JAY ISAAC
CUE ART FOUNDATION
February 3 - March 12, 2005 Curated by Xandra Eden
JAY ISAAC
We are honored and grateful to present this exhibition generously curated by Xandra Eden. For the CUE solo exhibition series, Ms. Eden has chosen Toronto based artist, Jay Isaac. Were it not for the opportunity that CUE gallery affords, it is unlikely that an installation such as this would be available for public viewing, whether in a commercial venue or not. We appreciate that artists, intermittently in their careers, feel compelled to explore and transform their means of expression. We wish to encourage such exploration by showing their work and celebrating their efforts.
CURATOR'S STATEMENT
In 2000, Jay Isaac's work seemed halfway between mainstream contemporary art and an outdoor art festival. His installation at Bus gallery, Pleasurenaut, oil paintings of supernat足 ural pastel landscapes resembling overflowing sundaes and schlocky poster art images slathered with decadent mounts of shit-brown paint, was equal parts high and low. Over the next four years, Isaac began to diwy up the goods a little differently, pushing further and further towards the aesthetic of fantasy illustration and modernist bric-a-brac of a sort you might come across while rummaging through a yard-sale or flea market. Isaac's investigation of the parallel histories of art formed by popular culture has sometimes been seen as an ironic comment on kitsch. However, while Isaac often refers to artists with ties to kitsch, for example, the fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, whose influence shows up in Isaac's Maritime Frazetta (2004), a painting series that amalga足 mates maritime painting with surreal interplanetary vistas, other references have looser connections or no connections at all, as in Canadian painter Bertram Brooker, best known as one of Canada's first abstract painters, who is the source for Channeling Brooker (2004), a mural, video and performance that Isaac collaborated on with Toronto-based artist Robin Fry. This discrepancy is important, for Isaac's work is a sincere investigation of the world of metaphysical or expressive art, a trajectory of art history that barely survived the 1940s and sos and is largely ignored or confined to the lower rankings within the hier足 archical structures at play in the contemporary art world. Pick up a copy of the art and culture magazine Juxtapoz, which attempts to "fuse the lurid edges of consciousness, avant consumerism, and the international art community" and you will find Isaac is not alone in his endeavor. It has been suggested that patronage is the primary focus for the current generation of artists - that artists are more interested in a career built by getting a show at a successful commercial gallery than experimenting with new art forms. Combine this notion with Jane Jacobs's argument in Dark Age Ahead that accreditation has become more valued than knowledge in many professions, and it would seem a reconsideration of the social context for art production today is fairly pressing. Cut with a bit of surreal comedy, Isaac's exhibition at CUE Art Foundation places issues of class and taste improb足 ably, expectantly, inquisitively back on the table while casting a sideways glance at the circumstance of artists living and working today. XandraEden
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
I decided to give up painting while I was in Spain doing my first comedy routine. I realized that making a painting is very boring and that being a street performer or making something that looks like an antique from the future is a lot more fun. So I decided to try to become a successful street performer in Amsterdam with Jenny Bishop. We did not make much money but got a good art piece out of it. I also thought comedy is a pretty sure way to see if what you are doing is good or not. because it's pretty immediate and you can't fake a laugh or a cringe. I really like garbage bags at the moment and have made some costumes and a video out of their black shiny beauty. My parents are antique dealers and I always wanted to make my own antiques, so I made ten of them that will be worth some money some day, in the very, very distant future. I have a lot of paintings that haven't sold, so I thought I would make signed limited edition prints out of them and put them in shops around town. Right now I have prints in a witch's den, a new age/ ghost busting shop and a classical Greek music emporium. Thanks to Xandra Eden for curating this show, Michael Leblanc for editing the videos and Jenny Bishop for her collaboration. Jay Isaac
I
MY TIME ON EARTH/NONCOMPARATIVE REALITY FOR BEGINNERS/ 100 YEARS OF INTER-DIMENSIONAL COMEDY. 1906-2006. 2004 Acrylic wallpa1nt1ng. plaster. garbage bags. monitor. DVD. s· x 12' Installation view· The Cave and The Island. Galene Kunstbuero. Vienna. 2004
UNTITLED, 2004 Mixed media. 13" x 6" x 4"
UNTITLED. 2004 Mixed media. 20· x 10· x 4"
UNTITLED, 2004 M,xed med,a, 13" x 15" x 5"
EUROPEAN STREET BUSKING, 2004 I of 36 v jeo ,t ,n collaborat,on w,tt, Jerny Bishop
COMEDIAN, 2004 V•deo still. part of sculptur.JI 1n1,tallat1on
EUROPEAN STREET BUSKING, 2004 I of 36 video stills, in collaboration with Jenny Bishop
NEW AGE PHILOSOPHY. 2004 Limited ed1t,on Epson d1g,tal print. 17" x 11"
THE OLDEST PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE, 2003-4 Styrofoam. Durabond. glue. acrylic. cellulose and foliage, 96" x 76" x 40" Installation view Republic of Love. The Power Plant. Toronto. 2004
MARITIME FRAZETTA/ALLEGORY OF TRANSCENDENCE. 2004 Jn�tr1lldtton view: ThP c,we ,lnd the lsli1nd. White Columns New York. 200.i
UNTITLED. 2004 Video still
ARTIST'S
BIOGRAPHY
Jay Isaac attended the Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, Vancouver, 19931997 and the Cardiff Institute of Art and Design, 1996, Cardiff, Wales. Recent exhibitions include The Cave and the Island, 2004, at Galerie Kunstbuero, Vienna and White Columns, New York; The Republic of Love, 2004, T he Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto; Maritime Frazetta. 2004, Greener Pastures Contemporary Art, Toronto; New Age Philosophy, Acuna-Hansen Gallery project space, 2003, Los Angeles; The Matlock Juxtapose, 2002, Mercer Union, Toronto; Selling Out and Buying In, 2002, BizArt, Shanghai; Synthetic Psychosis, 2002, Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art, Toronto; Officina America, 2002, Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Bologna. Isaac currently lives and works in Toronto.
