Category: Main

May 15th, 2014 – June 1st, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, May 16th, 7-9pm

Hotel and Tree in Winter, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 30″ x 40″

[link to Press Release]

The Lodge Gallery proudly presents “Margins,” an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Frank Webster. Webster’s paintings depict post-industrial landscapes drawing on the aesthetic traditions of minimalism and realism. Summoning a sense of apocalyptic abandonedness, Webster’s compositions pair high-rise buildings with similarly scaled trees, liken barbed-wire fences and electrical wires to the creeping vines that entwine them, and present an urban ecosystem curiously devoid of inhabitants.

Grounded in reality, the paintings abstract the ordinary: the everyday world is made transcendent and strange, imbued with an ethereal and melancholy beauty. The sharp juxtaposition of built environments and romanticism are evocative of the moment in which we find ourselves presently. His work contemplates the paradox of this co-existence.

“Webster’s conveyance of physical and psychological isolation conjures the despair of Hopper’s solitary figures in spare settings, an impression reinforced by Webster’s palette of subdued grays, blues and yellows. The austere depiction of architecture echoes the deadpan cool of Ed Ruscha’s paintings of buildings, minus the ironic humor.” – Amanda Church, Art in America

Frank Webster is a painter who lives in Brooklyn, NY. Webster received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. He also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Webster is the recipient of numerous awards including the Pollock Krasner and the Golden Foundation Individual Artist Award. He has shown in solo and group exhibitions in New York at Blackston Gallery, Storefront Bushwick, Sara Meltzer Gallery and White Columns, among others. He has been awarded residencies at The Marie Walsh Sharpe Space Program, PS 122, Virginia Commonwealth University, The Ucross Foundation, The Corporation of Yaddo, The Ragdale Foundation and The MacDowell Colony.

April 10th, 2014 – May 11th, 2014

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 10th. 7-9pm

non-curated by Keith Schweitzer & Jason Patrick Voegele with the following artists:
John Ahearn, Charlie Ahearn, Jody Culkin, Jane Dickson, Stefan Eins, Peter Fend, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Bobby G, Mike Glier, Becky Howland, Lisa Kahane, Christof Kohlhofer, Justen Ladda, Joe Lewis, Ann Messner, Richard Miller, Tom Otterness, Cara Perlman, Judy Rifka, Walter Robinson, Christy Rupp, Teri Slotkin, Kiki Smith, Seton Smith

On Dec 31st, 1979, a group of artists in downtown Manhattan mounted a now historic exhibition, “The Real Estate Show,” in response to grim economic conditions facing tenants in New York. It was a confrontational and illegal exhibition, held without permission in a vacant city-owned building, with aggressive political messages that ignited controversy and galvanized city officials, news media and artists alike.

This group, Collaborative Projects Inc (Colab), focused on theme-centered exhibitions with a spirit of openness, experimentation, and minimal curatorial interference. Within this context, “No City is an Island” asked former members of Colab to respond to the exhibition’s title as a theme around which to contribute work. Dialogues were rekindled and themes were revisited or reinterpreted. As each artist has evolved over time, so has the city itself. With a range of works transversing 35 years, “No City is an Island” revisits the zeitgeist of a New York City long bygone, compares and contrasts the artists and urban realities of then with now, and honors one of the most influential art organizations in New York City’s history.

The exhibition is part of a multi-venue celebration of Colab and revisitation of “The Real Estate Show” with “The Real Estate Show, Was Then: 1980” at James Fuentes Gallery (April 4 – 27), “RESx” at ABC No Rio (April 9 – May 8), “No City Is An Island” at The Lodge Gallery (April 10 – May 11), and “The Real Estate Show, What Next: 2014” at Cuchifritos Gallery (April 19 – May 18). It is also a component of next month’s inaugural Lower East Side History Month, which will now be observed each May with over 60 Lower East Side organizations currently participating.

February 28th, 2014 – March 22nd, 2014

Opening Reception: Friday, February 28th, 7-9pm

[link to Press Release]

The Lodge Gallery proudly presents Trace Evidence, a solo exhibition of paintings by Doug Young.

