Collette Blanchard Gallery

Collette Blanchard Gallery http://colletteblanchard.com/ Contemporary Art Gallery located on the Lower East Side of New York. en Copyright 2010, Collette Blanchard Gallery Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:31:02 -0400 Exhibition: Lush Life <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">July 8 - August 13, 2010</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, July 8, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1936"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/35/35598.jpeg" alt="" height="621" width="434" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p><span class="caps">LUSH LIFE </span>is an exhibition curated by Franklin Evans and Omar Lopez-Chahoud which takes place at nine Lower East Side (LES) galleries: Collette Blanchard Gallery, Eleven Rivington, Invisible-Exports, Lehmann Maupin, On Stellar Rays, Salon 94, Scaramouche, Sue Scott Gallery, and Y Gallery. <span class="caps">LUSH LIFE </span>adopts Richard Price's 2008 novel to title and organize the exhibition. The novel is set in the contemporary <span class="caps">LES </span>and through a murder investigation exposes the dynamically changing community of the neighborhood, which despite its evolution retains a ghostly and vital link to its layered past. The deep and varied history of the <span class="caps">LES </span>now includes the <span class="caps">LES </span>galleries as new community members, and Price's novel provides a potent vehicle for the consideration of community as voices compete for, ignore and occasionally share the same physical and conceptual space.</p> <p>The galleries will host concurrent exhibitions with each exhibition reflecting the idea of one of the nine chapters in the book. The curators selected one artist from each gallery to participate in the exhibition and solicited from each of them one additional artist recommendation of an artist not from one of the nine participating galleries (nine total recommendations). The curators then supplemented this base group of eighteen artists to complete nine exhibitions, ranging in size from three to twelve artists. <span class="caps">LUSH LIFE </span>will be the present for what will become a living ghost to the future form into which the <span class="caps">LES </span>will inevitably morph.</p> <p>There will be a collective opening of all participating galleries on Thursday, July 8th from 6 - 9 pm.</p> <p>Sue Scott Gallery Chapter One: Whistle</p> <p>On Stellar Rays Chapter Two: Liar</p> <p>Invisible-Exports Chapter Three: First Bird (A Few Butterflies)</p> <p>Lehmann Maupin Chapter Four: Let It Die</p> <p>Y Gallery Chapter Five: Want Cards</p> <p>Collette Blanchard Gallery Chapter Six: The Devil You Know</p> <p>Salon 94 Chapter Seven: Wolf Tickets</p> <p>Scaramouche Chapter Eight: 17 Plus 25 Is 32</p> <p>Eleven Rivington Chapter Nine: She'll Be Apples</p> <p>Artists: Alice O'Malley, Alisha Kerlin, Amy Longenecker-Brown, Carol Irving, Chakaia Booker, Christoph Draeger, Claudia Weber, Coco Fusco, Dana Frankfort, Dana Levy, Dani Leventhal, David Kramer, David Shapiro, Derrick Adams, Elisabeth Subrin, Erik Benson, Ezra Johnson, Gail Thacker, Gina Magid, Ishmael Randall Weeks, Jackie Gendel, Jackie Saccoccio, Jayson Keeling, Jessica Dickinson, Joanne Greenbaum, Jonathan VanDyke, Jose Lerma, Judi Werthein, Justen Ladda, Kai Schiemenz / Iris Fluegel, Karen Heagle, Karina Aguilera Skvirsky, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Leslie Hewitt, Manuel Acevedo, Mario Ybarra Jr., Matthew Weinstein, Melissa Gordon, Nanna Debois Buhl, Nicolas Di Genova, Nina Lola Bachhuber, Olivier Babin, Patrick Lee, Patty Chang, Paul Gabrielli, Paul Pagk, Paul Pfeiffer, Pedro Barbeito, Rashid Johnson, Robert Beck, Robert Lazzarini, Robert Melee, Robin Graubard, Rudy Shepherd, Scott Hug, Tim Davis, Tommy Hartung, Xaviera Simmons, Yashua Klos</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1936 Exhibition: Rachel Hovnanian <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Too Good To Be True</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">May 26 - July 1, 2010</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Wednesday, May 26, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1904"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/33/33693.jpeg" alt="" height="706" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Collette Blanchard Gallery is pleased to present Too Good to be True, which will include an installation, performances, and a selection of archival prints by multimedia artist Rachel Hovnanian. This exhibition will be on view at 26 Clinton Street from May 26 - July 1, 2010.