PAST EVENTS
<--Back to Current and Upcoming Events
Location: 44-02 23rd Street, Long Island City, NY 11101
Hours: Thursday - Sunday 12-6pm
Joyce Silver “Hope and Heritage”
June 24 - July 11, 2010Opening Reception: Thursday, June 24 6-8pm
M55 Art 44-02 23rd Street Long Island City NY 11101 is pleased to announce the exhibition of:
June 24 – July 11, 2010
Opening Reception Thursday, June24, 6-8pm
Gallery Hours: Wed-Sat 12-6pm
My work exists on the border between realism and abstraction, where things are not always what they seem. Strong color and bold design force their way into awareness,
playing with distortions of space and form. The subjects chose me because I am intrigued and curious about everything I see. I’m inspired by ideas that seem to come “out of the blue” – something I’ve seen, something someone mentions. Once I get an idea it grabs hold of
me, my mind sparks variations on the idea so I often work in series. I like to work with collage because of the spontaneity and freedom it provides. What the work looks like when it’s finished is always a surprise to me because I can’t remember making the decisions that created it.
My hand seemed to move on it’s own. The pleasure of the surprise is a big part of why I make art.
Coming from a secular background it’s been difficult for me to connect with my heritage in an authentic way. As I tried to find my way “in”, my imagination was first captured by the formal beauty of Hebrew letters with their strong graphic elements. Unlike our Western alphabet where letters only represent sounds, in the Kabbalah, Hebrew letters are considered sacred and have mystical meanings. For example, the first letter of the alphabet, Aleph, has no sound because
it represents the unknowingness of God’s energy that exists before the world is created. Hebrew words are developed from a 3-letter root. Words that are formed from the same root letters can be used interchangeably, adding many layers of meaning. This allows for ongoing continuous interpretations of Jewish texts. I became intrigued with this method of ancient texts being interpreted and re- interpreted in a dialogue with individuals past and present. This is similar to the method of deep understanding of the human condition that is used in psychoanalysis (my other profession). I was hooked! Being able to explore ancient, cryptic, Jewish thought and develop meaning that’s valuable for today’s world is immensely satisfying to me. Putting some this exploration into a visual form adds another level of understanding and pleasure.
For more info & artist special presentation contact:
Assa Bigger
Director
M55 Art Gallery
Yosuke Ito
June 2 - June 19, 2010Opening Reception: Saturday June 5, 6-8pm
M55 Art 44-02 23rd Street Long Island City NY 11101 is pleased to announce the exhibition of:
Yosuke Ito
Lighting Loop 2010 part 1
Lighting Loop 2010 part 2
June 2-19, 2010
Opening: Saturday, June 5, 6-8pm
Gallery Hours: Wed-Sat 12-6pm
M55 Art is pleased to announce a new installation by Tokyo-based artist Yosuke Ito. In his new piece, Ito places more than twenty tiny toy propellers powered by solar cells on the floor. Their images, captured on a CCD camera, are then projected onto the gallery wall, enlarging them to ceiling height. Shadows of passing spectators appear on the wall, creating an image of people wandering through giant propellers.
This new installation continues Ito’s exploration from his previous exhibit at M55 Art. As a visual narrative, Ito’s work layers the continuum of seeing the energy and movement of people in space, especially as it occurs in today’s surveillance society.
Lighting Loop 2010 Installation Photos
The Mechanisms of Seeing
Yosuke Ito’s “Lighting Loop”
How we look at something determines (and is determined by) our experience of the world. For most of us it’s a seamless process going on in the networks of our brains, but shine a spotlight on that procedure and you can reach a kind of post-modern enlightenment—the kind that raises more questions than it answers.
Tokyo-based artist Yosuke Ito has always coupled low technology and high ideas to highlight for art-goers the processes by which we humans take in raw data and construct sense-making narratives. Yosuke considers himself an aesthetic architect, and his current gallery construction, “Lighting Loop,” at M55 Art, is a room-sized sculpture using light, electricity and air as raw material; it brakes new ground for the artist in that it is partly inspired by an overt political idea—the problems of the environmental crisis.
