You I Touch Myself”, New York Academy of Art, New York, 2004 “Material Eyes”, LFL Gallery, New York, 2003 “Clandestine”, Venice Biennale, Venezia, 2003 “Cut, Pulled Colored & Burnt”, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, 2002 “Dana Schutz/Holly Coulis”, LFL Gallery, New York, 2002 “Portraits”, PS.1/MOMA, New York, 2001 “Bloodlines”, Roberts and Tilton, Los Angeles, 2001 “BFA Exhibition”, Reinberger Gallery, Cleveland, 2000 John Tremblay

Nato a / Born in Boston, 1966 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in Brooklyn (NY, USA)

Le opere iconico-astratte di John Tremblay sono considerate centrali per il movimento della Pop/Op abstraction, uno stile in cui le influenze e le referenze includono, oltre ai dipinti formalisti, il disegno grafico, il cartoon, i graffiti. L'artista conduce da anni una particolare ricerca sull'aspetto percettivo del linguaggio artistico, attualizzando secondo una dimensione in un certo senso ironica, le esperienze di Op Art degli anni Sessanta. Forme ellittiche - come cerchi tirati e torti in gomma - e quadrati si dispongono sulla tela in sequenze oppure si moltiplicano come miliardi di cellule che invadono ed animano la superficie pittorica in una libera circuitazione, conferendo al suo lavoro movimento, prospettiva e vibrazione, che tende ad un’espansione spazio temporale dal medium, evitando di divenire metaforicamente narrativo.

Il titolo dell'opera 27 ! inches into the Future (1998) sottolinea un’apertura di significato e di interpretazione. Il lavoro non si ferma alla conoscenza e all’identificazione di riferimenti pre- esistenti, ma suggerisce che il referente del quadro ancora non esiste, il dipinto è infatti situato in un futuro prossimo. L'astrazione crea un luogo che non è ancora qui, un mondo che è in fieri. Il potere dell'artista sta nella sua possibilità di scrivere la sceneggiatura della realtà in divenire.

John Tremblay’s iconic-abstract works are considered central for the movement of Pop/Op abstraction, a style where influences and references include graphic design, cartoons and graffiti, besides formalist paintings. For years the artist has pursued a personal search for the perceptive trait of artistic language, by presenting the Op Art experiences from the Sixties under contemporary terms and somewhat ironically. Elliptical shapes – like stretched and twisted rubber circles – and squares are laid out on the canvas in sequences or multiply like million cells invading and animating the painting surface in a free movement, thus providing his work with movement, perspective and vibration, which aims towards a spatial and temporal expansion of the medium and avoids becoming metaphorically narrative.

The title of the work 27 ! inches into the Future (1998) underlines an opening of meaning and interpretation. The work does not stop at the knowledge and identification of preexisting references, as it hints at the fact that the referent of the painting does not exist yet: the painting is in fact located in the near future. The abstraction creates a place which is not here yet, a world that it is in fieri. The artist’s power lies in the possibility of writing the script of a reality still to come.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “John Tremblay”, Triple V, Paris, 2012 “Hidden in the Data”, John Tremblay, Francesca Pia Galerie, Zurich, 2010 “John Tremblay”, Gallery Side 2, Tokyo, 2009 “John Tremblay”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2008 “Available Surfaces, Part II”, Emon Gallery, Tokyo, 2006 – 2008 “John Tremblay. Star Ball Contribution”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2005 “John Tremblay”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2005 “John Tremblay”, Nouvelle Galerie, Grenoble, 2004 “Surrounding”, Galerie Francesca Pia, Bern, 2004 “Lamping” (video screening), Art 35 Basel, Basel, 2004 “John Tremblay Video Retrospective”, Velan Center For Contemporary Art, Torino, 2004 “Infinity Trials”, Galerie Heimer und Partner, Berlin, 2003 “Informal European Theater Meeting”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2003 “Sixteen Corners”, Galerie Francesca Pia, Bern, 2002 “Natural Wonders”, Galerie Francesca Pia, Bern, 2001 “2000 Hello Professor!”, Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles, 2000 “Magma”, Reali Artecontemporanea, Brescia, 2000 “The Entire Movie/Quickest way to the Airport”, Sandra Gering Gallery, New York, 1999 “Possible Utopias”, Galerie Jousse-Seguin, Paris, 1999 “John Tremblay”, Sandra Gering Gallery, New York, 1998 “John Tremblay”, Galerie Jousse-Seguin, Paris, 1997 “Statements”, Art Basel 28’97, Art & Public, Basel, 1997 “John Tremblay”, Sandra Gering Gallery, New York, 1996 “Targets”, Art & Public, Genève, 1995 “Silver, Stand Ecart”, Art Basel 25’94, Basel, 1994