CURATOR'S
BIOGRAPHY
Xandra Eden is Assistant Curator for The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto and an independent art critic and writer. Her recent exhibitions include Republic of Love, The Power Plant, Toronto (2004); The Cave and the Island, White Columns, New York and Galerie Kunstbuero, Vienna (2004); Christian Jankowski: Rosa, Mercer Union, Toronto (2002); In Through the Out Door: David Armstrong Six/Germaine Koh/Nestor Kruger, The Power Plant, Toronto (2002) and Bellevue Art Museum, Washington (2003). Eden has also written essays for many exhibitions, including catalogue essays for Marfa Hfady (2001) and Bounce/In Through the Out Door (2002). She has contributed essays to Artext, Border Crossings, Canadian Art, Flash Art, Parachute. among others. Eden received her M.A. from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (1999) and B.F.A. from the State University of New York at Purchase (1990). She has held positions at various non-profit art organizations including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, NY, International Print Center NY, and Women & Their Work Gallery, Austin, TX.
CUE ART FOUNDATION MISSION STATEMENT
CUE Art Foundation, a non-profit organization, provides educational programs
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
for young artists and aspiring art professionals in New York and from around
Gregory Amenoff
the country These programs draw on the unique community of artists, critics.
Thomas G Devine
and educators brought together by the Foundation's season of exh1b1t1ons.
Thomas K. Y. Hsu
public lectures. and its in-gallery studio program. Gallery internships and
Brian D. Starer
stipends afford the next generation of art professionals intimate, working knowledge of the art-making and exh1bit1on processes. CUE's 2000 sq. ft.
ADVISORY COUNCIL
gallery and offices, located in New York's Chelsea gallery district, serves as the
Gregory Amenoff
base for the various educational programs conducted by CUE.
Vicky A. Clark
The Foundation's exh1b1tion season gives unknown or under-recog
William Corbett
nized artists professional exposure comparable to that offered by neighboring
Meg Cranston
commercial galleries. without the usual. financial restraints. CUE does not
James Drake
promote a particular school of art1st1c practice or regional bias; we only require
Bruce Ferguson
that exh1b1t1ng artists must either not have had a solo exhibition in a commer
Sanford Hirsch
cial venue, or have received minimal recent public exposure.
Dana Hoey
CUE's Advisory Council, an honorary group of artists and leading figures from the arts education, applied arts, art history, and literary communi
GALLERY DIRECTOR
ties. has the responsibility of selecting exhibition curators. The cl.lrators, in turn,
Jeremy Adams
nominate artists to exhibit at CUE, and continue to play a role throughout the exh1b1tion process, helping the artists catalogue their work for exhibition. Both
GALLERY COORDINATOR
the Advisory Council and the exhibition curators actively participate in the
Sandhini Poddar
public lectures and educational programs. GALLERY ASSISTANT
Beatrice Wolert-Weese
IMAGE #1 COURTESY OF GALERIE KUNSTBUERO. VIENNA. PHOTO; LI TASSER. IMAGE #10 COURTESY OF THE POWER PLANT. TORONTO. PHOTO RAPHAEL GOLDCHAIN IMAGE #11 COURTESY OF WHITE COLUMNS, NEW YORK
ALL ARTWORK c JAY ISAAC CATALOG DESIGN; ELIZABETH ELLIS
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