Joshua Liner Christens New Gallery Space with Direct Address: An Inaugural Group Exhibition

Stephen Powers A Month of Somedays

One of our favorite Galleries in the Chelsea Arts District, Joshua Liner, has just moved from an upper floor at 540 West 28th Street to a 2,600-square-foot street level exhibition space that completely transforms the environmental aesthetic of the gallery. To celebrate the move, Joshua Liner is currently presenting Direct Address, an inaugural group exhibition featuring works in diverse media by longtime gallery figures as well as new additions to the program. Participants include the following artists:

Alfred Steiner, Clayton Brothers, Cleon Peterson, Dave Kinsey, David Ellis, Evan Hecox, Greg Lamarche, Ian Francis, Jean-Pierre Roy, Kris Kuksi, Oliver Vernon, Pema Rinzin, Richard Colman, Riusuke Fukahori, Shawn Barber, Stephen Powers, SWOON, Tiffany Bozic, Tomokazu Matsuyama and Tony Curanaj.

While I missed last week’s opening reception, I did drop by to see the show early last evening and was blown away not only by the gorgeous new space, but also by the fantastic artworks; some by artists I have come to know well through the Liner gallery, and other artists whose work I was seeing for the first time.

Here are some of my favorite pieces from the show:

What you see here is neither real fish nor real water, but a micro-layered acrylic painting by Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori, which is viewed as a solid object. Pretty cool!

All That Glitters by David Ellis

This kinetic sculpture/chandelier by David Ellis is equipped with motors as well as recorded music, so that it plays various original instrumental pieces at random, accompanied by the tinkling or clinking of the bottles and other suspended pieces of the sculpture. Gallery assistant Lizzie told me that Ellis will have a full gallery show in September, so I will be looking forward to checking that out.

Daily Metaltations by Stephen Powers

We’ve seen a fun show by former-sign-painter-turned-graphic-artist Stephen Powers at Liner just this past summer and his work is colorful and full of dry humor.

Neo-Roman Opera House By Kris Kuksi

Ah, Kris Kuksi: He is just the best. Check out a detail of this insane work below.

You could look at just one of Kuksi’s worlds within worlds sculptures for weeks and never see everything.

The Long Shadow to Put to Use, Once Recognized By Jean-Pierre Roy

The Joshua Liner show has one of Jean-Pierre Roy’s paintings of futuristic, urban dystopia. His work is always thought provoking.

The Clayton Brothers have contributed a dozen works to this show, which are mostly clustered in a row along the front of the gallery’s main desk. Here is a close up of two panels from this series, which is called Reality Waits for Natural Light. These paintings reminded me a bit of Brazilian street artists, Os Gemeos.

Thalassa (Pink Seahorse) by SWOON