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “The Old, The New, The Different”, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, 2012 “The 2011 Bridgehampton Biennial”, Martos Gallery Summer Address, Bridgehampton, 2011 “All of the Above – Session 4”, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2011 “Portrait de l’àrtiste en motocycliste”, Musée des Beaux Art, Ville de La Chaux-de-Fonds, 2010 “If My Soul Had A Shape”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2010 “Wait for Me at the Bottom of the Pool”, Jose Martos Gallery, Sagaponack, NY, 2010 “Le Carillon de Big Ben”, CREDAC / Centre d'Art Contemporain d'Ivry, Ivry, 2010 “Bilder über Bilder / Pictures about Pictures: discourses in Painting from Albers to Zobernig”, MUMOK / Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, 2010 “Permanent Trouble”, Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg, Regensburg, 2010 “Electro Géo”, FRAC / Fonds Régionale d'Art Contemporain - Limousin, Limoges, 2010 “Portrait of the Artist as a biker. Portrait of Olivier Mosset”, Le Magasin, Grenoble, 2010 “N´importe quoi”, Musée d'Art Contemporain, Lyon, 2009 “Born to Be Wild. Hommage to Steven Parrino”, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, 2009 “I Am By Birth A Genevese”, Vegas Gallery, London, 2009 “Chasing Napoleon”, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2009 “Just what is it that makes today's painting so different, so appealing?”, Gering & López Gallery, New York, 2009 “Cave Painting”, Gresham's Ghost, New York, 2009 “Top 10 Allegories”, Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich, 2009 “Learn to Communicate Like a Fucking Normal Person”, Art Production Fund, New York, 2009 “Transition. Painting at the (other) end of the art – La pittura alla fine dell’arte”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2009 “Hot Off the Press: New Prints of 2006”, Grolier Club, New York, 2007 “Black/White & Chewing Gum”, Wimmer, Wien, 2006 Kelley Walker

Nato a / Born in Columbus (OH, USA), 1969 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

La ricerca di Walker si presenta come una rilettura critica dell’eredità moderna e postmoderna dell’arte americana. La sua ricerca, tende farsi strumento di emancipazione che si attaglia alla realtà contemporanea senza alcun tipo di regressione cinica. Il suo lavoro si connette alla riflessione sul riciclaggio e sul consumo segnico iniziata con la Pop Art e ripresa dall’Appropriation Art cercando però di andare oltre: riportare alla realtà la dimensione frammentata e a volte virtuale dell’epoca contemporanea. Animato da questa tensione, Walker sovrappone i più svariati elementi (schizzi di colore, stelle, tracce di cioccolato o dentifricio) a immagini preesistenti, dai riferimenti complessi o tratte dalla cultura popolare, facendo largo uso del computer e di Photoshop, portando il suo scanner fuori dallo studio per catturare sezioni di muri di mattoni o pietre, che poi ha stampato in offset con la stessa tecnica impiegata per i poster.

Untitled (2007) ha una configurazione rigida e tripartita grazie all’uso di da tre colori nettamente distinti: mattoni grigio cinerino che formano una sorta di L sulla sinistra, un rettangolo centrale di mattoni marrone chiaro e una linea sulla destra di mattoni marrone cupo. Al centro una sottile linea, della stessa tonalità della L, è formata da ritagli dell’edizione del 10 agosto 2017 del New York Times. L’ideazione concettuale e la realizzazione tecnica si intrecciano nel suo lavoro. L’artista afferma di comportarsi come un muratore che “impila” serigrafie colorate separatamente e poi, nuovamente stampate sulla tela come se fossero un tessuto. Le modalità sono quelle impiegate per realizzare un quadro: un soggetto (i muri di New York), un medium (il colore) e un supporto (la tela-tessuto). Il tutto viene però realizzato tramite un processo meccanico, la serigrafia, da cui scaturiscono infinite possibilità di variazione che tendono a mascherare e simulare l’unicità di ogni suo lavoro.