</p> <p>Hovnanian's work engages the politics of beauty with minimal forms that expose intricate relationships that humans have to one another and inanimate objects. Her minimalist palette is nearly completely devoid of color; gray shadows reveal the soft dimensionality of her sculpted installations. The seemingly pure, neutral palette used in her work contrasts, and thus emphasizes the disturbing, and complex nature of perceived beauty and its delimiting consequences. To quote the artist, her palette "imparts...the precursor to reflection." As such, it becomes impossible to avoid the tensions of dependence, decorum and control that pervade her work. In Hovnanian's print, The Collector, a seated male, his back to the viewer, gazes at the items in his collection-one of which is a poised, life-size female trophy. Objectified to the extreme-literally a female sculpted as object-the figure is dressed as a beauty queen. Her colorless eyes and timid grin face the audience, lacking any particular direction of their own.</p> <p>Ms. Hovnanian lives and works in New York City and received her education at Parsons School of Design, the National Academy of Design, The Art Students League, and the University of Texas. Her work is exhibited internationally and includes shows at the Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, Jason McCoy Gallery, Meredith Long & Company, David Beitzel Gallery, and Ann Kendall Richards Gallery. Hovnanian's work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal Europe, and Elle Décor; she was recently interviewed on <span class="caps">NPR.</span></p> <p>A catalogue will accompany the exhibition.<br /> For more information, please contact the gallery at 646.249.7720 or gallery@colletteblanchard.com.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1904 Exhibition: Shantell Martin <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Project Inside/Out</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">May 12 - May 22, 2010</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1905"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/33/33692.jpeg" alt="" height="245" width="366" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Shantell Martin<br /> Project InsideOut OutsideIn<br /> May 12 - 22, 2010</p> <p>Opening Reception May 12th 6-8</p> <p>Closing Reception for the artist Saturday, May 22nd, 6 PM</p> <p>Collette Blanchard Gallery is pleased to present Project InsideOut OutsideIn, which features the multimedia, interactive work of Shantell Martin. May 12 - May 22nd.</p> <p>Project InsideOut OutsideIn expands upon Martin's ever-changing, growing world in which the ephemera of the everyday is taken out of its natural world to highlight the simplest essence of the environs referenced by Martin. As Martin literally turns the gallery inside-out, bringing inside what is meant to be out,side the viewer becomes a participant; what is private becomes transparent, and what seems obvious cannot be taken literally. This bonanza of collaboration of illustration, music, light, performance, and being there to see what happens produces a playful, backward, asymmetrical environment. In the artist's words, the work is , "completely spontaneous. Nothing is rehearsed, nothing is practiced." Whimsical, meticulous drawings that emerge as digitized media or ink renderings on canvas, walls, windows, and cars meander from the surface of their origin to human skin via light, ink, and/or spatial proximity. Martin's depictions abstract the contexts of reference images through stream-of-conscious associations between inanimate objects and anthropomorphic forms. With the simplicity of a line Martin creates delicate, intricate, and ever-changing otherworldly landscapes populated with quasi-humans and other creatures, all engaged in the process of evolving into something else. She expands conventional definitions of drawing, pioneering an area that combines improvised live illustration, light, and audience interaction.</p> <p>Martin is an illustrator, live performer, VJ and videographer. Originally from London and having spent years in Japan, Martin currently resides in NY and exhibits internationally. She recently completed an interactive project at MoMA, was a panelist at the 2010 <span class="caps">PSFK </span>conference at the Museum for Jewish Heritage, and her numerous collaborations include projects with Adidas, Harajuku, Wacom Japan, Soho House, Hudson Terrace and Studio B, to name a few. Martin released her first solo <span class="caps">DVD </span>in February of 2009.</p> <p>The artist will be performing in collaboration with live bands, a cellist and a violinist. </p> <p>For more information, please contact the gallery at 917.639.3912 or gallery@colletteblanchard.com.