Posted on

BETWEEN US

December 15th, 2015 – January 24th, 2016

Opening Reception: Tuesday, December 15th, 2015

John Belardo “Leviathan”

Artists: John Belardo, Dina Brodsky, Maya Brodsky, Cara DeAngelis, Michelle Doll, Peter Drake, Alonsa Guevara, John Jacobsmeyer, Laura Karetzky, David Kratz, Benjamin Martins, Margaret McCann, Jean-Pierre Roy, Melanie Vote, Mitra Walter

curated by Benjamin Martins and Melanie Vote

The Lodge Gallery is proud to present Between Us, an exhibition of works by four generations of New York Academy of Art (NYAA) alumni and faculty. The exhibition frames the Academy as a family with close bonds and generational debate and consists of works that express the relational dynamics present within all families. There exists a unique kinship at the Academy, an almost fraternal commonality, and an ongoing intergenerational discourse.

At the vanguard of figurative and representational art for over four decades, The New York Academy of Art was founded in 1982 by artists, scholars and patrons of the arts, including Andy Warhol. The Academy has since developed into a non-profit cultural institution housing the nation’s first graduate school of figurative art, a continuing education program, the region’s most in-depth figurative art library, an extensive exhibition and lecture series, and iconic New York City events such as Take Home a Nude and Tribeca Ball.

“There are a number things that make the Academy unique. The quality of the education that is offered is unparalleled, the professional opportunities that are generated for our students are mind-boggling and the work students are producing is fresh, vital and contemporary.” – Peter Drake, Dean of Academic Affairs, NYAA

During the opening reception a book signing for the Academy’s book, The Figure, which celebrates the impact the Academy has had on contemporary art, will take place with many of the contributing editors and artists participating including Jean-Pierre Roy, Peter Drake, Margaret McCann, and John Jacobsmeyer. “The Figure (published by Skira/Rizzoli) is an ambitious and overdue tome that fills a void: if you haven’t noticed, contemporary representation is coming on strong. The figure is the greatest subject of all — it will live as long as we do — and this stimulating book reminds us… If there ever was an art book that needed to become a major exhibition — or a maybe a salon — The Figure is it” (Hyperallergic). To conclude the exhibition, a salon evening will be held in January featuring a panel discussion and offering many of the artists in the exhibition with an opportunity to speak about the influence of the Academy and the relevance of representational and figurative art in a creative climate that has turned in their favor.

 

Posted on

Reverence & Reverie

Matt Hansel “The Tickler”

November 6, 2015 – December 13, 2015

Opening Reception Friday, November 6th, 7-9pm

Matt Hansel “The Tickler”

[link to Press Release]

Artists: Matt Hansel, Christian Rex van Minnen, Elizabeth Livingston, Kent Henricksen, Jansson Stegner, Peter Daverington, Allison Sommers, and Kate Clark.

The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence
– T.S. Eliot

Artists of the European Renaissance grasped to collect shards of art history in order to repurpose them for their own use. They played off of familiar, classical motifs, responded to new developments, and imbued their work with mythic popular imagery to weave, what was then, a contemporary perspective into their sophisticated compositions. While they used stories and images from the past to question then contemporary cultural norms and values, they worked to build a new way of thinking by building upon the lessons learned from their classical heroes. In doing so, they transformed both the known and the unknown into foundations that would resonate through time.

The annals of art history are rich with movements that either grow out of conflict or are born in reverie for a more enlightened age. For the artists in this exhibition, reverent derivation has become the skeletal framework around which they each embark upon journeys of innovation and invention and build their contemporary practice. The exhibition, as a whole, speaks to a larger conversation about where we came from, who we are and where we might be going.

In the spirit of history repeating itself but never the same way twice, The Lodge Gallery is proud to present Reverence & Reverie, on view November 6 through December 13, 2015

Opening Reception Sponsored by:
Peroni Logo Blue Ribbon

Posted on 1 Comment

Art in Odd Places: RECALLed

Art in Odd Places AiOP Recall 2015

October 14, 2015 – October 28, 2015
Opening Reception: Wednesday, October 14, 7-9pm

Art in Odd Places AiOP Recall 2015

Art in Odd Places (AiOP) presents Art in Odd Places: RECALLed, an exhibition organized by Caitlin Crews, Claire Demere, and Ikechukwu Casmir Onyewuenyi with Art in Odd Places curators Kendal Henry and Sara Reisman. The exhibition features a selection of artworks by artists participating in this year’s anniversary festival––RECALL––and is accompanied by a publicly accessible archive with current and past artists’ documentation.

The two week run of Art in Odd Places: RECALLed includes numerous evenings of special programming and performances from participating artists in this year’s festival. The show aims to manifest the past and future of AiOP through its archival component, which will continue past the exhibition as an ongoing repository for Art in Odd Places’ history.  

Featuring: BAMteamIsidro BlascoDennis Redmoon DarkeemNicholas FraserJohn Craig FreemanGhana ThinkTankMonika GoetzJohannes Rantapuska & Milja HavasTerry HardyLeah HarperLinda HeshSam JablonLiz LindenLuLu LoLoL Mylott ManningCarolina MayorgaJenny PolakSasha Sumner & Nick PorcaroTim ThyzelMarieke Warmelink & Domenique Himmelsbach de VriesBrooks Wenzel

 

recall.artinoddplaces.org

Posted on

Peter Daverington

Peter Daverington Learn from the classics 2015

Iconophilia
September 9, 2015 – October 11, 2015

Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 9, 7 to 9pm

 

Peter Daverington Learn from the classics 2015
[link to Press Release: English / 中文]

[view works in exhibition]

The Lodge Gallery is proud to present “Iconophilia,” an exhibition of new paintings by Peter Daverington on view September 9th through October 11th 2015.