Young’s reverse paintings, rendered on the underside of thick glass with automotive paints, are investigations of places and objects that are familiar to us yet feel foreign. The subjects in many of Young’s paintings are iconic rooms and objects associated with bustling activity. The spaces are presented devoid of people and out of context; the empty set of television’s The Price is Right, NASA’s Control Room, and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider are captured in rare moments of inactivity. We are left with an opportunity to examine these rooms and objects closely, to inspect the complex details offered within them, and through this process garner a greater understanding of their purpose and the people, out of frame, who put them to use.

Young also depicts objects of historical or personal significance that are captivating in their graphic qualities, starkly and consciously superficial, attractive yet repelling. Abraham Lincoln’s soiled death pillow is presented alongside portraits of a stained bathtub, an open filthy refrigerator, and a previously frozen TV dinner.

The imagery is evocative of childhood wonder and curiosity, yet haunting and resonant of the out-of-body. Ensconced in monumental, graphite-finished wooden frames, each painting boldly invites our attention. Collectively, all of the works presented in Trace Evidence arouse our sense of mystery and tempt us to conduct our own thorough investigative analysis of the artist’s intention.

Doug Young has exhibited widely in New York and Chicago. He holds a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1995) and an MFA from Pratt Institute (1997). These images mark a departure for Young, for he has worked primarily as a sculptor during the last decade. But in line with his penchant for Americana, his reverse paintings on glass evoke time-honored traditions in the folk arts and old Hollywood. In 2001 he was awarded by the Guinness Book World Records for the longest nonstop banjo performance in history—24 hours total.

Reception: Thursday February 6th, 7-9pm

Exhibition: February 6th – February 16th, 2014

curated by Amy Berger 

Artists Include: Isaac Arvold, Erik Benson, Julie Elizabeth Brady, Paul Brainard, Monica Cook, Melissa Cooke, Peter Drake, MaDora Frey, Jane LaFarge Hamill, Aaron Johnson, Christian Johnson, Michael Kagan, Karl LaRocca, Francesco Longenecker, Daniel Maidman, Lindsay Mound, Reuben Negron, Javier Piñon, Colette Robbins, Jean-Pierre Roy, Michael Schall, Kristen Schiele, Andrew Smenos, Melanie Vote, Frank Webster, Eric White, Barnaby Whitfield, Mike Womack

Inspired by the Designs of Jacqueline Popovic / Jankele

The Lodge Gallery presents an exhibition of new work exploring the relationship between fine art and fashion through a celebration of the accessory. Inspired by the organic and geological accessory designs of Jacqueline Popovic, A Human Extension features twenty-eight artists who have adapted the direct designs, production materials or visual spirit of Popovic’s celebrated Jankele collection into a body of work that investigates the challenging and curious marriage of fashion and art at the dawn of the 21st century.

A Human Extension is an attempt to re-conceptualize the fashion accessory as both sculptural and utilitarian. It is a chance to revisit ideas and philosophies that have long been explored by artists such as Vanessa Beecroft. Alexander McQueen, and Nick Cave who investigated the art/fashion relationship in unique and alternative contexts. Inspired by these ideas and in the context of Jankele’s designs, the artists of A Human Extension are pioneering influential new ideas about the role of fashion in contemporary visual culture.

Artist Julie Elizabeth Brady explains “Fashion is always on my mind when I am coming up with an idea for a painting, but first let me define what ‘fashion’ means to me. Fashion often implies something that is “of the moment” and stylish, but the fashion that captures my attention are pieces that are objects of beauty, new and old, that start a conversation.”

Effectively, all of the artists featured in A Human Extension are developing physical structures that are capable of extending the inner self beyond the confines of the material body. An inspired concept that has driven the philosophy of Jankele’s designs and the central theme around which she has become a muse to this group of artists.

January 16th, 2014 – February 4th, 2014

Opening Reception: Friday, January 17th, 7-9pm 

[link to Press Release]

The Lodge Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in the United States of works by Levan Mindiashvili.