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1905 Exhibition: Dean Monogenis <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Above the Railing, Above the World</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">March 5 - May 2, 2010</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1747"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/25/25203.jpeg" alt="" height="403" width="500" /></a> <p>Dean Monogenis, <em>Leviathan</em>, 2007</p> <p> Acrylic on wood panel, 39 x 48 inches </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Dean Monogenis<br /> Above the Railing, Above the World<br /> 5 March - 2 May, 2010</p> <p>Opening Reception Friday, March 5, 6-9</p> <p> Collette Blanchard Gallery is pleased to present its first gallery exhibition with Dean Monogenis , entitled "Above the Railing, Above the World", on view from March 5th - May 2nd </p> <p> Monogenis continues his presentation of inventive landscapes that explore the natural progressions of entropy. The subjects of his works depict architecture in different phases of construction including buildings, tents, antennas, electrical posts, windmills and scaffoldings. The focus however is not on the placement of each structure within the landscape but rather on the notion of each monument as a means to articulate transition and purpose. Monogenis re-positions real structures from his encounters in his ever-changing neighborhood in eastern Williamsburg to communities and places he visits around the world. The process of conceptually removing a building from its natural environment and rendering it in an imaginative space with lush landscape and dramatic skies challenges the visual, historical and resourceful components of traditional city planning.</p> <p> Done in acrylic on wood panels with a high gloss finish, the paintings reveal a distinction between the bold flat areas used to create the architecture with the tightly rendered areas of rock formations and highly textured depictions of greenery. A building can serve two purposes--it can be built as a functioning space or it can be non-space simply existing as a structure with physical matter supporting its construction. Aside from his experience of living among the architecture that is represented in the work, Monogenis's interest in architectural forms is inherent from his many childhood experiences touring ancient ruins while visiting family in Greece. His works often includes depictions of older monuments shown in comparison with contemporary architecture. </p> <p> </p> <p> Mr. Monogenis received a <span class="caps">BFA </span>from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996. Monogenis is included in the group exhibition Skeptical Landscape at the Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts in Amherst. His work has been exhibited in group shows at Robert Miller Gallery, Annina Nosei Gallery and Priska C. Juschka Fine Art and iis currently on view at Walter maciel Gallery. He was recently featured in New American Paintings. A series of ten images was reproduced in the September 2009 edition of the Georgia Review. A 66 page catalogue with a an essay by curator Elizabeth Grady will accompany the exhibition.</p> <p> </p> <p> For more information, please contact the gallery at 646.249.7720 or gallery@colletteblanchard.com.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1747 Exhibition: Derrick Adams <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 23 - March 3, 2010</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1689"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/30/30891.jpeg" alt="The Root of it All, 2010 " height="750" width="500" /></a> <p><p>The Root of it All, 2010</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Derrick Adams<br /> Welcome to Monument City<br /> 23 January - 28 February, 2010</p> <p>Opening Reception Saturday, January 23, 6-8</p> <p>Derrick Adams' solo exhibition and debut at Collette Blanchard Gallery speaks of fallen empires, resilience and childhood impressions. It also speaks of shiny, glittery memories against muted realities, of broken landscapes and those who once resided within. <br /> <br /> Welcome to Monument City draws inspiration from documentaries on ancient civilizations and of societies that end in destruction, left for historians to later cobble together provocative stories of money, power and respect from the scattered evidence that remains. The work is also a reflection on Adams personal witness to the transformation to ruin - architecturally and socially - of his hometown of Baltimore City (designated "Monument City" by President John Quincy Adams in 1827). The exhibition addresses the universal relationship between man and monument, both coexisting in the landscape as a fragmented and distorted representation of each other. <br /> <br /> Muted faux-brick panels shelve pseudo-symbolic objects; digital images are combined with hand painted elements and glittered surfaces. His work fuses fairytale perceptions with a current need to search for meaning in fragments and artifacts.