Margaret Coleman Jeff Feld Tracy Grayson Annalisa Perazzi Jennifer Gustavson
Kim Jong Il Ronald Reagan Allison Maletz Matt Kleenex Andrea Suter Ramon Esquiverna Laetitia Ann-Saedler Jeanne Verdoux Camilla Perowski-Wittgenstein Edo Udo Rachel Minnesota
On Hold The Longest Curated by Alma Egger Show Title of the Universe is Here From July 19 to August 23, 2013 Curated by: Opening Reception: Friday, JulyDelano 19, 7-9 and PM Franklin Eric Sutherland NURTUREart Gallery 56 Bogart St., Brooklyn, NY 11206 From April 26 to May 28, 2012 Opening Reception: Friday, May 28, 7-9 PM NURTUREart Gallery 56 Bogart St., Brooklyn, NY 11206
I made Towards Peter within a series of works using the studio mice. Peter and I share one wall in our studios along with a window ledge that serves as a passageway for the studio mice. I put down a piece a paper with powdered charcoal on the far edge, tracking the direction of the mice that move from my space to Peters. The orientation of the displayed drawing is determined on the current location of Peter’s studio. -- Jennifer Gustavson.
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Jennifer Gustavson Towards Peter (detail), 2012. Studio mice, powdered charcoal and the direction of Peter. 11.5 x16.5�
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On Hold by Alma Egger
On Hold is an exhibition that aims to transform our perception of daily occurring pauses from anxiety-producing events to an opportunity for reflection. These occurrences range from being put on hold during a telephone call to glancing at a newspaper at a kiosk while rushing to the subway. The featured artworks change our perception of time and space by suspending a sense of urgency. Through this suspension, a reevaluation of the quotidian is encouraged: from a waste of time into new values. The exhibition is a reflection on (and critique of) the unrelenting pace of contemporary society, and the consequent dangers of not using time, even the short span of an elevator ride, to pause. Being on hold, can open creativity portals that are essential to the human experience and ultimately, human progress. Several works in the exhibition evoke everyday life’s involuntary pauses and moments of suspension caused by public symbols, signals and other signs we routinely oblige to. The sound of a telephone on hold, a traffic light or an exit sign, exist to improve our lives by creating order and direction, yet frequently leave us feeling anxious and helpless. Working against the stringency of such norms, art can help us find focus and create
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an awareness of suspended time, freeing ourselves from anxiety, or maybe depict actual manifestations of wasted time, thereby asking us to redefine them in new ways and on our terms. In the unrelenting pace of contemporary society, most everyday routines seem pointless. These “wasted” moments can be located at the threshold of an interruption, such as the instant before stumbling over an empty crate on the floor or experiencing a rainstorm. Other times, it is our unproductive interaction with everyday objects (old pictures, teddy bears) that translate into the impression of dissipated time. Finally, pausing can be a voluntary act, such as looking up at the sun, or taking a deep breath. On Hold addresses the real and imaginary connotations of all sorts of suspended time by suggesting the presence of a transformative potential in those very same intervals, events and objects typically categorized as wasted, inviting us to contemplate their value rather then merely ignoring them. The artists in this exhibition not only allow the viewer to determine a personal value for everyday life time, but allow their own artworks to exist “on hold,” freeing their materials from the slavery of performing daily utilitarian purposes. Therefore, the artwork of-
Margaret Coleman Back Where I Belong, 2010 Wax, 14 x 14 x 14�
ten feels suspended, given the opportunity to be uplifted and transformed from banal to extraordinary. It is through this liberation and appreciation of the everyday that we can find the extraordinary within our own everyday. Most importantly, the works instigate pause, furthering the aim of the exhibition to examine moments in time that have the potential to become welcome respites throughout a hurried, chaotic day. A pause is a pause, so you may as well feel good about it.
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I like to consider structural objects, their uses and their possibilities. The process to make Back Where I Belong, involved the sculpting of a milk crate form from black wax, to explore themes of transitory life in Brooklyn. It was made in my bedroom in my home in Bushwick. Block Party a wax cinder block, was made where I currently reside, in BedStuy, on my living room floor. Minneapolis; Dinkytown, Powderhorn, South Minneapolis. We used to find food in the garbage, climb into dumpsters, bike home with cakes balanced on our handlebars. My mattress was on the floor in a sunroom. Milk crates stacked made shelves filled with clothes from garage sales, shoplifted from thrift stores, traded at clothing swaps. Brooklyn; Bed-stuy, Bushwick, Ridgewood. The frayed pink couch with the wooden legs was free off of Craigslist. Boards placed on cinder blocks are coffee tables, when stacked high, make shelves to pile with books, movies, treasures. Milk crates are still filled with clothes from thrift stores, no longer stolen, or taken from Park Slope fences, still traded with friends. Our living room is for making things, we have no furniture. My mattress is still on the floor. -- Margaret Coleman
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Right: Margaret Coleman Block Party, 2013. Wax, 15.5 x 7.75 x 7.5�
In my work I orchestrate a set of circumstances that present themselves in multiple ways. Simultaneously acts of creation and destruction, existing forms are called into doubt and dismembered, recombined and rethought. My drawings and objects, like life, are messy and resolved under some duress. Through them I seek to interweave art and life, originality and appropriation, abstraction and representation, the vicissitudes of the day to day. Are raindrops in Brooklyn larger than those in Queens? My rain prints record an immediate moment in time and place. Using industrial sponge and gravity these works function like photographs; they provide an index of exposure. Absent the original substance that created them, they question the nature of mark making and through them provide an organized structure for the chaos of nature. -- Jeff Feld
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Above (detail) and Right: Jeff Feld Ridgewood Rain Drops 4/24/13, 30 second exposure, 2013 Rain drops, compressed sponge, 38 x 37.5�
Some things can only be imagined, though we feel certain that they exist. The past, the future, and the endless geometry of our environment are impossible to see (the artist values seeing.) What is immense and inescapable can be invisible, or in some cases, blinding. If the artist is compelled to describe what can’t be seen, or is blinded, then what is imagined or felt will suffice. --Tracy Grayson