Colorful toy propellers stand propped in one corner of the gallery, powered in their spins by tiny solar cells. The digital image of these spinning propellers is sent to a light projector, which throws both the digital images as well as the shadows of the actual propellers onto the opposite gallery wall. The result is a kaleidoscopic array of giant wind machines, the colored images intermingling with their shadowy doppelgangers.
A visitor examining “Lighting Loop” soon realizes that you understand the piece thanks to two distinct modes of perception: the analytical scrutiny of the mini-infrastructure—the wires, little wind machines and playing-card-sized solar panels—and the visual absorption of the image projected onto the wall. You catch yourself in a left-brain/right-brain split; we analyze structures but absorb images. The implications are enormous, and not just for environmental issues: Do we analyze our political ideas, or simply absorb them?
Stephen Bracco
Art Writer
New York
For more info & artist special presentation contact:
Assa Bigger
Director
M55 Art Gallery
Alfred Martinez
May 13 -May 30, 2010Opening Reception:
M55 Art 44-02 23rd Street Long Island City NY 11101 is pleased to announce the exhibition of:
“The Digital Pilgrim”
Painting collage installation
May 13- May 30, 2010
Gallery hours: Wed-Sat, 12-6 p.m.
Saturday May 22 1-6pm open studio LIC Art Center
Alfred will present his work at the gallery from 2-6pm
Check out “The Digital Pilgrim” Photos installation:
http://picasaweb.google.com/109624047000114158199/AlfredMartinezTheDigitalPilgrim##
Alfred Martinez created this large painted collage as a narrative work. Last summer he made a pilgrimage to the city of Santiago de Compostela by walking across northern Spain. He had no assumptions about going on a pilgrimage to a religious place because he does not really think this way. Amazingly, this pilgrimage venture did provided an extremely human connective experience for him. He found most of the people he met were on some kind of unknown quest excursion. He felt these people were very self actualized individuals. They were concerned as individuals about themselves, the uncontrollable forces in today’s world and the hopeful possibilities that they recognized in human nature. Martinez went on this pilgrimage in order to realize new imagery for his work. He took a digital camera on the pilgrimage to collect imagery he thought would contribute to a subjective visual language. He feels for most of us living daily life, experience a stabile type of predictability. This collage’s digital pictures show many of these people moving in what might be considered unpredictable environments. The places he walked often had an ancient quality and others were as contemporary as any place encountered in present day urban life. Martinez felt when trying to conceptualize the Santiago experience that he had no choice but to create a painted collage. Collage affords multiple ways for conveying poetic narrative. Martinez sees this installation collage as an initial work from his thoughts on the Santiago pilgrimage. He created this piece in his Chinatown studio in New York City studio where he works and lives.
The collage is a 12’ x 10’ feet paper hanging installation. The paper is imbedded with digital frames showing slide pictures on a painted and graphic surface. Flower images are incorporated as the format for the pilgrimage narrative. Through out the walk in Spain Martinez saw a wide variety of flowers growing. The flower imagery becomes a major visual influence on this personal narrative. The other strong source for flower imagery on the collage stems from his wife’s flower garden in New Jersey. The installation is also coupled with projection imagery and audio sound effects. Most of the visual concepts for this collage were processed digitally in a computer; all the pictures, graphics and audio clips are a result of digitizing. The painted collage installation is the only work in this exhibit. The intent of the work is to have a single work experience.
Alfred Martinez grew up in Texas and graduated from Southern Methodist University with a BFA in painting. As a graduate student at Syracuse University he was awarded a graduate fellowship to travel and do research work in Europe. Presently he teaches at the University of Connecticut Hartford Campus.