<br /> <br /> Mr. Adams, who lives and works in New York, is a is graduate of Columbia University and a recent recipient of the 2009 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award. He participated in the inaugural <span class="caps">PERFORMA</span> 05; <span class="caps">PS1</span>/MoMA's 2005 Greater New York; Open House The Brooklyn Museum of Art; and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Past solo exhibitions include Jack Tilton Gallery (2003), Triple Candie (2004), Participant Inc (2005), and Momenta Arts (2006) The spring Mr. Adams will attend the Fountainhead Residency and will debut Go Stand Next To The Mountain at The Kitchen. His work has been reviewed in the New York Times, New York Magazine and Artforum.<br /> For more information, please contact the gallery at 646.249.7720 or gallery@colletteblanchard.com.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1689 Exhibition: SunTek Chung <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Kingdom Come</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">November 18, 2009 - January 20, 2010</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Wednesday, November 18, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1688"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/29/29798.jpeg" alt="Equivalence 2009" height="293" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Equivalence</p> <p>2009</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>SunTek Chung<br /> Kingdom Come<br /> 18 November - 10 January, 20, 2010</p> <p>Opening Reception Wednesday, November 18, 2009 </p> <p>Collette Blanchard Gallery is pleased to present its first gallery exhibition with SunTek Chung, entitled "Kindom Come," on view from November 18, through January 20, 2010.</p> <p>Neon light sculpture and staged photographs appear with bronze sculptures, all of which, in the specificity of their presentation, are informed and re-contextualized by circumstances dictated by the artist. Leveraging verbal language and mixed mediums, Chung presents narrative works that linger between exhaustive detail and minimalist form. At any juncture within this spectrum, his work presents alternatives to preconceived notions that are never completely lucid, thus requiring incessant interrogation. Adept in his use of color, neon-light and form, Chung seduces the viewer into the essence of his work at once with a combination of references to current happenings and in response, conceptualized fictions. The work of SunTek Chung requires the viewer to abandon the pedantic discourse of cultural affinity and identity in its reconsideration of the misconstrued.</p> <p>Mr. Chung graduated with an <span class="caps">MFA </span>from Yale University in 2002 and participated in Skowhegan School of Painting and Drawing. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in locations such as New York, Los Angeles, Canada, Berlin, and Tokyo. Chung's work has been reviewed in ArtForum, the New York Times, Beautiful Decay (cover) and many other prominent publications.<br /> For more information, please contact the galllery at 917.639.3912 or gallery@colletteblanchard.com</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1688 Exhibition: Nancy Friedemann <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Opening Reception Saturday, September 12 th 6-8</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">September 10 - October 26, 2009</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1696"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/27/27525.jpeg" alt="She Does and Doesn't Remember III, 2009 " height="331" width="500" /></a> <p><p>She Does and Doesn't Remember <span class="caps">III,</span> 2009</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Nancy Friedemann<br /> Una Noche<br /> <br /> 10 September - 26 October 2009</p> <p>Opening Reception Saturday, September 12, 2009 </p> <p>For her first exhibition with Collette Blanchard Gallery, Nancy Friedemann will present large scale paintings, works on mylar and a sound installation. </p> <p>The feminine lace details represented in colonial paintings, the hand-crafted embroidery and lace made by female relatives, the two cultures within which the artist has lived (Colombia and New York), the detailed drawings and studies of nature from the Colonial Botanical Expedition of 1793, as well as the complex and rhythmic designs from the Pattern and Decoration Movement from the 1970s all feature in her art. Ms. Friedemann draws her inspiration from historical and personal influences that reference those themes. Friedemann's intent is to "allude to minimalism but explicitly explore the experience of identity, memory, and gender" through her work. She is able to conjure, at once, a new reality out of her past memory as well as from a shared historical language.</p> <p>Born in Bogota, Colombia the artist currently lives and works in New York. Previous solo and group exhibitions include, PS 1 Museum, The Tamarind Institiute, Exit Art, the Sheldon Memorial Museum, the Queens Museum of Art, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá , the Cuenca Biennial, and most recently, the Frost Museum. Her work is included in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Panamá, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Colombia, the Leo Burnett Corporation, Museo de Arte Moderno, La Tertulia, Cali, Colombia and the Museo de Antioquia, Columbia. This fall she will begin the Smithsonian Instiution's Artist Research Fellowship Program.