Michael Dweck: Blunderbust
April 11 – June 1, 2024
Heather Gaudio Fine Art is pleased to present Michael Dweck: Blunderbust, his first solo exhibition at the gallery. Dweck is a multi-disciplinary artist primarily known for working in photography, most notably for his series documenting niche socio-cultural identities such as Mermaids, Habana Libre, and The End: Montauk. Over the years, his artistic practice expanded to sculpture and filmmaking, and more recently he has delved into painting. The gallery will be presenting Blunderbust, Dweck’s first paintings from the multi-media corpus that also includes photography, sculpture, installations, and a feature documentary.
Front Cover: Scott's '77 Aerocoupe, Blunderbust, detail
Artwork detail: Kathleen Jacobs, WESON
Michael Dweck in his studio
Photo credit: Fernando Rogel
For over 70 years, the Long Island car raceways were a vital part of its small-town, blue-collar culture. Dweck grew up minutes from Freeport Stadium known for a survival-of-the-fittest type of racing rallies, “somewhere between NASCAR and Mad Max, whose wild theater – jostling colors and stench of gas and burnt rubber, the cacophony of screeching tires and crashing metal” made for some of the artist’s early memories. As is the fate of many such enclaves, Freeport was replaced by a strip mall in 1983, and in 2007 Dweck began to document the last surviving rally called “Blunderbust” at Riverhead Raceway in Long Island. What began as an intent to document a dying tradition soon translated to other formalist concerns.
Car 15, Riverhead, NY, 2007, Chromogenic print
For Dweck, the aesthetic aspect of the cars became works of art in their own right, with streaked, scored and marked automobile bodies becoming painted surfaces evocative of folk-art painting. The salvaged chassis also took on the properties of sculptural forms for the artist. “In a broader social context, Riverhead became for me a paradigm of a fading Americana, one not of lament however, but defiant celebration.”
The artist returned to Riverhead over a 10-year period, developing the multi-media work of art that was to become Blunderbust.
Right:
1,2,3, Go! (Blue), Blunderbust, 2023 detail
Scott's '77 Aerocoupe, Blunderbust, 2023
Acrylic paint, pumice, rubber, spray paint, metal
flakes, oil paint, paint chips, paint stick on aluminum
60 x 84 x 2 inches
1,2,3, Go! (Blue), Blunderbust, 2023
Acrylic paint, pumice, spray paint, metal flakes, oil paint, paint chips on aluminum
60 x 130 x 2 inches
You Got This One, Blunderbust, 2023
Acrylic paint, oil paint, pumice, rubber, paint chips on
60 x 42 x 2 inches
Inspired by the painted surfaces of the vehicles, the photographer became a painter himself, creating large paintings on aluminum, the imagery sourced from collages, archival photography and the extreme closeups of the lacerated painted metal. The visual vernacular loses all sense of perspective as the artist seeks to amplify the multiple layers of paint, dings, dents, and scratches, highlighting various vestiges of the car’s history. Instead of being copies of car parts, these paintings are evocative of the track’s unbridled speed and raw intensity. Dweck maintains a visual authenticity in these works applying car paint with brushes and aerosols. He further enhances their physicality using power tools to pierce and mark the surfaces, adding alloy detritus, rubber fillings and the like to evoke the metal-on-metal action on the speedway.
Right: 4, Blunderbust, 2023 detail
4, Blunderbust, 2023
Acrylic paint, pumice, paint chips on aluminum
39 x 84 x 2 inches
Bing, Bang Boom, Blunderbust, 2023
Acrylic paint, pumice, spray paint, oil paint,
rubber, sheet metal, paint chips on aluminum
84 x 60 x 2 inches
Acrylic paint, oil paint, pumice, rubber, paint chips
60 x 42 x 2 inches
Jack's Flag, Blunderbust, 2023
Acrylic paint, oil paint, pumice, rubber, spray
paint, metal flakes, paint chips on aluminum
60 x 42 x 2 inches
A self-taught visual artist, Dweck’s four-decade career has spanned a range of media and subjects. “I am fascinated by endangered enclaves on society’s periphery and envision an anthropological impulse at my practice’s core: to depict beauty and intricacy of forms of life, while critically reflecting upon my means of doing so.” In 2012, Dweck became the first American photographer to have exhibited in Cuba since the U.S. embargo in 1960. His work has been exhibited to critical acclaim in galleries and museums worldwide and held in numerous permanent collections. In addition to his acclaimed narrative photographic series, Dweck’s films The Truffle Hunters (2020) and The Last Race (2018) have been featured in over 45 international film festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Telluride and New York. The former was shortlisted for the Oscars and BAFTAs and won the Director’s Guild of America Award and the American Guild of Cinematographer’s Best Director Award. Dweck lives and works in New York City.