Levan Mindiashvili has been making work about urban landscapes that inform our sense of identity and the intimate connections we make with the spaces we inhabit since 2012. In 2003 he graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts (Republic of Georgia) and the same year started intensively exhibiting his works in Europe. From 2008 – 2012 he lived and worked in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he received his MFA from the National University of Art of Buenos Aires

Mindiashvili’s new series, entitled Borderlines, is a study of his reflections on cities as both public and private meeting points. Originally conceived in Buenos Aires, this recent body of work explores the artist’s personal and collective experiences with the architecture and public structures of New York, where he is currently based. It is through his renderings of reflections amongst monumental objects, combined with a uniquely subjective reinterpretation of urban stimulation/inundation, that he reveals his complex and evolving personal relationship with the city.

Borderlines is an investigation into the sediment of his global experience, the invisible realities that have been burned into his subconscious country by country, city by city, block by block. “Generally, architecture most clearly defines and reveals the changes in our contemporary world, in our approaches and common visions,” says Mindiashvili.

His new work depicts distorted, almost abstract fragments of old architecture reflected on new, transparent surfaces or seen through them. “I perceive them as maps of consciousness of the contemporary world with its migrations, gentrification, identity and social issues,” the artist explains, “I want to trigger a dialogue about recent history.” The idea that a personal history is valuable and that the reflected perception of each individual dictates the overall substance and spirit of the larger urban landscape is deeply rooted in his intentions.

December 13th, 2013 – January 12th, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, December 13th, 7-9pm

Curated by Paul Brainard

Artists: Paul Brainard, Chris Caccamise, Peter Daverington, TM Davy, Franklin Evans, Evie Falci, Dawn Frasch, Duncan Hannah, Kurt Kauper, Hyun Jin Alex Park, Jean Pierre Roy, Tom Sanford, Lane Twitchell, Eric White, Barnaby Whitfield, Kelli Williams

[Link to Press Release]

 

Self-actualization is defined as the process by which an individual achieves a more authentic version of oneself; a realization of one’s full potential. Sports, or more specifically, the athlete engaged in a sport, are often seen as a celebration of this process. The Olympian. The champion. The lone long distance runner determined to consistently improve on her performance. Pushing the boundaries of our known human limitations.

This journey of self-discovery is possible if the individual is free to address their personal nature and discover what lies within. We’ve forgotten this. The relatively recent celebritification of athletes, and the mania of modern fan culture, has changed the game.

It is from this perspective that we have arrived at our current position; “Totally Gay for Sports” combines an irreverence for the culture of sports celebrity while wrestling with one of the major issues of our time, equality for all.  -Paul Brainard

Online Auction: December 2nd, 2013 – December 13th, 2013

Gallery Exhibition: December 6th, 2013 – December 10th, 2013

Reception:  Tuesday, December 10th, 7-9pm

[Link to Press Release]

We are a group of artists banding together to raise funds to aid the storm ravaged Philippines.  We gather in an act of collective creative generosity, donating artworks to auction toward much needed assistance to the Philippines.  The UN estimates 13 million Filipinos have been affected by Typhoon Haiyan, and 3 million are left homeless; the people are in dire need of clean water, food, shelter, medical attention, and longterm massive infrastructure rebuilding.  We are rallying together a group of compassionate artists to raise money for this humanitarian crisis, with an art auction that will celebrate the power of the creative spirit in times of adversity.

PADDLE 8: ONLINE AUCTION

Online Auction will be in effect Dec 2-13th on Paddle 8. (LINK TO ONLINE AUCTION)
All proceeds from the auction will go to The National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON).

THE LODGE GALLERY: EXHIBITION OF AUCTION WORKS

Artworks will be installed at The Lodge Gallery, 131 Chrystie Street, and will be on view to the public December 6th – December 10th.  While the works are on view at The Lodge, bidding remains open at Paddle 8.  We will have a RECEPTION Dec 10th 7-9PM at The Lodge, for the artists, volunteers, bidders, and general public to come celebrate together.