</p> <p>For more information please contact Jocelyn London at 917.639.3912 or jocelyn@colletteblanchard.com.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1696 Exhibition: Sean Higgins <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Difficulties with Interplanetary Travel</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">June 24 - August 15, 2009</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1638"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/25/25276.jpeg" alt="Rochambeau, 2009 " height="500" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Rochambeau, 2009</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Collette Blanchard Gallery is pleased to present Sean Higgins' Difficulties with Interplanetary Travel, which will be on view from June 24th through August 15th, 2009. In his series of eleven unique images, Higgins reworks original photographs and appropriated images from public archives, such as from <span class="caps">NASA, </span>into a new reality. The series includes Higgins' reconstructed landscapes, such as I'm a Mountain, Man (2009) and Ancient Traveller (2009), as well as skyscapes of amorphous, cloud-like figures, such as in Lando Calrissian (2009) and Tokyo all Night (Mario Brothers) (2009).</p> <p> Through his pieces, Higgins prods at the human instinct to associate images with the familiar. Namely, there is a tendency for viewers to look for a "real" object/place that exists or has existed when confronted with an amorphous shape in nature, like a cloud or unidentifiable landmass. Through Difficulties with Interplanetary Travel, Higgins challenges the viewers to see beyond the recognizable and absolute. He adds uncertainty to the images by closely cropping scenes, thereby removing the images' contexts, or employing interesting angles that impede the viewers from seeing the full panoramic surroundings. He recreates the world as we know it into a new fictional world where time and space remain ambiguous. "Real" landscapes, outer space, technology, dreams and memories combine to create a new environment beyond the standard confines of time and space. Are these images from the past, conjured from memory, or from the future? The viewers can never be sure if they are witnessing places/shapes that are familiar to them, intergalactic formations from planets beyond view or awareness, and/or something imagined/created by the artist or within the viewers' imagination. For Higgins, his work is "About a place-but not necessarily a place you can go to." </p> <p> "...For the figures that appear in the sky make no sense...they are purely chance effects. It is man who, being naturally inclined to imitation, confers a meaning upon them as well as a relative permanence, by associating them with the idea of the creatures that they evoke" <br /> -- Hubert Damisch<br /> "Sign and Symbol" in A Theory of /Cloud/: Toward a History of Painting p. 36</p> <p> Sean Higgins received his <span class="caps">MFA </span>from the University of Pennsylvania (1998) and his <span class="caps">BFA </span>from Moravian College, PA (1996). He has exhibited in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle and New York. The 2007 Island of Relative Stability exhibition marked his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. In 2008, Higgins exhibited at a solo show, Apocrypha, in Seattle where he began the new series of work on exhibit at the Collette Blanchard Gallery. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1638 Exhibition: Sarah Baley <div class="exhibition-subtitle">Bois</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">May 7 - June 16, 2009</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1637"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/33/33694.jpeg" alt="" height="508" width="404" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Collette Blanchard Gallery is pleased to present Sarah Baley's "Bois", which will be on view from May 7th through June 17th, 2009. </p> <p>Through a series of photographs, Baley explores sexuality and gender definitions while specifically highlighting a community called "Bois". Cinematic images of "Bois" dressed in fashions ranging from blue-collar to school boy aesthetic are juxtaposed with photographs of a changing industrial urban landscape in stages of decay and redevelopment. <br /> <br /> Through lighting and subject placement, Baley makes the viewers aware that they are observing a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the "Bois" community. The artist places the "Bois" in the foreground of the frame, either gazing directly at the artist/viewers, as in "Jasper" and "Little Prince", or in an intimate pose (e.g. embracing, kissing, in thought) or setting (e.g. bedroom), as in "Left Wing", "Bed Peace" and "Kiss". Baley also makes the "Bois" the main focus through the use of lighting; backgrounds blend into darkened masses while the "Bois" are well-lit at the foreground. Through these techniques, Baley brings sub-culture from the periphery to center stage.