The hand of an artist can transport us back in time to discover where we came from, or it can take us on journeys forward through dreams to places we never thought possible. In his most recent body of work, Peter Daverington seizes the big picture and presents us with the relics of an evolving world.

Harvested from the iconography of great masters, Iconophilia is an adventure through the historical cannons of western art. From the invention of oil paint right up into the graffiti tags and throw ups of old school New York street artists, Daverington plunders and appropriates from a vast archive of visual imagery. In the mix are the fading heroes of the late middle ages, such as Cimabue and Giotto, alongside repeated vignettes from the work of renowned American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt. Among the depictions of high and northern renaissance figuration and Hudson river landscapes, Daverington has woven his own iconography of checkerboards and floating geometries seamlessly into the balance. The result is a collection of riotous melodies that oscillate between artifact and artifice.

As a public meditation on his own future, the future of painting, and the future of western civilization, Iconophilia is also an investigation into the cycles of degeneration and renewal. The strange decayed and distressed cacophony of imagery, abstraction, and erasure in these paintings reflects a world in collapse or one that has already collapsed, perhaps several times over, only to be restored and revitalized so that it may collapse again for future generations. Daverington’s poetic reverence for bygone ages and his faith in the future of painting combine here to offer a glimpse of hope amidst the chaos.

As the artist explains, “My recent proclivity for subjecting the canvases to brutal forms of abuse and destruction with a power sander and graffiti is perhaps a subconscious response to the disintegration, ruin, and class warfare occurring within contemporary society. It’s worth pointing out that while these works literally depict the iconography of art history as destroyed and defaced, each painting has at least one area that has been lovingly restored.”

Peter Daverington is a painter and musician from Melbourne, Australia currently living and working in Beacon, New York. He completed his MFA at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne and has held fourteen solo exhibitions since 2004. Peter has been commissioned to paint public murals in Argentina, Australia, China, Egypt, Germany, Guatemala and Turkey. He is the winner of a John Coburn Emerging Artist Award, Rupert Bunny Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship, Australia Council for the Arts New Work Grants and a finalist in the Archibald and Sulman prizes. His work is held in numerous public and private collections. This is Daverington’s first solo exhibition in Manhattan.

Posted on

Elizabeth Livingston

Elizabeth Livingston, Night Fell oil on canvas 26 ”x 46” 2014

Night Fell

August 5, 2015 – September 6, 2015

Opening Reception: Wednesday, August 5th, 7-9pm

Elizabeth Livingston, Night Fell oil on canvas 26 ”x 46” 2014
[link to Press Release: English / 中文]

[view exhibition/artwork]

 

The Lodge Gallery is proud to present “Night Fell,” a solo exhibition of paintings by Elizabeth Livingston, on view August 5 through September 6, 2015. 

Alfred Hitchcock and Johannes Vermeer both took great delight in peeling back veneers of suburban order to capture intimate moments, exposing the vulnerability of domesticated middle class life. Elizabeth Livingston’s most recent body of work evokes all the same cinematic emphasis on visual scrutiny, moments of false security, and entrapment by employing hyper-detailed patterns of juxtaposed fabric to adorn her subjects against stark planes of color and narrative light. There is a shared suspense in these voyeuristic moments, a sense of the quiet before the storm or the last rays of dusk light before night falls.

As Livingston explains, “[the paintings] are both safe houses and defenseless outposts about to be consumed by night.”

This ominous undercurrent of isolation is both palpable and intentional in her most recent work as well. In “Night Fell”, the title work of the exhibition, we glimpse a dim glow of light from the porch of a quaint two floor home that is both inviting and fragile, stable but vulnerable, and surrounded by the obsessive detail of the lush encroaching rural landscape.

As described in her own words, “In more recent work I’m pulling back from the figure, to focus on exterior views of a larger scene.  In these paintings, the figure is no longer visible, but a human presence is clearly felt through dimly lit windows. A small country home at dusk with the porch light on reads both as a safe house and as defenseless outpost against the dark woods surrounding it. The tension in this divergence, to me, is a reflection on how beautifully fragile our lives are.”

Elizabeth Livingston attended Yale University, where she received a BA in fine art in 2001 and an MFA from Boston University in 2006. Livingston has been included in numerous exhibitions in Boston, MA,  New Haven, CT, Fort Worth, TX, and New York City, among others. She has been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center and the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming and recently closed a solo exhibition at the University of Maine Museum of Art. Her work has been widely collected throughout the U.S. and Europe. Livingston currently lives and works in New York City.

Posted on

Hannah Cole

Green Crates, acrylic on layered Tyvek, 40" x 60," 2015

Back to Earth

July 1, 2015 – August 2, 2015

Opening Reception: Wednesday, July 1, 7-9pm

Green Crates, acrylic on layered Tyvek, 40" x 60," 2015

[link to Press Release]


The Lodge Gallery is proud to present “Back to Earth,” a solo exhibition of paintings by Hannah Cole featuring a groundbreaking new series of hand-cut works.  

Cole is known for acutely observational paintings that depict concise fragments of her everyday surroundings. She has an uncanny ability to glean lyrical visual moments from otherwise mundane settings. Although her depictions of urban fixtures and studio debris approach hyperrealism in terms of rendering, there is a perceived emphasis on the abstract geometry defining the picture plane. Patterns and textures take center stage as context is cropped away and the ordinary transcends. 

