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featuring Michele Basora, Patty Cateura
Marcella Hackbardt, Jen Hitchings
Iris Klein, Paul Loughney
Dean Monogenis, Raphael Zollinger
Skylight Gallery
538 West 29th Street, New York
April 10 - May 9, 2014
In essence, this exhibition is an exploration of existence through dislocation and negation. It incorporates art works that utilize symbolism and narrative in addition to what might be termed the static object. Too much of what we perceive in art has to fall into categories of traditional terminology, such as "works on paper," "the portrait," or "the still life" and these very couched approaches only serve to undermine how we connect what is in life with what is in art. In the earliest years of the 20th century, artists began to experiment with limiting the use of active figures, and with stripping down the environmental context of the works. If there was less of value in everyday life, well then it would be reflected in art. This reduction in values was a negation. and it was typified by the paintings of Yves Tanguy and Joan Miro, and the relief sculptures of Hans Arp. What these artists gave to the practice of creative endeavor was a freedom to release art from categories, and a willingness to leap into the precincts of the obscure and the idiosyncratic. Spaces did not have to contain "things" and narratives or portraits became superfluous. Each of the artists in THE PRESENCE OF ABSENCE has achieved something similar, and it is the range of their expression, as well as the depth and breadth of their affinities, that qualify them in a contemporary context.
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