<br /> <br /> For the artist, the urban landscape, reflected in the rapid development in Red Hook, Brooklyn, functions as a metaphor, or mirror, for a fluid, transforming definition of sexuality and gender at the heart of the "Bois" community. Many of the "Bois" are non-conformists that reject gender as a binary system of male or female. Through Baley's photographs, the artist portrays sexuality and gender as more fluid than a two-part system. According to the artist, "Sexuality is prismatic. It is the full spectrum of color...one of the few ways we can still express freedom." </p> <p>Sarah Baley lives and works in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Baley received her <span class="caps">B.F.A </span>in photography at the Art Center College of Design in California. Recently, the Brooklyn Museum acquired Baley's "Dug" (2005) for their permanent collection. In August 2009, the work will be on display in the museum's American Identities Galleries.</p> <p>For more information please contact Jocelyn London at 917.639.3912 or jocelyn@colletteblanchard.com.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1637 Exhibition: Oscar Cueto <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">March 18 - April 27, 2009</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1636"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/24/24033.jpeg" alt="Rock Band, 2008-09, DVD Animation, Loop 1 minute/8 Seconds Edition 2/5" height="389" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Rock Band,<br /> 2008-09,<br /> <span class="caps">DVD</span> Animation,<br /> Loop 1 minute/8 Seconds<br /> Edition 2/5</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Collette Blanchard Gallery is pleased to present Héroe, Oscar Cueto's first exhibition with the gallery. Featuring a light table with drawings, video, and sculpture, Héroe will be on view from March 18th through April 28th. </p> <p>The works Cueto has created for this upcoming exhibition incorporate restructured world maps. The drawings focus on the universal connection of the contemporary art world and the interactions of nations that have resulted in poignant conflict. Inspired by the actions of global citizens, the artist renders realigned continents in commenting upon relationships between persons inhabiting these land masses. In some drawings, recognizable territories intersect in overlapping patterns to disguise their original form with a simple red stain marking the penetration of one territory into another. Other drawings simply show a world view with some or all of the leading countries removed as if they never existed. In one drawing, the eastern point of Europe pierces the center of the United States; in another, Europe is rotated and annexed by western Canada. At once, these renderings reference the geography of Pangea and look forward to the realignment of today's land masses as they may exist in the distant future. Navigating between these extremes, the artist's positioning of the continents reflects his thoughts of monetary and political power, which supersede mere shifts in geographical landscape. Europe, Asia, and the Americas vacillate between recognizable continents and fetish objects, abstracted figures, and/or crows as their orientation and placement vary. </p> <p>Within the installation, hand sewn flags are strategically placed with black coverings on each side to conceal the instant recognition of the country it represents. The only indications of each flag are sporadically placed holes on the surface and the edge of the pole where colors and patterns are carefully discerned. Cueto furthers his rendering of continental forms with two silent videos. The video animations are made from hand drawn frame to frame images on a digital notepad putting to motion the line of the corresponding drawings. In one video, Cueto portrays a series of moving maps. Dramatically reducing the scale of the continents, the artist, in a second video, contextualizes land masses as musical paraphernalia, as a rock band uses cut out maps as its instruments. A series of unframed gouache drawings entitled Brujeria/Witchcraft will accompany the other works in the show. Through his work, Cueto, without overbearing specificity, whimsically engages prescient and often painful happenings, which have continually defined human experience. </p> <p>Oscar Cueto was born in Mexico City, where he currently lives and works. Cueto received the Youth Creators