February 12 – March 26, 2015
MADE IN NEW YORK Curated by Robert Dimin Genesis Belanger David Brooks Jen Catron & Paul Outlaw Caitlin Cherry Nick Doyle Irini Miga Dana Sherwood PROJECT SPACE Justine Hill
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MADE IN NEW YORK Curated by Robert Dimin
Contemporary art is a diverse playground and every December it swarms Miami to the extent that noble and profound ideas turn to noise. Made In New York showcases subtle yet consequential explorations in content and media that are worth a closer look. Necessary shows often come together through their own fruition. Made In New York grew from reoccurring themes experienced during studio visits. The abject of the object was clearly on the minds of all of these artists. Corporeal ways to confront monstrous topics such as humanity’s struggle with the worlds they inhabit are undercurrents of the exhibition.
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Genesis Belanger
The idea of materiality is the general tenant of sculpture as an artist’s media. Genesis Belanger explores this notion more than any other artist in the show. The use of cement and steal as the dominant material in her graceful abstractions defines her as an artist. These materials have often been associated with works made by men. She subverts this notion by claiming the material as hers!
Baby I won’t never eclipse you, 2013. 38 x 19 x 20 in. Concrete, dc motor, acrylic disk.
Untitled, 2014. 63 x 31 x 34 in. Concrete, wood, fabric, steel.
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She was asking for it, 2014. 53 x 42 x 6 in. Concrete, steel, rope.
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David Brooks
David Brooks’ simple act of placing a cherry picker in the center of an art gallery with palms on its platform will surely bring a smile to anyone’s face. Despite, or possibly through this whimsy, he gains the desperate attention to talk about the encroachment of urbanization on natural habitats. His series Marble Blocks are highly attractive formal objects made of marble, an extravagant and most traditional sculptural material, but they are used as a proxy for animals on the verge of extinction.
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Marble Blocks – 218 lbs – or Sumatran Orangutan (Indonesia), 2014. 218 pounds of Verde Antique marble, stainless steel pins, wood crate, stencil paint, Tyvek, hardware, packing material. 27 x 35 x 24 in. Still Life with Cherry Picker and Palms. 2009. 60’ aerial boom lift, Majesty palms, Areca palms, weather. Dimensions variable. Photo credit: Cathy Carver. Left page: Gap Ecology (Three Still Lives with Cherry Picker and Palms). 2013. [installed at Socrates Sculpture Park, NYC]. 60’ aerial boom lifts, Majesty palms, Areca palms, weather. Dimensions variable.
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Jen Catron & Paul Outlaw
Goya Attempts to Teach the Masses Using Goats as Visual Aids, by Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw, brings the confrontation to the social environment. They take a child’s amusement park ride, the merry-go-round, and replace the fiberglass horses for taxidermy goats. This act of alteration, of replacing something fantastical and innocent to something that in its nature questions mortality delves into the spiritual and potentially moral issues of Brooks and Sherwood.
Detail image of Goya Attempts to Teach the Masses Using Goats as Visual Aids, 2013. Taxidermy goats, mechanical merry-go-round. 36 x 50 x 50 in.
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Goya Attempts to Teach the Masses Using Goats as Visual Aids, 2013. Taxidermy goats, mechanical merry-go-round. 36 x 50 x 50 in.
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Caitlin Cherry
Caitlin Cherry’s work Mute City, Big Blue, Port
Town picks up where Catron and Outlaw leave us, someplace very man-made—suburbia. This work is a constructed pool with a painting submerged under water. A pool is mysteriously both a sign of wealth and of above-ground-lowermiddle-class monstrosities. Its scale is key to its message of abjectness, using humor to soften its message.
Right page Top: Mute City, Big Blue, Port Town, 2014. Swimming pool (wood, ceramic tiles, plexiglass, water, chlorine) mounted over painting (oil on canvas), beach towels. 87 x 79.5 x 12 in. Bottom: Detail image of Mute City, Big Blue, Port Town, 2014. Swimming pool (wood, ceramic tiles, plexiglass, water, chlorine) mounted over painting (oil on canvas), beach towels. 87 x 79.5 x 12 in.
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Nick Doyle
Nick Doyle uses an unnerving type of humor throughout his work—a sad humor, if there were one. The works themselves are parts of a created narrative of his alter ego, Steven, a suburban misanthrope marveling in the throngs of the abject. This is the world humanity dreamt of creating but no one now wants to claim it.
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Top: The Baby Giraffe (Sun 3), 2014. Mixed media, Approx. 96 x 84 x 24 in. (plus pedestal, not shown) Left page: The Bull (Sun 1), 2013. Mixed media. 74 x 19 x 18 in.