Walker's research is a critical re-interpretation of the modern and post-modern heritage of American art. His research tends to become an instrument of emancipation well suited to contemporary reality without any kind of cynical regression. His work is linked to the reflection about the recycling and consumption of signs started with Pop Art and taken up by Appropriation Art, while trying however to move beyond that: bringing the fragmented and at time virtual dimension of contemporary time back to reality. Driven by this tension, Walker overlaps the most disparate elements (colour splashes, stars, traces of chocolate or toothpaste) to preexisting images laden with complex references or derived from popular culture, by making wide use of the computer and Photoshop, and taking the scanner outside this studio to capture portions of brick walls or stones to be off-set printed with the same technique used for posters.

Untitled (2007) has a rigid composition subdivided into three parts thanks to the use of clearly separated colours: ash-grey bricks creating a sort of L on the left; a central rectangle made of light brown bricks, and a line of dark brown bricks on the right. In the middle, a thin line, in the same tone as the L, is composed of clips from the New York Times issue of August 10th, 2017. The conceptual idea and the technical creation are intertwined in his work. The artist says that he behaves like a bricklayer “stacking” silk-screen prints with each colour individually applied, to be printed again on the canvas as he would do for a fabric. The approaches are those used to make a painting: a subject (the walls of New York), a medium (colour) and a base (the canvas-fabric). All that is however made through a mechanical process, silk-screen printing, which produces endless possible variations which may mask and simulate the uniqueness of every piece.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Kelley Walker”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2012 “Kelley Walker”, Galerie Catherine Bastide, Brussels, 2012 “Whitney on Site: New Commissions Downtown: GuytonWalker”, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2010 “Kelley Walker”, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, 2010 “Kelley Walker”, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2010 “Kelley Walker”, Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milano, 2009 “Kelley Walker”, GuytonWalker, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, 2009 “Kelley Walker”, GuytonWalker, Air de Paris, Paris “Kelley Walker”, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2009 “Kelley Walker”, Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milano, 2009 “Guyton/Walker”, Laxart, Los Angeles, 2008 “Kelley Walker”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2008 “Kelley Walker”, MAGASIN - Centre National d’art Contemporain, Grenoble, 2007 “Kelley Walker”, Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, 2007 “Kelley Walker”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2007 “Kelley Walker, Continuous project”, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, 2007 “Empire Strike Back (Guyton/Walker)”, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, 2006 “Kelley Walker”, La Salle de Bains, Lyon, 2005 “The Failever of Judgement (Guyton/Walker)”, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, 2005 “The Failever of Judgement (Guyton/Walker)”, Rheinschau, Art Cologne Projects, Köln, 2004 “Kelley Walker”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2003

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Every Revolution is a Roll of the Dice”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2009 “Guyton/Walker”, MAMBO, Bologna, 2008 “Collage: The Unmonumental Picture”, New Museum, New York, 2008 “A Fair Show: Slang and Cool Orthodoxy”, Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milano, 2007 “Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation”, National Museum of China, Beijing e Shangai Museum, Shangai, 2007 “Wade Guyton, Seth Price, Joshua Smith, Kelley Walker”, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich, 2006 “Defamation of Carachter”, P.S.1, New York, 2006 “The Gold Standard”, P.S.1, New York, 2006 “USA Today”, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2006 “Whitney Biennal 2006: Day for Night”, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2006 “Infinite Painting. Pittura contemporanea e Realismo Globale”, Villa Manin Centro d’Arte Contemporanea, Passariano (UD), 2006 “Serialty, Part II”, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, 2005 “Bridge Freezes Before Road”, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, 2005 “Greater New York 2005”, P.S.1, New York, 2005 “Last One On is a Soft Jimmy”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2004 “The Age of Optimism”, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, 2004 “Curious Crystals of Unusual Purity”, P.S.1, New York, 2004 “Le Rayon Noir”, Circuit, Lausanne, 2003 “Painting as Paradox”, Artist Space, New York, 2002 “Julie Becker, Padraig Timoney, Kelley Walker”, Greene Naftali, New York, 2002 “Alpha Flight”, John Connelly Presents (JCP), New York, 2001 “Infinite Jest”, Ten in One Gallery, New York, 2001

Dan Walsh

Nato a / Born in Philadelphia, 1960 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