“In all of my work, I’m interested in exploiting the tension between ‘observed’ and ‘abstract,’ and similarly, I enjoy playing with the expectation of reality by inventing where the viewer may not expect invention,” Cole explains, “My paintings are at once rooted in the unique experiences of my own life in Brooklyn, and in conversation with the larger history of American painting. I make every mark by hand, without shortcuts. This practice is one part meditation, one part Yankee work ethic.”

Cole’s most recent works push new ground by slicing through the surface. Meticulously hand-cut tyvek, paper, and canvas surfaces are layered and painted upon. Actual shadows are created and presented alongside painted shadows, furthering confusion between perception and reality. As a whole, the exhibition provides a portrait of the artist, challenging us to see what she herself sees, as she sees it.

 

Despite the common things that inspire her, Cole’s works are very much her own, and anything but ordinary.
– Evan J. Garza, New American Paintings

Hannah Cole is an American artist based in New York. Cole holds a MFA in painting from Boston University, a Post-Baccalaureate degree in painting from Brandeis University, and a BA in Art History from Yale University. Her work was shown recently at The Drawing Center and at Volta, Basel. Last year she had her first solo museum show at the University of Maine Museum of Art. She is currently working on an upcoming show for this fall at Boston University’s Sherman Gallery

 

 

Posted on

Heathen Fundamentalist

Laura Moriarty - The Vast Emptiness of Silent Glory

An Ode to Philip Guston

June 3, 2015 – June 28, 2015
Opening Reception Wednesday, June 3rd, 7-9pm

Artists: Paul Brainard, Dawn Frasch, Aaron Johnson, Laura Moriarty, Doug Parry, Leonard Reibstein, and Tom Sanford.

Laura Moriarty - The Vast Emptiness of Silent Glory

Underlying his iconic imagery and heightened sense of primordial time, beyond the movements between figuration and abstraction, there is a general optimism in the post-50’s work of Philip Guston. Behind each oddly described object there is a desire to like the world and discover little pleasures in the unfamiliar and sometimes darker recesses of reality. Guston’s post-50’s studio was a menagerie of masterful deconstruction and then obliteration of formal painterly concerns. It was through this transformation that he learned to navigate the difficult science of color and began to experiment with non-hierarchical configurations of order.

As an artist who was made famous for work that was stubbornly eccentric to the contemporary enthusiasms of his day, his style and unique voice have proven to carry some serious lasting power. But it was over forty years ago that Guston’s work transformed the world of painting. If legacy is built on the influence of future generations what sort of influence has Guston’s work had on the imagination of today’s studio artist? What has Philip Guston done for you lately? To answer this question The Lodge Gallery presents “Heathen Fundamentalist” on view from June 3rd through June 28th.

The Lodge Gallery, founded by Keith Schweitzer and Jason Patrick Voegele, is located at 131 Chrystie Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Posted on

Post Human Utopia

Lori Nix “Mall”

April 22 – May 31

Opening Reception Wednesday, April 22nd, 7-9pm

Artists: Sarah Bereza, George Boorujy, Kate Clark, Peter Daverington, Valerie Hegarty, Ryan McLennanLori NixJean-Pierre Roy, Ryan Scully and Doug Young.

Lori Nix “Mall”

[link to Press Release]

Will our ever-expanding footprint on the natural world lead to an ecological collapse and a mass extinction of the human race? Will it be our meteoric advances in the development of artificial intelligence that does us in? Perhaps a biochemical calamity or a nuclear war will be our undoing. There are a lot of dark scenarios in which the world might go on without us.

In his book, “The World Without Us,” Alan Weisman poses a fascinating thought experiment: if you take every living human off the Earth, what traces of us would linger and what would disappear? Will the footprint of humanity ever fade away completely or have humans so irrevocably altered the environment that the impact of man will continue to shape the earth’s landscape far beyond the days of our departure?

This Spring, The Lodge Gallery takes a unique look into a seemingly dystopian situation and contemplates the variable repercussions of our absence in Post Human Utopia, on view April 22 through May 31, 2015.

The Lodge Gallery, founded by Keith Schweitzer and Jason Patrick Voegele, is located at 131 Chrystie Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. 

Posted on 1 Comment

The Copenhagen Interpretation

The Copenhagen Interpretation Lodge Poulsen

3/3 – 4/4
Opening reception Wednesday March 4th, 2015 from 7-9pm

The Lodge Gallery and Gallery Poulsen proudly present “The Copenhagen Interpretation,” an exhibition of 18 works in different media: drawing, painting, collage and photography.

Participating artists: Aaron Johnson (US), Alfred Steiner (US), Barnaby Whitfield (US), Christian Rex van Minnen (US), Daniel Davidson (US), Debra Hampton (US), Eric White (US), Isaac Arvold (US), Jacob Dahlstrup (DK), Jade Townsend (US), Jean-Pierre Roy (US), John Jacobsmeyer (US), Mi Ju (KOR/US), Mu Pan (TW/US), Nicola Verlato (IT), Rainer Hosch (AUT/US), Tom Sanford (US) and William Powhida (US).

 

The Copenhagen Interpretation Lodge Poulsen

[link to Press Release]

Denmark-based Gallery Poulsen is located amidst butchers, fishmongers and the vibrant nightlife of Copenhagen’s Meatpacking District. With a passion for traditional art on canvas and paper, Gallery Poulsen presents a strong team of contemporary artists, mostly Americans, who work in a significant artistic style, where the clean, the satirical and not least the reflective are the thematic common denominators.

