Jeff Soto, Love Can Surpass All Obstacles (All Photos by Gail)
Jonathan LeVine Gallery is currently hosting Oh, The Places We Have Been: Rediscovering the Past, a group exhibition at their 23rd Street space, featuring work by the following 33 artists who have helped shape the foundation of the gallery over the last ten years: AJ Fosik, Alex Gross, Amandine Urruty, Andrew Brandou, Andy Kehoe, Blek le Rat, Brett Amory, Dan Witz, Esao Andrews, Fabio D’Aroma, Gary Baseman, Gary Taxali, Jeff Soto, Jim Houser, Juan Francisco Casas, Kevin Cyr, Marc Giai-Miniet, Marco Mazzoni, Masakatsu Sashie, Mike Giant, Natalia Fabia, Nouar, Nychos, Olek, Paul Insect, Rafael Silveira, Sam Gibbons, Saner, Souther Salazar, Tara McPherson, Titi Freak, Victor Castillo, WK Interact.
Surfboards and Boogie Boards By Barry McGee (All Photos By Gail)
Cheim & Read is currently hosting an exhibition of new work by Barry McGee, which is the McGee’s first solo show with the gallery and his first show in New York in eight years. McGee is arguably among the most well-known and influential artists from the San Francisco Bay Area to have international success. His boldly graphic, colorful work incorporates a multitude of influences (including graffiti, American folk art and Op Art), but especially the urban street culture he knows well.
Translating the city’s unique vernacular into artistic imagery, McGee celebrates the diversity, distinctive characters and neighborhood communities of the inner-city. His work critiques consumerist culture and the constant backdrop of commercialism in everyday interactions; rejecting the billboard and chain store, McGee instead finds inspiration in the seeming randomness of graffiti, the endless uploading of images on the internet, and the creative styling of misfits. McGee’s work succeeds in its sensitive balance between anarchy and collaboration, resulting in environments which immerse the viewer in his singular, yet inclusive, vision.
The multi-image, whimsical commercial style of his work reminded me every much of artworks by Jim Houser and also Rebus Puzzle artist Stephen Powers.
Potato King Detail from Larger Painting
Directly involved with the installations of his shows, McGee organizes his multi-layered compositions on-site. For the Cheim & Read exhibition, assembled clusters of framed drawings and hand-painted wood panels accompany loose stacks of embellished surfboards, fetish-like wooden objects and specially-made furniture.
Drawings, paintings and sculptures are treated equally; echoing his anti-establishment sensibility, McGee refuses hierarchies of material or subject matter. His recent work is comprised of flat-surfaced, brightly-colored geometric motifs, serial images and caricatures of cartoon-like characters, and recurring monikers, like the pseudonym “L. Fong,” and the acronyms “THR” (The Human Race or The Harsh Reality) and “DFW” (Down for Whatever).
Click on Image to Enlarge for Detail
Interspersed among the abstract panels (which sometimes expand along bulbous walls and around corners en masse), the images and words provide an enigmatic but individualized narrative in an otherwise vibrating, tile-like field of intense pattern.
Visually stimulating, perceptive, and seeming to channel the various rhythmic beats of urban culture, McGee’s work addresses issues of identity, mark-making, authorship and autonomy within the bustling, constantly changing tableau of city life.
This is one of my favorite new exhibits of the season. Don’t miss it!
Barry McGee will be on Exhibit through October 26th, 2013 at Cheim & Read, located at 547 West 25th Street, NYC, in the Chelsea Gallery District.
I’m a little bit late to the party writing about this very cool exhibit, due to being busy doing other equally cool things. That said, you have until June 15th to make it to the Jonathan LeVine Gallery to see the Souvenirs solo exhibit from Portland-based artist Souther Salazar.
Part two of Saturday night’s opening receptions at Jonathan LeVine Gallery (because there are always two) was a fun little exhibit called Search Party by Philadelphia-based artist Jim Houser. Search Party, the artist’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery, includes a series of eight new works and a site-specific installation. Some of Houser’s work reminded me very much of the collages I saw at How & Nosm’sLate Confessions pop up exhibit back in February.
Collage with Detail, Below
Through Houser’s signature style of visual poetry and personal iconography, the artist extends his practice of self-examination to include the topic of art making itself. Works in this exhibition serve to consider Houser’s relationship to the artwork he creates, the compulsion to create it and how his lifestyle has, consequently, been formed.
Collage Painting with Two Detail Shots Below. As you can see, there is a lot of humor and childlike whimsy in the art.
The way he mixes words with pictures reminds me also of the work of Stephen Powers.
The artist’s collages become visual poems through which he cathartically communicates his most private thoughts and emotions with surprising candor. By cataloging his experiences and feelings through a unique pictorial language, the artist creates his own brand of curative iconography. His aesthetic often mixes stylized figures, hand-drawn typography and geometric shapes, creating quilt-like collages in a cohesive color palette.
Painting with Detail Below
Jim Houser layers acrylic on wood, fabric and found objects, blurring the lines between collage and sculpture. Once combined, it becomes clear that all of his works are associative and directly related. This deceptively dimensional quality is further highlighted when the pieces are assembled into one of the artist’s elaborate installations, adding to the complexity of each individual piece by emphasizing a greater inter-connectivity to the body of work as a whole.
If you’ll be heading over to LeVine to check out Shag’s Thursday’s Girl exhibit anyway, don’t forget to spend some time looking over Jim Houser’s Search Party to see what you might discover!
Search Party By Jim Houser will be on Exhibit through May 4th, 2013 at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, Located at 529 West 20th Street, 9th Floor, in the Chelsea Gallery District.
On Thursday July 28, 2011, The Joshua Liner Gallery will hold a silent art auction / fund raiser, the proceeds of which will benefit its Assistant Director, Tim Strazza, who was recently diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. To help with Tim’s medical bills, many gallery artists and friends of the gallery have donated artworks, including Shawn Barber, Jeremy Fish, Tat Ito, Chris Mendoza, Ron English, Jim Houser, Swoon, Josh Keyes, Swoon, Sylvia Ji, Oliver Vernon, Shepard Fairey and many others!