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Tracy Grayson Tulsa, 2005. Oil on wood, 31.5 x 48�
Tracy Grayson Mechanism, 2011. Oil on wood, 36 x 42�
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I started making these towers rather subconsciously. At times, I have so many objects to navigate around that they are in a constant state of change, in various arrangements or stacks. It was easy to for me to start to see narratives forming because so many of these objects are already embedded with sentimentality. Anything has the potential to be apart of a sculpture and often times they are ordinary objects that have a history with me or people I love (or hate). Their reliance on one another is important to the structure of the sculpture. Often times, objects are arranged because of their physical properties. i.e. shortest to tallest. I find this process of dealing with my shit in all aspects of my lifemy new york life and the constant moving around, along the inability to get attached to anything. Going through my Dad’s collection of endless things and keepsakes after he passed. There is something complicated and unscientific about the hierarchy of sentimentality. -- Jennifer Gustavson
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Right: Jennifer Gustavson A Genuine Apology, 2013. Mixed media, dimensions variable
Utility Purgatory explores the services that exist in theory to improve our lives, yet are rendered useless as all the various “please hold” messages play indefinitely, leaving the audience completely impotent. Naturally, between each “please hold” message, various songs play, featuring lyrics generally about miscommunication, and waiting. -- Allison Maletz
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Allison Maletz Utility Purgatory, 2009 Landline telephone, audio equipment 7 x 5 x 9 “ circa
The purpose of the Mold paintings was to deliberately put something on a wall that a person would never want on a wall - to beautify something that is traditionally hideous, and even dangerous. In the installation, images are hung salon style in mismatched wooden frames, as if they are family photos hung in a suburban home with pride. In a few cases, the mold is actually growing out of the frame, onto the wall itself - illustrating the growth that may spawn out of neglect. -- Allison Maletz
Allison Maletz Mold , 2010-present Watercolor on paper and wall, sizes vary
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24 miles or 38.6 kilometers is an animation performed by small imperfections and differences of the pedestrian traffic lights along Broadway in New York. Contrary to our expectations public communication signs are disparate, not uniform: orientation undergoes constant changes and subsequent reorientation. Still the pedestrian crossing lights remain constant within an ever changing cityscape, embedding imperfections and differences. Even though the signs remain “constant� we witness not only the different generations installed in public, but also that they have become canvases of artistic expression and technical failure. -- Andrea Suter
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Right: Andrea Suter 24 miles or 38.6 kilometers (detail), 2009. 2-channel video, silent
Observing, understanding and interpreting what I see in the world around me is an essential part of my art work. People is a subject I explore on a daily basis and the New York subway is an ideal place for this study of humanity. It is a small space where multiple people of diverse origins come in an unwanted contact for a brief moment while waiting to reach their destination. During their travel, on their way to or from work or school, passengers are suspended in a zone where time, space, relationship do not exist for a moment. They are left to their own device to read, sleep, wait and avoid each others contact as much as possible. For me, riding the New York subway is a source of inspiration, a place to observe and draw these people. I am presented with an endless catalogue of immobilized characters to portray. Transferring these observations of human characters onto everyday objects allows me to transform their nature. This is how a banal coat hanger used for years to hang my clothes revealed itself one day as the profile of a man with a large nose. There are instants in my life where my mind and hand enter a zone of concentration to create a drawing or an object that will surprise me once completed. While this is happening, the rest of the world recess in the background and anything becomes possible. -- Jeanne Verdoux
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Jeanne Verdoux Big Nose, 2008. Metal hanger and pencil drawing, 12 x 12�
Right: Jeanne Verdoux New Yorkers on the Subway, 2008-2012. Ink on Paper, 4.2 x 5.6� each
NURTUREart Non-Profit, Inc is a 501(c)3 New York State licensed federally tax-exempt charitable organization founded in 1997 by George J. Robinson. NURTUREart receives support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, including member item funding from City Council Members Sara Gonzales, Stephen Levin, and Diana Reyna, the New York City Department of Education, and the New York State Council on the Arts. NURTUREart is also supported by the Harold and Colene Brown Foundation, Edelman, the Greenwich Collection, Ltd., the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Laura B. Vogler Foundation, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, No More Poverty, the Puffin Foundation, Urban Outfitters, and the Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Foundation. We receive in-kind support from Brooklyn Brewery, Societe Perrier, Tekserve, and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. NURTUREart is grateful for significant past support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Liebovitz Foundation, and the Greenwall Foundation, and to the many generous individuals and businesses whose contributions have supported us throughout our history. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the artists who have contributed works of art to past benefits—our continued success would be impossible without your generosity.
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56 Bogart Street Brooklyn, NY 11206 L train to Morgan Avenue T 718 782 7755 F 718 569 2086 E gallery@nurtureart.org www.nurtureart.org Directions: By Subway: L train to the Morgan Avenue stop. Exit the station via Bogart Street. Look for the NURTUREart entrance on Bogart Street, close to the intersection with Harrison Place. By Car: Driving From Manhattan: Take the Williamsburg Bridge, stay in the outside lane, and take the Broadway / S. 5 St. exit. Turn left at light onto Havemeyer St. Turn right next light onto Borinquen Place, continue straight, street will change name to Grand Street. Turn right onto Bushwick Ave, left onto Johnson Ave, then right onto Bogart Street. Look for our entrance at the corner of Bogart Street and Harrison Place.