Exactly five years ago we started putting together a team of talented artists. Some from Near, but many from Far. In the search for the best, geography knew no bounds, and we found ourselves drawn to the glowing center of the contemporary art scene, New York City. In the corner of our meatpacking district in Copenhagen, Gallery Poulsen has taken that world in and it is now time to send our “The Copenhagen Interpretation” back to where it all began.

“The Copenhagen Interpretation”, which has been linked to the Danish physicist Niels Bohrʼs theories about the structure of atoms, contains in addition to its groundbreaking way of describing quantum physics also a great deal of persistence, geekiness and innovation. And that is precisely the three concepts which constitutes the strongest bricks of this show.

Influenced by the Danish writer H. C. Andersen we have started a journey in the name of inspiration as well. But apart from being on the lookout for taking home a lot of new ideas, we are mainly landed in Godʼs Own Country to give something of our own. We have left our home to besiege new ground and to show eighteen unique artists who transform the mundane into the fantastical.

Morten Poulsen / Gallery Poulsen

Posted on

Evie Falci

Voids and Invocations

Jan. 28 – Feb 28, 2015
Opening Reception: Wednesday Jan. 28, 7pm to 9pm

Evie Falci

It always begins the same way. The primordial void, the vast chaotic emptiness of pre-creation before time began. And then out of nothing the void is punctured and orders are formed around the developing architecture of creation.

This is the kind of language that ancient poets and contemporary psychologists like Manly. P. Hall or Carl Jung use to correlate alchemical symbolism with the development of the psycho-spiritual life of the individual. Here our unknown selves are the void and our consciousness is born from the void ex nihilo, ready to be formed by naturally occurring archetypal orders that are universal but result in multitudinous expressions of subjectivity.

It is also an accurate account of the ritualized studio practice of Brooklyn based artist Evie Falci. Using the language of esoteric symbolism and sacred geometry, Falci’s alchemical gold is definitively spiritual and her transmutation of metals occur in complicated geometric compositions of punk rock studs and pleather. She does not plan her paintings to a definitive degree before she begins. Instead, she taps into a type of shamanistic creative invention with a loose guide of esoteric rules and a personal symbolic order of geometries to guide each unique construction.

Here, in her first solo exhibition at The Lodge Gallery, Falci continues to explore the development of insight and intuition through the arrangement of symbolic imagery. Her most recent paintings of studs on pleather act as invocations meant to conjure allusions to the spirit world and, like totems, become activated access points to other unworldly dimensions. Cross referencing multiple cultural influences, including Islamic mosaics, ritual body scarification and tattooing, South American textiles, alchemical and esoteric symbols that span from India and the ancient Levant to fraternal enlightenment period hieroglyphics, she has built a composite visual language that is as deeply personal as it is accessible to a popular cultural audience. Harnessing the familiar appeal of popular materials such as denim and pleather, rhinestones and steel studs, her completed compositions are lush and tactile, mysterious and imbibed with magical incantations and divine presence that transform the superficial into the transcendental, and ultimately elevate the baser materials so that they appear to surpasses the sum of their parts.

Evie Falci (born 1985, Brooklyn, NY) is a 2007 graduate of the Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland. She participated in the Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program in 2011 – 2012. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions at various venues, including, Hudson, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, Feature Inc.,New York and Gallery Diet, Miami, and is part of Art in Embassies, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Her most recent solo exhibition Everything All Night was at Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York in 2013. Falci continues to live and works in Brooklyn, NY.

The Lodge Gallery, founded by Keith Schweitzer and Jason Patrick Voegele, is located at 131 Chrystie Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. 

evie-falci-lodge-gallery-ny

Posted on

Alterity

Curt Hoppe - Gal Friday - Studio View

January 9 – January 24, 2015

Opening reception January 9, 7pm to 9pm

 

The Lodge Gallery is proud to usher in the new year with Alterity, a group exhibition featuring works by Reuben Negron, Emily Burns, Curt Hoppe, Rebecca Goyette, Frank Webster and Ulrike Theusner.

Curt Hoppe - Gal Friday - Studio View

As individuals we choose to keep our personal obsessions with physical pleasure close to the vest, under the table and sometimes in the closet. As a society we are a lot bolder. We build our public fantasies on magazines, advertising campaigns and big budget films but inside we all long for a deeper connection to our true selves. Anyone who has dressed up for a masquerade or is accustomed to a uniform  knows the transforming effect that donning a costume can have. Useful as a largely positive mechanism for coping with social anxiety, we all dress up in our own self constructed costumes that mask our true selves in order to navigate the daily complications of our public lives. For some, the only way to explore more personal subjects such as desire, power, control and role reversal is to embrace an ulterior identity associated with a literal mask or costume to be donned as a shield of safety from judgement and public scrutiny. Sometimes these masks are literal and other times they are as subtle as an attitude or context. Each of us, in our own subjective way, learns to stitch together the necessary disguises we require in order to reconcile our pursuits of the baser instincts of human nature and to act out on our natural desires or secret fantasies. 

“People seldom change. Only their masks do. It is only our perception of them and the perception they have of themselves that actually change.” 

― Shannon L. Alder

 

 

 

Posted on

Art & Ephemera from 98 Bowery, 1969-89

Marisela La Grave's photograph David Wojnarowicz's drawings at Pier 34, 1983
December 19th – December 28th, 2014
Opening Reception Friday, Dec. 19, 6pm to 9pm

curated by Marc H. Miller

Marisela La Grave's photograph David Wojnarowicz's drawings at Pier 34, 1983

 
Opening Friday, December 19th, The Lodge Gallery is proud to present Art & Ephemera from 98 Bowery, 1969 to 1989. Every era creates its own type of art object. The multiples, political statements, and ephemera in this exhibition are representative of the deliberately transient quality and populist impulse of art in the 1970s and 80s. 