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Irini Miga
With many of the works in Made In New York exploring ideas of monumentality the works by Irini Miga directly reference a more subtle scale, that of humanity. Her works can stand in as proxies for the people exploring the ideas in the exhibition. With a sculptural assemblage of the abstracted human form or a simple sweater made from porcelain. Directly referencing the delicate nature of life. Her choice of fragile materials and their ultimate execution further echo these ideas.
My Blouse Can Stand On the Wall, Jan 14th, 2013. Ceramic, glaze, acrylic. 19 x 13 x 2½ in.
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Eyes Wide Open, 2013. Wood, glazed ceramic, crystal, plaster, marble, acrylic color. 70 x 21 x 13 in.
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Dana Sherwood
Dana Sherwood sets up interventions in nature in the form of opulent feasts. Sherwood documents these miraculous moments with night vision sensor cameras. In Banquets in the
Dark Wildness the aftermath is contained in a vintage metal food cart adorned with baking tins, videos, and meat grinders. Sherwood blurs the division of the natural and manipulated by serving her “artwork� directly to the natives in their natural habitat.
Detail image of Banquets in the Dark Wildness, 2014. Videos, monitors, plaster, clay, varnish, steel baking rack, books, glassware, aluminum, enamel cooking implements, sausage casings. 36 x 49 x 60 in.
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Banquets in the Dark Wildness, 2014. Videos, monitors, plaster, clay, varnish, steel baking rack, books, glassware, aluminum, enamel cooking implements, sausage casings. 36 x 49 x 60 in.
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Justine Hill
Project Space
In an idealistic attempt to remove manly references to objects and their histories, the project space is hung with colorful abstractions of intangible people, places and things. The distinction of constructed verses natural is no longer useful or necessary. The paintings of Justine Hill blur these lines of vocabulary and ask you to stop trying to define and therefore separate.
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Top: Canopy, 2014. Acrylic & pastel on canvas. 50 x 40 in. Left page: The Flesh Eaters, 2014. Acrylic & pastel on canvas 60 x 72 in.
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Robert Dimin, Curator
Robert Dimin is an artist/curator and associate director of the Judith Charles Gallery in New York. Dimin has a BS from the New School University focusing on art history, fine art, and creative writing and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in combined media. His first solo exhibition as an artist was in 2002 in New York at Gallery Stendhal, having many shows for the following decade at CVZ Contemporary. Dimin has participated in two international biennales with the first being in Vienna, Austria in 2008 and the second taking place in Port-Au-Prince Haiti in 2013. His career as a curator began in 2010 during graduate school when he opened Project Space 240 Church. After graduate school Dimin worked for Creative Time a leading public art non-profit in New York helping to launch the Global Initiatives Division. Dimin continued to work freelance for several galleries including The Hole and Alexander Grey Associates in New York and as a researcher for Galerie Gmurzynska in Switzerland. His first breakthrough exhibition as a curator was No More Rock Stars, at Galerie Protégé in New York. After the exhibition he became the director of the Protégé until his current position at Judith Charles.
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BLUESHIFT PROJECT was founded in 2015 by Mexican entrepreneur, Eduardo Burillo, whose interest in the ways contemporary art practices shape our environment and change a city is central to the gallery’s vision and approach. Through multi-faceted exhibitions, programs, and collaborations, Blueshift Project aims to support artists’ production, foster public engagement, and bring significant national and international art to Miami audiences.
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MADE IN NEW YORK OPENING RECEPTION:
Thursday, February 12, 5–9pm CLOSING RECEPTION:
Thursday, March 26, 6–9pm EVENTS:
Artist talk with Dana Sherwood February 26, 7–9pm Artist talks with David Brooks, Jen Catron & Paul Outlaw TBA BLUESHIFT PROJECT is a Miami-based contemporary art gallery and exhibition space founded to represent and promote work by a diverse group of critically acclaimed local and international artists. Housed in a 6,000 square-foot-space in Wynwood, Blueshift Project is envisioned as a hub for artistic growth and development and committed to providing the community with a vibrant gathering place where diverse art forms, fresh ideas, artists and audiences can come together. 175 Northwest 25th Miami, FL, 33127
Principal Eduardo Burillo
Phone: 786.899.0405
Co-Director Sofia Bastidas
Email: sofia@blueshiftproject.com info@blueshiftproject.com
Gallery Manager Ana Clara Silva
BLUESHIFTPROJECT.COM
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