Curated by Kara Brooks
LIT, a pop-up gallery staged in a recently vacated light bulb store, is pleased to announce its inaugural exhibition: Celebrity Sex Tapes / Aquarium Videos by Cindy Hinant. The show will comprise multimedia works that explore cultural voids and non-spaces—notably, the artificial environment of aquariums.
Drawing from the visual vocabulary of Minimalism as well as the Light and Space movement of the 1960s, Hinant constructs formally minimal works that may appear austere on their own, but are interjected with disruptive content such as audio from Paris Hilton’s infamous sex tape or a quick-trim commercial for diet pills endorsed by Khloe and Kim Kardashian. Through this incongruous pairing, Hinant proposes that reality television stars and minimal art objects alike are subjected to the fallacy of self-contained feedback loops.
Hinant compares the construct of the autonomous and impermeable minimal art object, which Dan Flavin legendarily summed up as “it is what it is,” to television stars who are touted as “famous for being famous.” Her video I Love Money and Now I’m Loving Life combines audio samples from The Real Housewives of Orange County with found amateur aquarium footage that fades in and out of monochrome color fields. This work is a meditation on voids, featuring the empty catch phrases of reality television stars as they define their public identities. In this exhibition, Hinant creates a dialogue about the social implications of our current post-internet, post-reality, reality.
Kendra Exposed, a blue monochrome video projection, addresses a phenomenon the artist refers to as “the aesthetics of violation,” a media strategy present in genres such as upskirt photography and celebrity sex tapes. These media objects are promoted as materials that have been produced or distributed without consent of the subject, a strategy which points to the public’s interest in vulnerable images of women. Monochromes propose a utopic space, wherein no point has more value than another, and also function as a window to an infinite nothing, which Hinant compares to the void created and filled by our interactions with popular media.
Robert Savage and Nanette Lepore, husband-and-wife cofounders of international fashion house Nanette Lepore, are pleased to announce Rose is a Rose. The show is the inaugural exhibition that will launch Lepore Savage Gallery: an alternative gallery space showcasing fine art in the couple’s West Village townhouse.
Curated by Kara Brooks with assistance from Molly Krause, Rose is a Rose features eight New York-based contemporary artists whose work reimagines classical iconography and style through themes including still life and portraiture. The concept is informed by Lepore and Savage’s eclectic permanent collection, select works of which will be on display among the exhibition’s contemporary selections.
Rose is a Rose will present works from Sebastian Blanck, Lori Field, John Gordon Gauld, Jane Lafarge Hamill, Caitlin Karolczak, Sarah Kurz, Andre Ribuoli, and Lena Viddo in an intimate setting that takes viewers outside of the traditional white box gallery. Inspired by early 20th century salons, the intimate, by-appointment-only exhibition seeks to revisit the atmosphere of such soirées as those of Gertrude Stein in her Paris residence.
The show’s title, Rose is a Rose, references the famous line from Gertrude Stein’s 1913 poem, Sacred Emily. Stein has described the context of the phrase as an attempt to recover a loss of identity through the passing of time. Parallel to her explanation, Rose is a Rose aims to revive early 20th century salon ambience with contemporary vitality.
BLACK curated by Kara Brooks features works by two New York based artists Dean Dempsey and Sam Trioli, whose paintings explore the variety of black on black expression. This exhibition intends to demonstrate the result of a surplus of re-appropriation of artistic expression in the 21st century. Analogous to color theory, the color wheel lays out a visual understanding of color and the effects of mixing specific combinations. Through combining two of the primaries, an assortment of hues can be created, much like the evolution of artistic styles. However, combining all paint colors together generates black - the absorption of all colors. BLACK serves as a meditation on ⌘COPY⌘PASTE culture, where creative autonomy and the line between the parroted and the pirated become muddled.
m2 Gallery is pleased to announce Brooklyn Vs. Sydney, an exhibition of collage work selected by Kara Brooks, a New York-based curator. Though the title insinuates competitiveness between the two cities, the exhibition is playful and intends to bring together the two communities, united in this common medium.
The Brooklyn artists in this exhibition are part of the Brooklyn Collage Collective (BCC), a group of artists that officially began in 2013, with the mission to bring attention to the diversity of this art form. The Sydney artists were acquired via the BCC network and social media. Brooklyn Vs. Sydney is a tribute to the power and willingness of the collage community.
Collage is both an underground and contemporary art form that is relevant to the present day. Incorporating the use of pre-existing materials and objects helps to give meaning to the discontinuity of our generation, so heavily saturated with images.
Curated by Kara Brooks
Schema Projects, in collaboration with Brooklyn Collage Collective, is proud to present Lorem ipsum, a group exhibition of 10 emerging artists, working and living in Brooklyn.
Lorem ipsum refers to the ubiquitous filler text used in publishing and graphic design as a placeholder for other content. Once belonging to a larger text by Cicero, this meaningless string of Latin words is now iconic and recognizable in its own right. Decontextualized, cut-up and re-appropriated, the phenomenon of Lorem ipsum is analogous to the strategies and elements of collage utilized
LIT, a pop-up gallery staged in a recently vacated light bulb store, is pleased to announce its second exhibition: Vanishing Point by Andrew Erdos. The immersive, installation-style show will be centered around a 600-pound glass work, Mountain, comprised of an intricate, blown glass core surrounded and obscured by a hand-smashed-and-melded translucent industrial glass skin. The crudely faceted sculpture is monumental in physical form but offers a contrastingly delicate, airy presence by way of a diffused light effect generated by an internal LED component obscured by the piece’s translucent shell.
A second work, Vanishing Point, is a video installation based on original footage of remote, timelessly stagnant desert landscapes. The topography is such that the subject matter—otherworldly natural formations—retain their form over countless years due to their isolation and preservative climate conditions.
…
Andrew Erdos’ sculptures, videos, photography, and mixed-media installations explore themes related to time, light, and the sublime. His work investigates the complex relationship between humankind and its environment, and resonates with contemporary reflections led by philosophers and scientists to determine a new ontology in the age of the Anthropocene. Erdos’ overwhelming visual experiences weave together reflections on nature, culture, technology, science and religion. Drawing from his mastering of glass techniques, as well as from historical, mythical, and personal sources, Erdos constructs open narratives which can create an enticing sensory immersion.
In Vanishing Point, Erdos and LIT’s combined presentation of sculptural and video work will create an immersive installation of cold mountainous landscapes; an arctic enclave amidst the backdrop of a New York City summer.
Curated by Kara Brooks (New York, NY)
A chance installation on the edge of the island.
Join us for an evening of mixed-media dialogue in three languages. The night will feature audio, video, drawing and other forms of aesthetic intercourse. This installation celebrates the probability of chance, adventures, and borderlesness.
Featuring works by:
Protey Temen, mixed-media artist. (Moscow, Russia)
Vadim Gershman, occasional spontaneous race car driver. (Minneapolis, MN)
Frank Heatley, American information technology entrepreneur and inventor. (New York, NY)