FEATURED ARTISTS:

Samuel T. Adams, Brian Alfred, Tomer Aluf, Michael Anderson, Noah Becker, Erik Benson, Sarah Bereza, Katherine Bernhardt, Per Billgren, Lisa Blas, Paul Brainard, Erik den Breejen, Kadar Brock, Amanda Browder, Ethan Browning, Maria Calandra, Emily Chatton, Andy Cross, Emily Davidson, Paul DeMuro, Eric Doeringer, Benjamin Dowell, Austin Eddy, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, Rachel Mijares Fick, Matthew Fisher, Dawn Frasch, Amanda Friedman, Jim Gaylord, Jackie Gendel, Rebecca Goyette, Jenna Gribbon, Debra Hampton, Sarah Hardesty, Jack Henry, Shara Hughes, David Humphrey, Scott Indrisek, Samuel Jablon, Aaron Johnson, Mi Ju, Ambre Kelly, Will Kurtz, Emily Noelle Lambert, Katerina Lanfranco, Erika Langstroth, Kristina Lee, Stuart Lorimer, Lauren Luloff, MaryKate Maher, JJ Manford, Nathan Manuel, Christian Maychack, Matt Mignanelli, Christian rex Van Minnen, Nick Naber, Piero Passacantando, Sirikul Pattachote, Don Porcella, Kanishka Raja, Caris Reid, Duke Riley, Jean-Pierre Roy, Lisa Sanditz, Tom Sanford, Gretchen Scherer, Kristen Schiele, Nikki Schiro, Ryan Schneider, Stacy A. Scibelli, Michael Scoggins, Sandra Sitron, Elisa Soliven, Alfred Steiner, Trish Tillman, Nicolas Touron, Jade Townsend, Russell Tyler, Chuck Webster

November 6th, 2013 – December 1st, 2013
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 7th, 7-9pm

Noah Becker, Self Portrait #2 (Basquiat), 2013, 30 x 40 inches, oil on canvas

[Link to Press Release]

This November the Lodge Gallery is excited to present the work of renowned artist Noah Becker with a solo exhibition of his portraiture and collage-like reconsiderations of art history.

 

Noah Becker’s interest in masterworks from different art historical periods is the foundation upon which he has built bold and ordered compositions. In his self portrait “photo bombing” series which references pop art or his audacious remix paintings made from renaissance and 19th century sources Becker surprises us with his daring subjective interpretations. When he appropriates Warhol and Basquiat, Becker injects his own image front and center. There is an immediacy in Becker’s work that serves to underline the “selfie” generation we have come to embrace as an inherent visual component of life in the twenty-first century. In this era, anyone with a smart phone or digital camera can take a photograph. The mass produced self images of artists as varied as Cezanne, Warhol and Caravaggio adorn both the walls of the worlds greatest museums and the cheapest of tote bags and refrigerator magnets. What purpose then do figurative paintings and self portraits continue to serve?

Even when appropriating and integrating the most expressive artistic styles such as Jasper Johns or Dash Snow into his work, Becker’s rendering of each stroke remains calculated. While Becker makes every effort to place himself into the cannon of master painters from history we are reminded in works such as Hamburger, 2013, that Becker’s head is firmly in the here and now. Advertisements for contemporary beer and soft drinks appear in the composition of Becker’s Caravaggio remix creating a hip hop and sports bar atmosphere within an art historical context.

Juxtaposed against these new works are a more recognizable series of beautifully rendered portraits that at first may seem to be fairly straightforward, however a deeper exploration of this earlier work reveals many of the same uniquely provocative suggestions that challenge the temporal parameters that define any artistic movement. Historical mash-ups of recurring celebrity themes in works such as Phillip IV in the costume of Tim Tebow, 2012 question how much the purpose and practice of portraiture has ever really changed.

Noah Becker is an acclaimed oil painter with exhibitions at numerous international museums and galleries. Becker is a jazz saxophonist and the founding editor of Whitehot Magazine. Noah Becker is also a contributing writer for Art in America, Interview Magazine, Canadian Art, the Huffington Post and ARTVOICES. Becker lives and works in New York City.

October 15th, 2013 through November 1st, 2013

Opening Reception: Tuesday, October 15th, 6-8pm

The Lodge Gallery is pleased to present “HEROES”, the first group exhibition by Lower East Side artist collective Glassine Box. The show, coinciding with Glassine Box’s 2nd anniversary, features works by Adam Green, Arturo Vega, Chad Moore, Christopher Yerington, Colin Burns, Fabrizio Moretti, Jack Ridley III, Jack Walls, Johnny T Yerington, Marcel Castenmiller, Mike Langley, Molly Rae, Sara Anne Jones, and The Virgins.