Dan Walsh conduce una ricerca sulla geometria del linguaggio visuale che, più che intrattenere un rapporto con la recente storia dell’arte, sembra condurre una conversazione sull’inizio e il significato della costruzione pittorica; un alfabeto composto da semplici elementi geometrici: quadrati, rettangoli, linee che dialogano tra loro in composizioni astratte e minimali. Queste “antistoriche” icone e iI loro apparente aspetto geometrico non riconducono ad alcuna struttura rappresentazionale; il testo pittorico allude a questi linguaggi ma non se ne appropria concettualmente. La lingua di Walsh non racconta storie, ma vuole costruire una sintassi iconica para-alfabetica in cui la linea, che disegna la forma, è il nome, l’aggettivo è il colore mentre il verbo divene la correlazione tra disegno e colore. Infine l’avverbio assume il ruolo di catalizzatore della visione. Il risultato diviene archetipico, ma non rappresentazionale.

Il dittico di ampia dimensione conserva nel titolo Sentence (2005) uno degli attributi della sua pittografia; nelle due tele di composizione simmetrica le icone (rettangoli concentrici) sono organizzate su una griglia; usando la molteplicità di questa forma geometrica l’opera produce una sorta di architettura. Le sue reiterate ripetizioni che assumono un effetto ipnotico, suggeriscono una espansione infinita. Walsh, affiancando le due tele, altera la loro prospettiva di modo che le superfici piatte sembrano entrare nello spazio o sottrarsi all’interno della tela. L’uso differente del colore (il passaggio delle linee dal giallo/blu nella tela di sinistra al rosso/bianco di quella di destra) enfatizza la differenza del significato visuale e rituale che l’artista assegna alla nozione di Sinistra e di Destra, da una parte la forza pulsante di un mandala, dall’altra la visione scientifica e razionale dai colori quieti: luoghi simbolici fortemente allusivi, forze antitetiche e correlate allo stesso tempo.

Dan Walsh pursues a research on the geometry of the visual language which – more than relating to recent art history – seems to be a discourse about the beginning and the meaning of pictorial construction; an alphabet composed of simple geometrical elements, squares, rectangles, lines in a dialogue with each other in abstract and minimal compositions. These “anti-historical” icons and apparently geometrical look do not convey any representational structure; the pictorial text hints at these languages without taking hold of them conceptually. Walsh's language does not tell stories, but it wants to build an iconic para-alphabetical syntax where the line drawing the shape is the noun, while the adjective is colous and the verb becomes the correlation between drawing and colour. Finally, the adverb takes up the role of vision catalyzer. The result becomes archetypal but not representational.

The large size diptych keeps in its title Sentence (2005) one of the attributes of its pictography; in the two canvasses of symmetrical composition the icons (concentric rectangles) are organised on a grid, and by using the multiplicity of this geometrical form the work produces a sort of architecture. The continuous repetitions with a hypnotic effect, hint at an endless expansion. Walsh, putting the canvasses side by side, changes their perspective in a way that the flat surfaces seem entering the space or hiding inside the canvas. The different use of colour (the lines shifting from yellow to blue in the left canvas and from red to white in the one on the right) emphasizes the different visual and ritual meaning the artist assigns to the concept of Left and Right: on the one hand the pulsating force of a Mandala while on the other hand the scientific and rational vision of quiet colours: highly allusive symbolic places, forces which are at once antithetic and correlated.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Dan Walsh”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2011 “Dan Walsh”, Galerie Xippas, Paris, 2010 “Dan Walsh: Days and Nights”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2010 “Dan Walsh”, Galerie Tschudi, Zuoz (NY, USA), 2009 “Print Publishers Spotlight: Pace Prints”, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, 2009 “Recent Painting”, Patrick De Brock Gallery, Knokke, 2009 “Dan Walsh. Libre and Obra Sobre Paper”, Raina Lupa Galeria, Barcelona, 2009 “Dan Walsh”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2008 “Dan Walsh”, Slewe Galerie, Amsterdam, 2008 “Dan Walsh”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2008 “Dan Walsh”, Pace Prints, New York, 2008 “Dan Walsh. Recent work”, Galeria Elvira Gonzales, Madrid, 2007 “Sentence”, Mario Diacono at ARS Libri, Boston, 2005 “Dan Walsh”, Galerie Xippas, Paris, 2004 “Dan Walsh”, Paolo Curti / Annamaria Gambuzzi & Co, Milano, 2004 “Dan Walsh”, La Synagogue de Delme, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Delme, 2003 - 2004 “Dan Walsh”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York,2003 “Dan Walsh”, Slewe Galerie, Amsterdam, 2003 “Dan Walsh”, Chac Mool Gallery, Los Angeles, 2003 “Dan Walsh”, Ljubljiana Biennial, Ljubljana, 2003 “Dan Walsh”, Galerie Tschudi, Glarus (Switzerland), 2003 “Recycling, livres et estampes 1995 - 2002”, Cabinet des estampes du Musée d'art et d'histoire / Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Genève, 2002 “Dan Walsh”, Forefront Gallery, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, 2001 “New Paintings and Wallwork”, Galerie Tschudi, Glarus (Switzerland), 2001 “Dan Walsh”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2000 “Dan Walsh”, Chac Mool Gallery, Los Angeles, 1999 “Dan Walsh”, Petra Bungert Projects, Brussels, 1999 “Dan Walsh”, Project / Event, Rampe 003, Berlin, 1999 “Dan Walsh”, Barbara Flynn Gallery, Australia, 1999 “Dan Walsh”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 1998 “Dan Walsh”, Petra Bungert Gallery, New York, 1997 “Dan Walsh”, Forde, Genève, 1997 “Dan Walsh”, Galerie Béla Jarzyk, Köln, 1996 “Dan Walsh”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 1995 “Dan Walsh”, Art & Public, Genève, 1994 “Dan Walsh”, Galerie Ludwig, Krefeld, 1994