Car 27, Riverhead, NY, 2007, Chromogenic print
Faded Glory, Blunderbust, 2024
Acrylic and oil paint on aluminum; triptych
60 x 117 1/2 inches
Eddie's Orange Caddy, Blunderbust, 2023
Acrylic paint, oil paint, pumice, rubber,
metal flakes, paint chips, paint stick on aluminum
60 x 84 x 2 inches
Sunshine, Cold Beer and Pinstripes, Blunderbust, 2023
Acrylic paint, oil paint, pumice, rubber, paint chips, paint stick on aluminum
60 x 42 x 2 inches
Blunderbust S-162, 2023
Acrylic and oil paint on aluminum
24 x 20 inches
25 1/4 x 21 1/4 inches framed
Blunderbust S-170, 2023
EDUCATION
1975-1979 B.F.A., Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
SOLO
2022
2018
2016
2015
2012
Michael Dweck Photographs 2002-2022, Blitz Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Michael Dweck: 15 Years, Sotheby’s New York, NY
Michael Dweck: Iconic Images, Roman Fine Arts, East Hampton, NY
Michael Dweck: Paradise Lost, Blitz Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Michael Dweck: Nymphs & Sirens, Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Michael Dweck: Habana Libre, Fototeca de Cuba Museum, Havana, Cuba
2011 The End and Habana Libre, Staley Wise Gallery, New York, NY
Michael Dweck: Habana Libre, Blitz Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Michael Dweck: Island Life, Izzy Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Michael Dweck: Habana Libre, Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010
Giant Pin-Up Polaroids, Maruani & Noirhomme Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Michael Dweck: American Mermaid, Acte 2 Galerie in collaboration with Maruani & Noirhomme Gallery, Paris, France
Michael Dweck: Paradise Lost, Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2009
Michael Dweck: Mermaids, Gallery Orchard, Nagoya, Japan
2008 Mermaids, The End, and Flowers, Keszler Gallery, Southampton, NY
Mermaids at Delphine Pastor Gallery, in collaboration with Maruani & Noirhomme Gallery, Monaco
Michael Dweck, Maruani & Noirhomme Gallery, Knokke, Belgium
Michael Dweck: Mermaids, Staley Wise Gallery, New York, NY
Michael Dweck: Mermaids, Robert Morat Galerie, Hamburg, Germany
2006
2005
2003
Michael Dweck: The Surfing Life, Blitz Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Michael Dweck: The End Montauk, N.Y., Gallery Orchard, Nagoya, Tokyo
Michael Dweck, Theory Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan
Michael Dweck: Three, Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan
Michael Dweck: The End: Montauk, NY, Sotheby's, New York, NY
GROUP
2023 San Francisco Fall Show, Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2020 Zona Maco, Modernism Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico
2017 Cuba Is, Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, CA
2016 AIPAD, Staley Wise Gallery, New York, NY
2015 Canvas Outdoor Museum Show, Nicole Henry Fine Art, Palm Beach, FL
2014 Underwater, Staley Wise Gallery, New York, NY
2012 artparis, Grand Palais, Staley Wise Gallery, Paris, France
Art Brussels, Maruani Noirhomme Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2011 Seoul Photo, Blitz Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2010 The Big Picture, Staley-Wise Gallery, New York, NY
Show Off, La Fiac, Paris, France
2009 Arte Fiera, Fiera Internazionale d'Arte Contemporanea, Bologna, Italy
2008 artparis 10ème Foire d'Art Moderne + Contemporain, Grand Palais, Paris
Art Brussels, Brussels Expo, Maruani & Noirhomme Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
2007 Works by Michael Dweck at Paris Photo, Le Carrousel du Louvre, Paris
Photo-London, Staley Wise Gallery, London, UK
FILM
2024 Gaucho Gaucho
Premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival
2020 The Truffle Hunters
Premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition and went on to be selected for over 45 international festivals, including Cannes, Telluride, New York, Zurich, Toronto, and San Sebastian.
Won the Directors Guild of America award and The American Society of Cinematographers awards for Best Documentary
Shortlisted for: 2021 Oscars and BAFTAs
2018 The Last Race
Premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and nominated for Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary
Won the Special Jury Award for Artistic Vision at the Florida Film Festival
MONOGRAPHS & SOLO EXHIBITION CATALOGUES
2021 Michael Dweck: The End: Montauk, N.Y. (expanded), Ditch Plains Press, New York
2016 Michael Dweck: The End: Montauk, N.Y. (expanded), Ditch Plains Press, New York
Michael Dweck: The End: Montauk, N.Y. (expanded), Ditch Plains Press, New York [limited edition box set]
2012 Michael Dweck: Habana Libre. Interviews by William Westbrook. Damiani, Italy
Michael Dweck: Habana Libre. Interviews by William Westbrook. Damiani, Italy [limited edition box set]
2008 Michael Dweck: Mermaids. Text by Christopher Sweet. Ditch Plains Press, Montauk, New York
Michael Dweck: Mermaids. Text by Christopher Sweet. Ditch Plains Press, Montauk, New York [special edition]
2006 Michael Dweck: Three. Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan. (exh. cat.) [limited edition]
2004 Michael Dweck: The End: Montauk, N.Y., Harry N. Abrams, New York
FELLOWSHIPS
2019 Sundance Institute Catalyst Forum fellow
2019 Sundance Music and Sound Design Lab fellow