Suicide By Modernism By Mark Kostabi (2005/2011) Photo By Geoffrey Dicker

The Adam Baumgold Gallery on New York’s Upper East Side is currently hosting a group show called Art on Art, in which each artist references other artists or artworks in his or her own creation. This makes for a diverse collection full of humorous touches that inspired a lot of lively conversation at last night’s opening. My favorite painting in the exhibit is Mark Kostabi’s Suicide by Modernism, which has the artist’s unmistakable imprint while managing to reference nearly a dozen of his famous peers.

Suicide By Modernism very cleverly depicts one of Kostabi’s iconic figures hanging limp from the arm of an Alexander Calder mobile, from which highly recognizable works by Piet Mondrian, Takashi Murakami, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Mark Rothko and Yves Klein also dangle. Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel sculpture appears, overturned, in the painting’s foreground. Mark Kostabi was at the opening party and he seems like a really cool guy. It was nice to be able to shake his hand and tell him how much I loved this painting in particular, and his work in general. Mark Kostabi!

You can read the exhibit press release and see a preview of many of the included paintings, drawings and sculptures online at Adam Baumgold Gallery. I’d recommend making the trip uptown, however, to see the works in person, and make sure you take a walk up or down Park Avenue while you’re in the neighborhood to see Will Ryman’s Roses sculpture installation (57th to 67th Streets on the Avenue’s central traffic island), which are just amazing, and on display only until May 31st.

Art on Art runs through June 25, 2011, at Adam Baumgold, located at 60 East 66th Street (Between Park and Madison Avenues) in NYC. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 AM to 5:30 PM. For additional information, please contact Adam Baumgold at (212) 861-7338, or email abaumgold@aol.com.