PREVIOUS PROJECTS

2005

PHOTO NEW YORK 2005, collaboration with Creative Thriftshop, The Metropolitan Pavilion, Booth 18, 125 West 18th Street, New York, October 6-9, 2005

BEAUTIFUL DREAMER, Spaces Inc., Cleveland, Ohio, September 9–October 23, 2005

EVERLAND, Annina Nosei Gallery, 530 West 22nd Street, New York, June 10-July 23, 2005

NURTURING THE NEW 2005, Benefit Exhibition, Spike Gallery, New York, June 6, 2005.

CULTURE VULTURE, Jack The Pelican Presents, 487 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, April 1–May 1, 2005


LOST IN PLACE, Planet Thai, 177 North 7th Street, Brooklyn, New York, January 12–March 27, 2005

2004


INTIMACY, Brooklyn Fireproof, 101 Richardson Street, Brooklyn, New York, September 23–October 24, 2004

DIANA SHPUNGIN & NICOLE ENGELMANN: SECOND GENERATION EGO, Central Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. September 16–October 14, 2004

BEAUTIFUL GROTESQUE curated with Anjali Suneja. Riva Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, New York. June 24-July 31, 2004



BEAUTIFUL GROTESQUE curated with Anjali Suneja

JUNE 24 – JULY 31, 2004
Opening reception: Thursday, June 24, 6-9 pm.

Reed Anderson, Hans Bellmer, Jeanne Dunning, Philip Guston, Mike Kelley, Tony Matelli, David Nicholson, Leemour Pelli, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Rotem Tashach, Ginna Triplett, Joel-Peter Witkin

This exhibition is about the ambivalent nature of desire, and addresses a common fascination with the range of psychological associations attached to the body, complicated by the theme of otherness. This involves both our acceptance of mundane physical appearance versus another as yet unheralded presence, a dream body, through which we may project either an idealistic or a depraved version of our own self-image. Otherness occupies a world beyond sensation that is contingent to both death and decay and to a sort of totemic reality which overrides the spectator's ability to see themselves in the work of art. The degree of fascination inherent in the aesthetic event is qualified equally by the subject at hand and our ability to comprehend the overwhelming force of its idiosyncrasy.

The “Morgue” photographs of Andres Serrano present dead bodies as objects of aesthetic delectation, and though we may feel an immediate repulsion when faced with them, it is either the absence of vitality or the presence of death which affronts us, and we keep looking to see what remains to make them so compelling as images. This is also the case with “Food” by Jeanne Dunning, in which the artist presents us with an image of visceral matter that resembles intestines, but does so in such a ritualized and tender, almost elegiac manner that we are hard pressed to respond merely with disgust, but must admit that she had made them beautiful. In an image of Cindy Sherman, we are presented with a large dining table set for an elaborate meal though surrounded by a foreboding darkness. At the seat directly before us, the plate is filled with a squirming mass of fleshy earthworms. If this were our meal, clearly we would be unable to partake. But Sherman means to portray a situation in which the unconscious is tapped through reference to a powerful animistic symbol, a burrower in the deep earth, and therefore in the subconscious.

Alternately, we may be challenged by images of a symbolic nature which do not naturally reduce themselves into a logical form. Reed Anderson develops a visually complex image with multiple associations, at once connected to nightmares, mining the unconscious. While presenting its imagery as a pastiche of the fanciful and the decorative, he denies the order of perspective by creating one object as a combination of all visual events in a picture at once. Tony Matelli’s “The Wanderer” presents us with autobiography as fabulation, with the body of the artist on a quest through barren lands, accompanied by his anthropological familiars, a pack of small monkeys. Though the scene may seem mundane in detail, the manner of depiction, a life-sized golem of the artist’s own appearance, narrating an experience well beyond the bounds of his role as an artist, and therefore injects our sense of reality with an absurdity that compels us to regard it as grotesque. The same is true of Philip Guston, whose hooded figures are found driving a roll top auto on a serene day trip, the details of their humdrum existence a foil to the mystery of their identities.

The images in this exhibition incite a sensation that reaches us on a level far deeper than reason. The efficacy of their existence as art works is proof of their power over us.

VISIONARIES curated with Anat Litwin. Makor-Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y, 35 West 67th Street, New York, June 13–August 1, 2004

LEEMOUR PELLI: FROM THE HEART, Annina Sandra Bermudez, Amy Chaiklin, Chrissy Conant, Veronica Cross, Carla Gannis, Tina La Porta, Joan Linder, Norma Markley, Leemour Pelli, Catya Plate, Gae Savannah, Diana Shpungin & Nicole Engelmann, Maria Spector, Ginna Triplett, Marina Tsesarskaya, Deborah Wasserman.
Nosei Galllery, 530 West 22nd Street, New York, May 26–June 26, 2004

MARKET VALUE, Cuchifritos, 120 Essex Street, New York. May 15-July 26, 2004.


(B) LONGING curated with Anat Litwin. Makor-Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y, 35 West 67th Street, New York, April 27-June 6, 2004



VOID, Educational Alliance Gallery, 197 East Broadway, New York. Feb 5-March 20, 2004

AILLINN BRENNAN: DYSTOPIAN PAINTINGS, Lifespace, Long Island City, New York, January 31-February 28, 2004


2003

ERWIN REDL: LIGHT INSTALLATIONS & DRAWINGS, Riva Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, New York, November 21, 2003–January 7, 2004






ID_ENTITY, Nurture Art, 475 Keap Street, Brooklyn, New York. September 19-November 16, 2003

CARTOON, Riva Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, New York. June 12–August 9, 2003

CURATORS CHOICE, Curated with Nicola Jasek Lorenz, Artists Alliance Inc, 107 Suffolk Street, Studio 410, New York. May 17-May 31, 2003

LIMINAL, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. March 27–April 30, 2003.

PRESENCE, Scope Art Fair, The Dylan Hotel, 52 East 41st Street, New York, March 7-March 10, 2003



2002

SOME (ARE) PAINTING II, The Educational Alliance, 197 East Broadway, New York. December 21, 2002–January 24, 2003


ANYWHERE BUT HERE Curated with Pete Lasell at MediaMerge, 450 West 41 #414, New York, November 15–December 13, 2002.

SOCIAL SPACE, Cuchifritos, 120 Essex Street, New York, October 26–November 30, 2002

OPEN VIEW, Artists Alliance, 107 Suffolk Street, New York, October 19–November 30, 2002.

BODIES & FORMS, John Eicher Studio, 68 Jay Street, Brooklyn NY, October 19-20, 2002.

EROTIKA, Riva Gallery, 529 West 20th Street, New York, July 11-Aug 10, 2002.


2001

THE BODY OR THE LANDSCAPE, Artists Alliance, 107 Rivington Street, New York, October 13-November 18, 2001.

LIMINAL, The Space @ Media Triangle, 640 Broadway, New York, September 21–October 13, 2001.

SELECTED AFFINITIES, Planet Thailand, 133 North 7th Street, Brooklyn, New York, June 18–October 18, 2001.

SOME (ARE) PAINTING, John Gibson Gallery, 568 Broadway, New York, June 9–July 21, 2001


2000

SUGAR+SPICE, The Space @ Media Triangle, 640 Broadway, New York, Nov 17–December 10, 2000.