27 Feb 2009 to 28 Mar 2009
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am - 6 pm
Opens February 27 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Winkleman Gallery
637 West 27th Street (Ground Floor)
NY 10001
New York, NY
New York
North America
p: 212.643.3152
m:
f: 212.643.2040
w: www.winkleman.com
Christopher Lowry Johnson Shell, 2008 Oil on canvas, 24 x 17 in
Christopher Lowry Johnson What We Call Progress Is This Storm
February 27 - March 28, 2009 Opens February 27 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Christopher Lowry Johnson What We Call Progress Is This Storm
February 27 - March 28, 2009 Opens February 27 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present “What We Call Progress Is This Storm,” our fourth solo exhibition by New York artist Christopher Lowry Johnson. In this new body of work, Johnson explores the intersections of modern Americana and American painting through the central themes of ruin, renewal, and remembrance. With imagery sourced in symbols of “modern living”—skyscrapers, satellite images on “Google Maps," suburban neighborhoods, and city scaffolding—Johnson’s richly-layered, mosaic-like paintings blend somber palettes with complex, built-up surfaces resulting in works that convey an intense sense of contained agitation.
Each painting in this new series is a deliberate consequence of imposing on it multiple possible frameworks; the residual history of its surface helping to determine the eventual form of the picture. From the ruins of earlier efforts a new framework is revealed, one that is not as rigid but precarious, more human. The simplest grids are thwarted, subtlety shaken from their rigidity, in some works suggesting that precise moment just before a total implosion in controlled demolitions. Johnson’s images are derived from his contemplating places known and felt, some only half-remembered but from a memory of them like no other. These paintings seem to conjure older forms, modernist and optimistic while simultaneously functioning as an efficacious portrayal of contemporary anxiety.
“Where a chain of events appears before us, He sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it at his feet...But a storm is blowing from Paradise and has got caught in his wings; it is so strong that the angel can no longer close them. This storm drives irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows toward the sky. What we call progress is this storm." ---Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History”
Christopher Lowry Johnson received his BFA from the Pennsylvania State University and his M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and reviewed in TimeOut New York, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Contemporary magazine and featured in Harper’s magazine and the book by John Waters and Bruce Hainley, Art: A Sex Book.
For more information, please contact Edward Winkleman at 212.643.3152 or info @winkleman.com
PULSE New York Art Fair Preview
EVE SUSSMAN AND THE RUFUS CORPORATION We are delighted to present a special installation at PULSE NY offering a sneak peak at Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation's next major film, "White on White: A Film Noir."
Featuring a section lifted straight out of Eve's studio, storyboards, video clips, and polaroids, this installation offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at how her films are made. We'll also feature the gorgeous first photograph from this new body of work.
NEW WORK BY IVIN BALLEN, YEVGENIY FIKS, AND JOY GARNETT Two years ago, our solo booth debut of work by Ivin Ballen at PULSE New York was a huge success. It led to multiple group exhibitions througout the US and Europe and solo shows in New York and Detroit, for which Ivin received a rave review in the March 2008 issue of Artforum magazine. This year, we are pleased to present a spectacular new body of Ivin's three-dimensional trompe l'oeil paintings
At last year's PULSE New York, we presented the highly acclaimed piece by Russian-born artist Yevgeniy Fiks, "Lenin for Your Library." This was followed in the gallery by Yevgeniy's solo exhibition "Adopt Lenin," at which visitors could take any of the Lenin memorabilia on display at no charge, so long as they signed a contract obligating them to never profit from its resale or gifting. Fantastic reviews of this exhibition appeared in January 2009's Art in America and many other publications. We are pleased to present this year an installation of Yevgeniy's portraits of contemporary members of the Communist Party USA. Begun in 2006, when the notion of nationalization and governmental socialist interventions in the US seemed absurd, these unironic paintings today resonate with a new urgency and relevance
Joy Garnett's solo exhibition in the gallery this past year received glowing reviews in TimeOut New York and artforum.com to name but a few. For PULSE New York, we present a selection of new paintings based on photographs of the China Yangtse Three Gorges Project. Joy explains the relevance and urgency of this subject as follows: "The project has grown to become one of China's worst environmental nightmares, contributing on a massive scale to erosion and pollution levels, and adversely affecting fault lines, the vitality of wetlands, fish populations, etc. It has nevertheless become a model for similar proposals from countries on other continents, providing a high profile stage for global one-upmanship." As with all her work, though, Joy 's take on such subjects of violent natures results in a gorgeous group of expressionsist paintings that reveal the role of photography plays in forming our collective consciousness
NEW COMPOUND EDITIONS BY ANDY YODER AND A SPECIAL PROJECT BY JENNIFER DALTON They're selling very quickly, but should we have any left, we'll also bring Andy Yoder's fabulous new multiple, All Your Eggs, part of the Compound Editions series we're producing with Schroeder Romero Gallery And, because we love it so much, we're also bringing the last of Andy's fabulous cast brass chairs available (of a series of 5). Created during his residency at the Kohler Institute, this sculpture is suitable for outdoor or indoors (although, the brass makes it considerably heavy).
And finally, we're delighted to present as a special project at PULSE New York, circling the entrance to the fair this year, Jennifer Dalton's light installation This Is Not News. First presented at her 2006 solo exhibition at the gallery, this 100-foot-long work documents the disparity of opportunity in the US art world between men and women artists