September 25, 2013 through October 12, 2013

Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 25, 6-8pm

Artist Talk:  Saturday, October 5 at 2 pm

Presented by Wasserman Projects (Detroit)

John Dunivant has achieved notoriety throughout the city of Detroit, and internationally, as the mastermind behind Theatre Bizarre. Self-funded and built by dozens of artists over the course of months the Theatre Bizarre would take place for one night each year and featured massive carnival rides, pyrotechnics, elaborate lighting rigs, and Coney Island-esque performers. Theatre Bizarre operated for ten years before its discovery and subsequent closure by Detroit city authorities in 2010.

The Expatriate Parade features a series of paintings and bronzes inspired by the closure of Theatre Bizarre. Facing an existential crisis, Dunivant chose to embrace the turmoil of the situation, with the resulting works on view in The Expatriate Parade serving as a celebration of his “exile”.

Once upon a time, there was an enchanted amusement park, hidden on the edge of a ragged city. For one night every year, this secret kingdom made itself known and sprang to life with fire and music and dance. – until the day it was exposed – and cast out.

The Expatriate Parade began as a single sketch of a scapegoat with a ferris wheel on its back. It bore my burden as it was driven from its home by an unfeeling and unseen power. This sketch led to many more, and the resulting parade of drawings – with its ceaseless forward motion in spite of the ever changing circumstances of the moment – led me to reflect on my own life. In the face of disintegrating relationships and a riot of personal challenges, I continue on. As we do. Each in our own exile from where we imagined we would be. This piece is a celebration of that exile.

My work grows from a variety of obsessions and fascinations; natural history museums, dioramas, Halloween, souvenir postcards, the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, roadside attractions, reliquaries and religious iconography, traveling carnivals, ghost stories, children’s books, the Grand Guignol, John Singer-Sargent’s work, tribal rituals, folk and fairy tales, paper-toy theaters, secret societies, Dr. Suess, New Orleans funerals, wax museums, medical illustrations, P.T. Barnum and death. I paint the beautiful and the grotesque as a metaphor for both my internal struggles and the general state of mankind.  I paint life as seen through a lens of papier-mâché, poster paint and wax edifice.  I paint the characters that fill my life and my dreams and ultimately, tell my story.

– John Dunivant, 2013

Theatre Bizarre now operates legally at the Detroit Masonic Temple where it will hold its 13th edition on October 19, 2013 and and is the subject of an upcoming documentary. Macabre in their imagery and sitting across numerous pop cultural narratives, the joy Dunivant takes from the subject matter in The Expatriate Parade is evident, and fitting for an artist working far from the art world capitals in Detroit, facing its own existential crisis, with the attendant anxiety of loss, displacement, and fantasy of an unknown, perhaps better, future.

Opening Reception: Friday, June 28, 6-9pm

Open to the public from June 28 through August 18

“FOR WHICH IT STANDS”
Curated by Keith Schweitzer and Jason Patrick Voegele

Featuring: Orlando Arocena, Raul Ayala, Chong Gon Byun, Liset Castillo, Alexis Duque, Alessandra Expósito, Kira Nam Greene*, Kent Henricksen, Jung S. Kim, Fay Ku, Annu Palakunnathu Matthew*, Esperanza Mayobre, Levan Mindiashvili, Sirikul Pattachote, Shahpour M. Pouyan, Saya Woolfalk and Siebren Versteeg

*Kira Nam Green works courtesy of Accola Griefen Gallery,  Annu Palakunnathu Matthew works courtesy of Sepia EYE

(Link to Press Release)

Open to the public from March 21st through April 28th, 2013, “Die Wunderkammer; Objects of Virtue” presented a deconstruction and reimagination of the traditional Wunderkammer as a fine art exhibition through works by over a dozen New York based contemporary artists.

Curated by Keith Schweitzer and Jason Patrick Voegele.

Artists include: Paul Brainard, Kate Clark, Lori Field, Aaron Johnson, Melora Kuhn, Hayley McCulloch, Dennis McNett, Pop Mortem, Lucia Pedi, Mac Premo, Graham Preston, Christy Rupp, Julia Samuels, Tom Sanford, Sigrid Sarda, Madeline Von Foerster