Artists in this show include Charlie Ahearn, John Ahearn, Marc Brasz, Colette, Thom Corn, Jane Dickson, Stefan Eins, Sandra Fabara (Lady Pink), John Fekner, Peter Fend, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Bobby G (Robert Goldman), Mike Glier, Group Material, Keith Haring, Curt Hoppe, Becky Howland, Baird Jones, M. Henry Jones, Lisa Kahane, Christof Kohlhofer, Marisela La Grave, Don LeichtDick Miller, Marc H. Miller, Richard Mock, John Morton, Tom Otterness, Phase 2, Bettie Ringma, Walter Robinson, Christy Rupp, David Schmidlapp, Arleen Schloss, Kiki Smith, Susan Springfield, Anita Steckel, Jehnifer Stein, Anton Van Dalen, Arturo Vega, Tom Warren, Robin Winters, David Wojnarowicz, Y Pants, and more.Jane Dickson / Kiki Smith / Charlie Ahearn - Cause Effect, Offset Poster, 1984

The website 98bowery.com tells the story of the downtown art scene in the 1970s and 80s as I experienced it living in the top floor loft at 98 Bowery. These were bleak years for New York marked by economic decline, crime, drugs, and in many sections of the city, a desolate landscape of abandoned buildings and rubble-strewn lots. But for the young artists living in the Lower East Side during one of its worse moments there was a silver lining: cheap rents, camaraderie, plenty of real-life inspiration, and a do-it-yourself ethos that made anything possible. To use the ironic phrase coined by artist Joseph Nechvatal, downtown was an “Island of Negative Utopia.”

As an artist, curator, and writer, I had a ringside seat for much of the action. Just down the street from 98 Bowery was CBGB where a revolution in music, art and style was unfolding. Art was no longer confined to traditional galleries. Graffiti and street posters covered the walls, and exhibitions were held in nightclubs and squatted buildings. With limited access to the commercial mainstream, artists made things for themselves and for their peers. Works were created quickly and cheaply for short duration theme exhibitions and artist-run stores. New formats emerged: performance, video and independent film. Much of the action that I knew centered around Collaborative Projects Inc. (COLAB), the loosely organized artist group that was responsible for the Real Estate Show (1980), the Times Square Show (1980), and the art spaces Fashion Moda in the South Bronx, and ABC No Rio Dinero on the Lower East Side.

Every era creates it’s own type of art object. Multiples, political statements, and ephemera are representative of the deliberately transient quality and populist impulse of art in the 1970s and 80s. This exhibition at the Lodge Gallery includes treasures that I acquired during that time, as well as vintage works that I have collected more recently for Gallery 98, the online store of 98bowery.com. In selecting the items, I have not held back. Many are masterpieces whose rich historical and aesthetic content rivals that found in more conventional art objects.

Marc H. Miller, 98bowery.com

Posted on 1 Comment

Les Fleurs du Mal

Ulrike Theusner & Paul Brainard

November 6th – December 14th, 2014
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 6th, 7-9pm

les fleurs du mal

[link to Press Release]

My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it.
— Charles Baudelaire, Conversation, Les Fleurs du Mal

Like Charles Baudelaire in his controversial 1857 volume of poetry Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), Ulrike Theusner and Paul Brainard explore the dark meanders of the human mind, the immoral side of urban life and the gross lack of empathy that continues to mar western culture. The depictions of sexual perversion, corruption, and mental and physical illness, so prevalent in Baudelaire’s poems, find their contemporary reflection in the drawings by Theusner and Brainard, who wade through the popular cultural imagery of what on the one hand is our subjective personal experience and on the other – the universal human condition. The exhibition features 25 drawings, three of which are collaborative works, built on ideas explored through Theusner and Brainard’s conversations about the condition of today’s urban culture.

The ink drawings of Ulrike Theusner are based on William Hogarth’s famous etchings “A Rake’s Progress” and the photographs of Jerome Zerbe’s Book “Happy Times.” The drawings describe the decline of a rich heir over the course of eight chapters. The protagonist is a lethargic puppet, the heir to a rich merchant, who over the course of the story wastes all his money on gambling and prostitution, eventually resulting in his being sent to prison and later to a home for the mentally ill. It is not a moral commentary as originally intended by Hogarth, but a metaphorical description of today’s society. This lifestyle offers no satisfaction for the protagonist and he finally ends up in a psychiatric hospital, surrounded by histrionic monkey figurines in baroque costumes: humans behave like monkeys and monkeys behave like humans.

Paul Brainard’s works in Les Fleurs du Mal are made up of portraits of friends, family and people from his life, imagery from advertising, the internet, and American puritanical religious imagery. A common thread throughout the work is a dark and macabre sensibility that stems from existentialist and absurdist philosophy. Formally, the drawings are in a constant state of flux and the final image arrived at is one of many possible solutions.

The largest work in the show I sleep under a sky of extinguished stars, was inspired by Robert Kolker’s book “Lost Girls,” the story of the lives of the prostitutes who were all murdered by the “Long Island Serial Killer” and whose bodies were discovered in December 2010. This artwork is a posthumous portrait of Jessica Taylor, a prostitute who was murdered and whose remains were discovered in the spring of 2011. The case remains unsolved.