For more info & artist special presentation contact:
Assa Bigger
Director
M55 Art Gallery
Jeff Way
April 22 - May 9 2010Opening Reception: Saturday April 24, 6-8pm
M55 Art 44-02 23rd Street Long Island City NY 11101 is pleased to announce the exhibition of:
Works on Paper from 1970’s to 2010
Sunday May 9 5-8pm
Screening of “Transformations”
Combined performances by Jeff Way, edited by Jasmin Way
April 22 thru May 9, 2010
Closing Party Reception: Sunday, May 9, 5 – 8 pm
Special Screening of “Transformations”
Combined performances by Jeff Way, edited by Jasmin Way
From 1969 to 1973, Way created process based chalk-line paintings. When he began to move away from pure abstraction, in 1973, Way started using collage and drawing to find new directions, making radical changes in his work.
These changes began with image-based drawings that dealt with basic existential questions and personal fears. Many of these first works were self-portraits. Next, he did a group of four collages based on portraits of Kurt Schwitters that became the basis for his first series of “Heads”. The original small drawings made from the collages were crucial in developing this series.
Since then, Way has continued this process of collage and drawing to create subsequent series such as: “Tribal Heads” (’84-’86), “Surrealist Heads” (’91-’94), “Blues Heads” (’94-’95), and “Bebop Bauhaus Heads” (’99-2000). From the late 70’s through the 90’s figures from art history and popular culture who had achieved a mythic status, such as, Elvis, Marilyn, and Fred Astaire, were the focus of much of his work. Again, the collage and drawing process was crucial in the development this imagery.
In addition to painting, since the mid 70’s, Way has been making masks. Some of the early masks came from dreams and drawing provided the first step to realizing the images. While not every mask proceeds from a drawing, it is the case for many of them.
Drawings and collages from all these series are included in this exhibition. While some have been previously exhibited, many are being shown for the first time.
Jeff Way is from Ohio and is a resident of New York City. He has a BA from Kenyon College and an MA from NYU. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums since 1970. His paintings, masks, and drawings are in museum, corporate and private collections including: the Whitney Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Chase Manhattan Bank. He is currently the Assistant Chair of the Fine Arts Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology where he has taught since 1985.
For further information please contact:
Assa Bigger M55 Art : 718-729-2988 info@m55art.org
Or go to: www.jeffwayart.com
Stephanie DeManuelle
April 1 - April 18Opening Reception: Thursday, April 8. 6-9pm
STEPHANIE DEMANUELLE SHOWS PAINTINGS AT M55 GALLERY
Stephanie DeManuelle’s abstract paintings have their origins in nature – shapes found in roots, driftwood or shells. The paintings are a result of a continuous drawing process that accretes layers of paint as the artist follows a visual trail through the motif.
The resulting paintings are experienced through the voice of the material – the use of thickly textured and viscous earth toned mixtures that suggest anthropomorphic or geographic imagery.
Dominant in these paintings is movement and turbulence – the relationships in the paintings a ‘stand in’ for the invisible forces, sensations and tensions that govern our consciouness.
Stephanie DeManuelle grew up in south Louisiana and summers in the Adirondack mountains of New York State. She feels the influence of both locales in her work.
She has been a faculty member of the Fine Arts Department at Fashion Institute of Technology since 1983 and currently serves as its Chairperson.
Exhibition dates April 1-18, 2010
Reception April 8 6-9pm
M55 is open Wednesday-Saturday 12-6pm
“In High Ribbons” Paintings & Drawings by Judy Russell
March 11 -March 28Opening Reception: Saturday March 13, 6-8pm
M55 ART 44-02 23rd Street Long Island City NY 11101
is pleased to presents:
“In High Ribbons”
Paintings & Drawings
March 11 – March 28 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday March 13 6-8pm
M55 Art is proud to announce an exhibition of new works by Judy Russell.
Judy and her husband, Robin have lived in Soho since 1973. Now they divide their time between New York City and their home in Delaware County, NY.