Grant (CONACULTA) in 2007 and his work was recently acquired by the Jumex Collection. He previously showed at the Festival la Mar de la Música in Cartagena, Spain and he has been included in solo and group exhibitions throughout Mexico. Cueto has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions internationally, has shown regularly in Mexico City for the past five years, and has also shown with the Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles. In conjunction with the Collette Blanchard exhibit, Cueto will be having a similar show on the West Coast at the Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1636 Exhibition: The Brand New Heavies-Curated by Mickalene Thomas <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 23 - March 8, 2009</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, January 23, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1602"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/21/21803.jpeg" alt="Lauren Kelley, Get Bones from 88 Jones, film still" height="333" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Lauren Kelley, Get Bones from 88 Jones, film still</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Collette Blanchard Gallery is pleased to present "The Brand New Heavies", curated by Mickalene Thomas. The exhibition will be on view from January 23 - March 8, 2009 and will include three dynamic contemporary artists innovatively working in fundamental mediums. Lauren Kelley, Deana Lawson, and Jessica Ann Peavy present recent work conveying salient sentiments through means that are at once, sensual, opulent, and psychological. </p> <p> The works of all three artists offer staged scenes, referencing theater and performance, while incorporating embellished caricatures through collaboration with and/or commentary on their varied subjects. Lauren Kelley's videos present meticulous, comprehensive, fictitious narratives in overwhelming detail. In "Get Bones from 88 Jones", Barbie dolls, an array of plastic sweets, sculpted elements and malleable, inconstant clay form an accelerated narrative satiated with the metaphorical implementation of materials and imagery. Kelley's whimsy informs the happenings in the love life of a librarian with detail similar in degree to the sculpture crafted by Liza Lou. The environments in Kelley's work also resonate with the staged frames in the work of photographer, Deana Lawson. In "Anna" the everyday patterned couch blending with the drapes in the background is disrupted by the sequins adorning and condition of the thin, staid figure. The minimalist palette and compositions of Lawson's work bring to mind paintings by Barkley Hendricks and the videos of Jessica Ann Peavy. Peavy's "A Conversation Piece" also references intimate relationships as "Get Bones from 88 Jones", though in this case the sensual narratives are articulated through tales of food-making and consumption as two videos play simultaneously and transverse from each other. Similar to some work of Chantal Akerman, Peavy's piece incorporates pauses and static frames, giving the viewer an opportunity to contemplate the different ways in which women communicate which each other. One character speaks candidly about food likes and dislikes, while the other vivaciously recalls an anecdote of food preparation, nourishment, intimacy and rejection.</p> <p> Lauren Kelley received her <span class="caps">MFA </span>from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently participating in the Core Residency Program in Houston. Deana Lawson, who has been included in several exhibitions over the past year, was recently interviewed by Tova Carlin for Time Out New York, and received a <span class="caps">MFA </span>from the Rhode Island School of Design. Jessica Ann Peavy graduated with an <span class="caps">MFA </span>from the School of Visual Arts. Recent recipient of <span class="caps">NYSCA,</span> Peavy's work is currently on view at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and will be included in an upcoming show at the Bronx River Arts Center.</p> <p> This exhibition is Mickalene Thomas's curatorial debut. She graduated with an <span class="caps">MFA </span>from Yale University and currently shows with Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York, Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, and Susanne Vielmetter Projects in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in various catalogues and reviewed in Art in America, The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Post, NY Arts, Modern Painters, Essence, Whitewall, Frieze, and Artforum.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1602 Exhibition: Aaron Hobson <div class="exhibition-subtitle">cinemascapes: close quarter panoramics. open ended narratives.