 

violent dreams

Posted on

MADNESS

Matt Rota - Madness

Curated by Lori Field

October 10th, 2014 – November 2nd, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, October 10th, 7-9pm

 

Artists include: Allison Sommers, Ben Coover, Chris Crites, Chris Hipkiss, Dawn Black, Hanna von Goeler, Hiroshi Kumagai, John O’Reilly, Judith Supine, Judy Rifka / Daniel Dibble, Kymia Nawabi, Lori Field, Matt Rota, Sharmistha Kar, Sibylle Peretti, Sokol Andrew, Stephen J M Palmer, Winston Chmielinski, Zoë Field

The Lodge Gallery is pleased to present Madness, a group exhibition curated by visual artist Lori Field. Comprised of almost two dozen works, the show brings together an exceptional collection of artists who question the nature of madness and its place in contemporary culture.

Matt Rota - Madness

While the title Madness is subject to a wide spectrum of subjective interpretations, the exhibition broadly plays on themes of melancholia and definitions of sanity, embracing socially controversial behavior and individual journeys through darkness and confusion. Is madness a chemical imbalance or is it a series of culturally adopted behaviors? What exactly is it that drives individuals and communities to the breaking point of madness? Who is responsible when a lapse in sanity occurs and is a little madness always a bad thing? If it is to be believed that the fine lines between genius and madness are drawn within cultural context then one man’s mad fundamentalist heretic is another mans holy martyr, one woman’s delirium tremens is a another woman’s shamanistic vision. As it turns out, it’s not as easy as it seems to define madness even within the broad interpretations of our shared colloquial vernacular.

From Dawn Black’s portraits of beauty queens, gun nuts, and terrorists, to Hanna von Goeler’s stripped down and ghost-like dollar bill paintings, Chris Hipkiss’s dystopian landscape drawing, and Judy Rifka’s flickering staccato insects, the visual images on view in Madness pick up where definable language fails us.

 

Posted on

Kent Henricksen

The Lesson, 2014, 16 x 20, Silkscreen and embroidery thread on canvas

Disharmony in Blue and Gold

September 5th, 2014 – October 5th, 2014
Opening Reception, Friday, September 5th, 7pm-9pm

The Lesson, 2014, 16 x 20, Silkscreen and embroidery thread on canvasThe Lesson, 2014, 16 x 20, Silkscreen and embroidery thread on canvas

[link to Press Release]

The sky is falling- or so it would appear in Kent Henricksen’s upcoming exhibition, Disharmony in Blue and Gold, at The Lodge Gallery.

Known for creating fraught environments that are both inviting and menacing, Henricksen’s work is the combination of opposing forces- the past and present, horror and absurdity, the comic and the tragic, high and low culture. The exhibition presents an immersive installation within midnight blue gallery walls glimmering with thousands of hand stenciled gold dots reminiscent of a mythic celestial heaven. Dark blue canvases hang directly on the stenciled walls where images of discord prevail. Throughout the gallery stoneware face jugs are ominously impaled upon golden stakes that seemingly thrust upwards from the floor.

Race and gender, power and conflict, these are just some of the transcultural archetypes Henricksen explores by manipulating images that are sourced from biblical illustrations, newspapers, old master prints and esoteric Hindu symbolism of the Trimurti (the creator, the preserver and the destroyer).  The thread and ink of his canvases are imbued with a complex ambiguity that pushes the images beyond any definitive cultural context. Juxtaposing illustrations of historical events with familiar contemporary images, Henricksen’s work invites you to step into a shamanistic world of non-linear narrative and mythic time. Each canvas is a silkscreened fable in gold ink and meticulously hand embroidered thread.

Henricksen explains, “Combining eastern ideas with western images- the large canvases are symbolic labyrinths of the cosmos.  The western images loosely represent the Hindu Trimurti- with a creator, a destroyer and a maintainer.  They are representations of a troubled world with disturbing human behavior- destroying the unknown, protecting or creating the familiar, and maintaining the balance of disturbance”

Also, included in the show is a new body of work based on sacred geometric patterns. Here Henricksen evokes the Sri Yantra in gold thread. Formed by nine interlocking triangles that surround and radiate out from the central (bindu) point and balanced against the familiar blue and gold celestial backdrop, we are presented with the symbolic womb of creation. It is the symbol of the universe as a whole and the reconciliation of the divine masculine and feminine principles, a process and philosophy not at all unfamiliar to western culture through illustrations of the chemical wedding in European spiritual alchemy.

Kent Henricksen is an American artist based in New York whose work explores race, violence and identity through sculpture, painting, drawing, and installation. Henricksen came to prominence in 2005 for his work in the MoMA PS1 Greater New York Show. His work is in the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., The Fogg Museum at Harvard, and the Collezione Maramotti. Henricksen has shown internationally including Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York, John Connelly Presents, New York, hiromiyoshii, Tokyo, Arario, Seoul, and Gerhardsen Gerner, Berlin. Solo museum shows include Bass Museum Miami and the Contemporary Gallery of the Nassau County Museum of Art, New York.

 

Posted on 1 Comment

Tara de la Garza

Tara De La Garza Embracing Failure

Embracing Failure

Opening Reception: Thursday, August 28, 6pm – 9pm

Tara De La Garza Embracing Failure

Mistakes are the portals of discovery. -James Joyce

Tara de la Garza is Embracing Failure, throwing artwork to the flames, whiting out rejected proposals, videoing children attempting to wink, massaging a dead chicken, paying homage to a building imploding and street art painted over and erased. By consciously placing herself in a position of making mistakes the artist hopes for an opportunity to grow her practice in this unconventional manner.  By delving into destruction, De La Garza attempts to shake the ‘anaesthetization of information’ that was lamented by French theorist Jean Baudrillard.  By whiting out, pairing back and simplifying signifiers, she arrests the bombardment of signs that dissolve meaning.