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Borofsky, Floyer, Haacke, Janssens, Quinlan, Tremblay, Walker, Walsh”, Paula Cooper Gallery, 2011 “Aida Kazarin, Berbard Villers, Dan Walsh” La Galerie Guy Ledune, Brussels, 2010 “New Editions with Tara Donovan, Robert Ryman, Robert Mangold and Dan Walsh”, Pace Prints, New York, 2010 “If My Soul Had a Shape”, Paula Cooper gallery, New York, 2010 “Transition. Painting at the (other) end of the art – La pittura alla fine dell’arte”, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2009 “Abstract America: New Painting and Sculpture”, Saatchi Gallery, London, 2009 “Weight Watchers”, Xippas Gallery, Paris, 2008 “Works on Paper”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2007 “USA Today: New American Art from The Saatchi Gallery”, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 2007 “Very Abstract and Hyper Figurative”, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, 2007 “Getting it Right”, The Open Studios Press”, Boston, 2006 “USA Today”, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2006 “Private View. Collection Pierre Huber”, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Losanna, 2005 “Minimal Pop”, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris, 2005 “La lettre volée”, F. R. A. C. Franche Comté, Musée des Beaux Arts, Dole (France), 2004 “Under Different Circumstances”, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, 2004 “It happened tomorrow”, Biennale d'Art Contemporain de Lyon 2003, Lyon, 2003-2004 “7 Grays”, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2002 “Oliver Mosset, Dan Walsh, Sol Lewitt”, CCNOA, Brussels, 2002 Kevin Zucker

Nato a / Born in New York, 1976 Vive e lavora a / Lives and works in New York

Zucker combina la pittura con il disegno al computer per ottenere dipinti che rappresentano architetture di interni o dettagli di queste che si presentano come una sorta di astratta mappatura dello spazio. Le griglie, ottenute con il computer e trasferite sulla tela, circondano i pochi oggetti presenti così da farli sembrare quasi sospesi nello spazio. Un vuoto rituale, una precisione iper-realistica nella descrizione dello spazio, un'ingannevole semplicità nella figurazione e una completa assenza della figura umana sono le linee guida del suo lavoro. La peculiarità della sua ricerca risiede nell'uso metodico di forme e spazi geometrici e di una limitata tavolozza, tra il beige e il marrone, che ne calca ancora di più la lontananza dal mondo reale delle emozioni. Così come il processo che vede la realizzazione del quadro rimarca la lontananza dal processo espressionista. Dietro alla fredda perfezione di un’immagine ottenuta dal computer si celano le irregolarità della tela e l'imperfezione del caso che ritrova un dialogo tra vita reale e mondo delle idee.

In Reduced Circumstance (2002), immagine fantasmatica, è chiaro l’intento di persuadere, di creare un'empatia tra il visitatore e i personaggi assenti delle sue disorientanti stanze. Emblematiche sono le due sedie vuote coperte da lenzuoli, ripresi da Magritte, che palesano la mancanza di cui soffre questo quadro, e la finestra che si apre su un passaggio marino, come un quadro nel quadro, o come un'interfaccia tra la mente dell'artista e l'esperienza della realtà.