</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">November 13, 2008 - January 19, 2009</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, November 13, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1541"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/36/36541.jpeg" alt="'64 mercury " height="244" width="500" /></a> <p><p>'64 mercury</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Collette Blanchard Gallery is pleased to announce cinemascapes, an upcoming solo exhibition of Aaron Hobson's recent panoramic photographs. The ten photographs span the past three years of the artist's work and will be on view from November 13 through December 31, 2008.</p> <p>Hobson's work is created by combining several sequential, vertical images, thereby offering more visual information and an obscured rendition of any moment depicted by a single image. These preserved moments straddle between the contexts of fictitious, universal and isolated autobiographical experiences. At times inspired by scenery near the artist's residence in the Adirondack mountains, the work contains narratives steeped in the everyday-from the machismo American cowboy to the disheveled Wall Street staffer. In a fashion comparable to that of feminist portraiture, Cindy Sherman comes to mind, the figure in the image is always the artist whose signified identity morphs through changes in attire and ever-changing elusory surroundings. </p> <p>The nuanced details in the photographs are not forced, whether the interior of a '64 Mercury or a seemingly unconscious figure, and lack excessive or immediately shocking details. Rather, the restive energy that pervades the artist's work unexpectedly draws and subsequently arrests the viewer as the narrative unfolds exposing sensual, disturbing, and onerous undertones. The incredibly intricate and open-ended narratives are at once left to the interpretation of the viewer and restrained by details conveying the intentions of the artist; in the end, leaving the onlooker to ponder happenings within the frame incessantly.</p> <p>The exhibition will be accompanied by a 40 page hardbound catalogue. For more information or images, please contact the gallery at gallery@colletteblanchard.com.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1541 Exhibition: Belle du Jour <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">October 16 - November 11, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, October 16, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1540"><img border="0" src="http://colletteblanchard.com/static/dyn-images/19/19628.jpeg" alt="" height="500" width="500" /></a> <p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>The latest addition to the Lower East Side's emerging gallery scene is the Collette Blanchard Gallery on 26 Clinton Street. The Collette Blanchard Gallery is opening its doors on October 16th with it's inaugural exhibition Belle du Jour, the collaborative effort of Blanchard and independent curator, Chrissy Crawford.</p> <p>Belle du Jour brings together some of the art world's most relevant and contemporary female artists, each imparting on a unique approach to the female figure. Presenting painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography and video; there is a diversity of mediums as well as perspectives. Belle de Jour includes works by Asgar/Gabriel, Sarah Baley, Jane Benson, Libby Black, iona rozeal brown, Zoe Charlton, <span class="caps">E.V.</span> Day, Langdon Graves, Julie Heffernan, Tracey Langfitt, Maria Porges, Mickalene Thomas, Cynthia Rowley, Laurie Simmons, Shinique Smith and Cindy Wright.</p> <p>The group exploration transports the viewer across a wide continuum. The mummified Barbie Dolls of <span class="caps">E.V.</span> Day, which reference both embalmed Egyptian queens and captive Islamic women barely visible in their burkas, compliment the lush, self-portraits of historical set paintings of Julie Heffernan. The sexual identity photographs of Sarah Baley share a forum with the graphite drawings of Maria Porges. In their totality, all the exhibiting artists stake their claim to redefining the vocabulary of the female figure imagery.</p> <p>Curator Chrissy Crawford opened her own art advisory while in London working directly with private clients. Her business moved to New York in 2006 with a focus on independent curating. After fifteen years in the art world, Blanchard has opened her own establishment to focus on her specific vision. She will be exhibiting and representing artists reflecting that cutting-edge point of view. Located in the burgeoning gallery district on the Lower East Side, the space will be within the sphere of the recently relocated New Museum.</p></div> http://colletteblanchard.com/exhibition/view/1540 Press: "Top 10 Shows to See In New York City" (Huffington Post) <p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/artinfo/the-top-ten-shows-to-see_b_671701.html">link</a></p> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/artinfo/the-top-ten-shows-to-see_b_671701.html