This first solo show in New York is the culmination of two years work, created in her adopted city of San Francisco but thematically very much with its heart in New York. A burning painting relates to an event in 2012 where New York artists met in the Philadelphia countryside to destroy they’re past failures. Two ‘projection paintings’, an inter-play of film and painting designed to challenge and transcend the boundaries of the canvas and surface, meld to create new narratives related to destruction and rebirth.

Another series of works include the “Erased” paintings which both reference the tagging cover ups that the artist was noticing in San Francisco but more pointedly the wholesale erasure of the work on the 5 Pointz building in Long Island City, an icon of street art. Transcribed onto the erased surface are a direct translation of images from that site.  Aesthetically influenced by Belgian artist Luc Tuyman’s muted palette, the works are built up in layers or glazes much like a renaissance painting. These detailed works become the antithesis of what they document.

Also in this exhibition will be a quirky, single-channel piece entitled Chicken Massage.  In this work, the hands of the artist can be seen vigorously massaging a truncated chicken carcass (one readily purchased from the supermarket for dinner time consumption) in a manner not unlike the treatment of live human flesh at a ‘day spa’ setting.  Originally exhibited at Chashama’s alternative, store front space in Harlem the site-specific work was created as a response to the live chicken store next door.  Aired on Comedy Central this piece has received more than 12,000 hits on YouTube.

De La Garza’s work is idiosyncratic, unified not by medium or subject matter, but instead by something much less tangible – curiosity.  As can be seen through the diverse array of artworks in this exhibition, each piece is but a portal through which a viewer may encounter an alternative perspective.  In this sense, nothing here is random or a mistake, but an opportunity to explore the world in a less conventional manner.

Posted on

Sirikul Pattachote

The Second Life of Flowers

July 17 – August 10, 2014

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 17, 7pm to 9pm

little amadeus sirikul pattachote

Little Amadeus, 2013 – watercolor and pencil on paper

[link to Press Release]

[view Available Works]

Flowers have two lives.  The first is all natural. From the seed to the stem into blooming petals, all it takes is the right dirt, a little rain and some sunshine to make the magic happen. Once the magic happens, most flowers push out their colors and shake their anther until season’s end when petals begin to wilt and fertility organs cease to function. Shortly thereafter the flower dies. But, some flowers are fated to a different end and are plucked or cut down in their prime to live a second life with a second purpose.

Humans have been gathering bouquets and arranging cut flowers for as far back as history records. Beyond culture and time we use the exchange of flowers to express our most intimate and passionate experiences. From birth to love and death we comfort and celebrate ourselves with the arrangements of various botanicals. Each exchange loaded with a memory or a sentiment that is forever bound to a simple flower that carries the symbol.  It’s no wonder then that we regard the flowers that we associate with our intimacies and our passions to be as precious to us as our memories.

Alas, as our own lives run their course and expire, so too does the second life of a flower. The brittle decomposition of a flower at the end of its purpose is a slow and lonely, bittersweet journey. We can use words like this to describe the action because it is so familiar to our own human experience. Just as the flower serves its purpose we serve ours, we both flourish in the sunshine and grow uniquely beautiful before we leave our legacy and drop our petals along the path to becoming a memory.

This summer The Lodge Gallery is proud to present The Second Life of Flowers, a collection of recent paintings by Sirikul Pattachote, on view July 17th through August 10th, 2014.

Sirikul Pattachote  is a Thailand-born New York artist and earned her BFA from Silipakorn University of Art and Design (Bangkok). Her artwork is inspired by nature, where she draws upon memories and the experiences of her surroundings in everyday life. The ephemeral quality of life and matter is a central theme in her work. Through her paintings, she attempts to record and preserve certain memories and impressions that highlight the potential good that lies in everyone and everything. Sirikul has exhibited extensively in Southeast Asia and New York.

 

Posted on

MATING SEASON

June 5, 2014 – July 5, 2014

Opening Reception: Thursday June 5, 7pm-9pm

t7ne_ymlp2_2

George Boorujy, “Passenger 3,” 2013, ink on paper, 38″ x 50″

[link to Press Release]

This Summer The Lodge Gallery celebrates the season of fertility with “Mating Season,” an exhibition of work inspired both by natural history and everyday life. 

Artists include: Lina Puerta, Juan Fontanive, George Boorujy, Maxi Cohen, Leif Solem, Monique Mantell, Brian Adam Douglas, Anita Cruz-Eberhard, Sirikul Pattachote, Sarah Bereza, Liza BéarRyan McLennanHerb Smith, Frank Webster and Tiffany Bozic.

Curated by Keith Schweitzer & Jason Patrick Voegele.

According to our best collective fossil evidence, something astonishing happened during the late Jurassic to early Cretaceous period that transformed life as we know it. About one hundred and fifty to one hundred and thirty million years ago the first flower bloomed and the first birds took flight. The process by which the multitudes of various bird species and flowering plants would come to populate every inhabitable region of the earth is epically slow. We know that almost immediately after the first flower blossomed, the birds of that time, along with other small animals and insects, became enamored with the sweet smells and free lunch. They quickly became the beneficiaries of a symbiotic relationship that continues to this day. This relationship can be roughly defined as a food for sex program, wherein the flowering plant offers the bird a tasty reward in exchange for carrying out the process of transporting reproductive pollen to fertilize plants of the same fruit on the other side of the garden. As in modern times, competition for services drove adaptation and diversification of the species. By the time humans arrived on the scene, flowering plants had flourished to become the dominant vegetation of most terrestrial ecosystems and subspecies of geographically specialized birds had unfolded into countless assortments.