Zucker mixes painting with computer drawing to create works representing interior architectures or some of their details, looking like a sort of abstract mapping of the space. The grids made with the computer and transposed on the canvas surround the few objects present in a way that makes then look like they are floating in space. A ritual vacuum, a hyper-realistic precision in describing space, a deceiving simplicity in figuration, and a total absence of the human figure are the guidelines of his work. The peculiarity of his research lies in the systematic use of geometrical shapes and spaces and a limited palette ranging from beige to brown, further emphasizing the distance of emotions from the real world, as the process for the making of the painting stresses the distance from the Expressionist process. Likewise, the unevenness of the canvas hides underneath the cold perfection of a computer-made image, and the imperfection of chance strikes a dialogue between real life and the world of ideas.

In Reduced Circumstance (2002), a fantastic image, the desire to persuade, to create empathy between the visitor and the missing inhabitants of its disquieting rooms is evident. The two empty chairs covered by sheets, taken from Magritte, showing what is missing in the painting, are exemplary, together with the window opening on a sea landscape, like a painting in the painting, or an interface between the artist's mind and the experience of reality.

Mostre personali / Solo Exhibitions “Like Death, New Mexico Will Catch Up With You in the End”, Fisher Press, Santa Fe, 2010 “Standards and Anomalies”, Arario Gallery, Beijing, 2008 “Kevin Zucker”, Linn Lühn, Köln, 2007 - 2008 “5 Standards Test Images / 5 Archetypal Objects / The Flowers of Romance/ Various Tragedies”, Linn Lühn, Köln, 2007 “Search Within Results”, Greenberg van Doren Gallery, New York, 2007 “Kevin Zucker”, Jablonka Lühn, Köln, 2004 “Somewhere Apart”, Paolo Curti/Annamaria Gambuzzi & Co., Milano, 2004 “Historical Fiction, Self-Help, Current Events”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2004 “Kevin Zucker”, Jablonka Lühn, Köln, 2003 “Kevin Zucker”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2003 “Kevin Zucker”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2002 “Reduced Circumstances”, Mario Diacono at Ars Libri, Boston, 2002 “Kevin Zucker”, LFL Gallery, New York, 2001

Mostre collettive / Selected Group Exhibitions “Architecture”, Silas Marder Gallery, New York, 2011 “TOTAL RECALL”, MetroTech Center, New York, 2010-2011 “Heather Rowe and Kevin Zucker”, Forever & Today, Inc, 2010 “Drawn”, Kincaid Contemporary, Los Angeles, 2009 “On From Here”, Guild & Greyshkul, New York, 2009 “Drawn”, Kinkead Contemporary, Los Angeles, 2009 “The Shallow Curator”, Winkleman Gallery, New York, 2008 “The Guys We Would Fuck”, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, 2008 “Forth Estate Editions”, Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery, Brooklyn (NY, USA), 2008 “The Melvins”, Mandrake, Los Angeles, 2007 “Conditions of Display”, The Moore Space & Locust Projects, Miami, 2007 “Land Block”, Park Plaza, Jerusalem, 2007 “Pratical f/x”, a cura di Kevin Zucker, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2007 “Erasing the Edge”, Miami Design District, Miami, 2007 “Available”, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, 2006 “Another Worlds”, Arario Gallery, Seoul, 2006 “Flicker”, University Art Museum, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, 2006 “Parallel Projects Chapter One”, New York Design Center, New York, 2006 “Windows”, Guild & Greyshkul, New York, 2006 “Structure”, Lucas Schoormans Gallery, New York, 2005 “Greater New York 2005”, P.S.1, New York, 2005 “Each Day is Valentine Day”, Jablonka Lühn, Köln, 2005 “Open House”, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, 2004 “Flowers”, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2004 “Emoticons”, Guild & Greyshkul, New York, 2004 “Symbolic Space”, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, 2004 “M.F.A. Thesis Exhibition”, The Mink Building, Columbia University, New York, 2002 “Out of Site”, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 2002 “First-Year MFA Exhibition”, Ira and Miriam Wallach Gallery, Columbia University, New York, 2001 “Open”, LFL Gallery, New York, 2000 “BFA Thesis Exhibition”, Woods-Gerry Gallery, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 2000