As we make our way through the early stages of the twenty-first century more than half of the world’s human population has come to inhabit a landscape of ever expanding urban sprawl.  As mankind increasingly alters the global landscape, new adaptive shifts have begun to take place, once again forcing the transformation and evolution of indigenous species. Successful city birds often exhibit the most spectacular displays of natural selection with a unique behavioral plasticity. With all the typical urban feasts and hazards to contend with, city birds have developed a fearless equilibrium with their human counterparts. For example, feral pigeons, originally bred from the wild rock dove, find the ledges of buildings to be a suitable substitute for sea cliffs and are abundant in towns and cities throughout much of the modern world.

Posted on

Transforming New York City

omar thorpe

Organized by Site95 and Curated by Kimberly Marrero

omar thorpe
Omar Thorpe

 

What if we could look at the most mundane elements of our daily lives through an artist’s lens? What if we could transform these everyday manufactured objects into something remarkably different even for a brief moment? Fire hydrants, standpipes, street signs, lanterns, sewer drains, and bike racks appear as endless manufactured essentials. Many are exquisitely engineered objects that quietly confront us like permanent installations, marking every street corner and sidewalk in every borough. These industrial objects, which occupy a substantial portion of our urban grid, have become almost invisible to the eye as we navigate our way around them and through the trajectories and tasks of our busy lives from day to day.

The Lodge Gallery is pleased to host “Transforming New York Street Objects,” an open call exhibition presented by Site95 on July 8-9, 2014. “Transforming” invites both artists and the general public to rethink the objects they encounter every day on the city’s streets through the creation of temporary outdoor sculptures with objects commonly found in their neighborhoods. Participants were asked to document their work with photographs and submit these images to Site95. All submissions are on view at nyctransformed.tumblr.com. 43 works from the “Transforming” open call presented in the exhibition were selected by a panel of 10 artists, gallerists, and curators including: Stuart Anthony (Executive Director of ArtConnects New York), Meaghan Kent (Director of Site95), Louky Keijsers Koning (Owner of LMAK Projects), Kimberly Marrero (Curator of “Transforming”), Michael Mut (Founder and President of The Love Yourself Project), Leon Reid IV (Artist), Gae Savannah (Writer/Artist), Keith Schweitzer (Owner of The Lodge Gallery), Jason Patrick Voegele (Owner of The Lodge Gallery), and Antonia Wright (Artist).

Site95 has published a special issue of the Site95 Journal, 03_02, that features all winning entries by: Ariela Kader, Christopher Hart Chambers, Peter Brock, Suran Song, Michele Brody, Niizeki Hiromi, Paul Quince, Zac Benson, Omar Thorpe, Kristi Sword, Nicole Lenzi, Terry Ward, Stephanie Mora, Z, Shelley Flanders, Jamie Grove, Tasha Lewis, Lillian Przedecki, Cary Whittier, David Meanix, Katy Andrascik, Wan Yu Chen, Andrew Frotton, Kathryne Hall, Aimée Margolis, Matt Jones, Megan Kohlmiller, Leah Harper, Jos Diegel, Tania Sen, and BluDog 10003.

100% of the print sales will be donated to The Doe Fund, a non-profit organization working to break the cycles of homelessness, addiction, and criminal recidivism. All of The Doe Fund’s programs and innovative business ventures ultimately strive to help homeless and formerly incarcerated individuals achieve permanent self-sufficiency, and aid the community, through work including the development of cleaner and safer streets. Site95 is also organizing a “Transforming” workshop series with Go Project, a year round educational organization for low income public school children in Manhattan from Kindergarten to Middle School.

“Transforming” is part of Dead in August (DiA), Site95’s yearly multi-venue exhibition and event series during which New York-based artists create in-depth projects in donated spaces across the city. More information can be found on Site95.org or email info@site95.org.

Kimberly Marrero is a private art advisor and independent curator based in New York City. She has organized many high profile public exhibitions working directly with celebrated artists and art institutions worldwide. Marrero manages various private art collections for her domestic and international clients. She has also enjoyed a longtime affiliation with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in New York, serving as an active education committee member as well as a museum educator, lecturer, and writer. She is a devoted advocate for Arts & Education and has established a number of grants to support various Arts & Educational Programs for institutions for learning throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Marrero is also a children’s book author.

Site95 is an alternative non-profit organization established to present exhibitions for emerging and established artists in temporary urban locations. Drawing upon available space in major cities, Site95 will present over five projects per year, each extending up to two months. The impermanent sites create a platform for artists and curators to present innovative ideas in different contexts and allow viewers to experience new work not native to their location. Exhibitions will offer openings, educational talks and tours, screenings, and performances. Site95 also features the online Journal with contributions by writers, curators, and artists. This exhibition was made possible with the support of Citizens Committee for New York City, The Color House NY, The Lodge Gallery, Go Project, and The Doe Fund. Our great thanks to Kimberly Marrero, Megan Kohlmiller, Pooja Kakar, Michael Mut, Niizeki Hiromi, Shelley Flanders, Go Project staff and volunteers, Keith Schweitzer, and Jason Patrick Voegele.

transforming nyc site95