Judy has shown work widely in New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida. She has paintings in collections in New York, Illinois, and Virginia. She has been a member of 55 Mercer Gallery since 1982.
In July 2009 Judy’s paintings contributed to the set of the production of Moliere’s “The Imaginary Invalid” at The Cell Theater on 23rd Street Manhattan.
Artist Statement
“In High Ribbons,” a phrase from Tolstoy’s War and Peace, suggests the experience of beauty. For me, it connotes a transcendent effect of color, form and line.
I began painting in France and my work still reveals a French influence. Cézanne was my first teacher. As I was painting still lifes, I’d go to the Jeu de Paume to see how a picture was made. I continued painting when I returned to the United States: in Ohio, Philadelphia, Boston, and New Mexico where I lived and taught on the Cochiti and Isleta reservations. Different milieus and ways of life contributed to my development.
My paintings convey a myriad of my experiences. “The Fine of Delight” and “The Long Gold” have the iridescent effect I like. The verbal image in Monica Tarantino’s poems always provokes ideas. An unexpected source of images and titles for paintings is my experience working as an art therapist at the 80th Street Residence for the Memory Impaired on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I enjoy Gertrude Stein-like conversations with the residents. When I praised one woman’s drawing, she explained to me, with great conviction, that it was a car driving itself backward up a hill. I encourage residents to begin paintings as I do, with drifts of color on wet paper or canvas.
Contemporary painters I like are Barnaby Furnas and Lori Hersberger. I can get lost in the wide swathes of color and fine details of J.M.W. Turner.
I keep my eyes open for the quotidian and the sublime.
For more information please contact Assa Bigger at info@m55art.org
Marcin Wlodarczyk "ANXIETY"
February 18 - March 7Opening Reception: February 20 6-8pm; Armory Show Party Reception: Friday March 5 5-8pm
M55 ART 44-02 23rd Street Long Island City NY 11101 is pleased to presents:
Marcin Wlodarczyk “ANXIETY”
February 18 – March 7, 2010
Armory Show Party Reception: Friday March 5 5-8pm
Uneasy, pressure imposed by myself and others, managing my thoughts into one larger thought- tying the smaller thoughts together- connecting them. Emotional anxiety- not just negative pressure, both sides of it. Waiting for something to happen- the energy of it finally coming outward. Sense of accomplishment- eager ness of waiting for the result. Built up moments. A sort of 1hi-max and the fluctuation of that high through-out it.
(*)Main Entry: 1hi·max
Pronunciation: ˈhī-ˌmaks
Function: noun
1 : The point of greatest intensity or power in a series of events, ideas or statements 2 a : the highest point : CULMINATION b : the point of highest dramatic tension or a major turning point in the action 3 : The stage at which a community of organisms reaches a stable, self perpetuating balance. *syns: ACME, APEX,APOGEE,CREST, CROWN, HEIGHT, PEAK, SUMMIT, ZENITH 1—-hi·max v.
Assa Bigger “Concerto of Illumination”
February 18 - March 7Opening Reception: February 20 6-8pm; Armory Show Party Reception: Friday March 5 5-8pm
M55 ART 44-02 23rd Street Long Island City NY 11101 is pleased to presents:
Assa Bigger “Concerto of Illumination”
February 18 – March 7, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 20 6-8pm
Armory Show Party Reception: Friday March 5 5-8pm
New York, February 9, 2010 – From February 18 through March 7 2010,
Bigger Design Studio in Collaboration with The Wrong Gallery Presents:
“Concerto of Illumination” A virtual collaboration of LIC artists, musician, poets, dancers and performance arts curated by Assa Bigger.
“Concerto of Illumination” is a site-specific video installation in temporal harmony with the LICARMORYFEST as part of the Armory show 2010
The gallery will be open for visual and performance artists, generating a spontaneous collaboration that will create a “Concerto of Illumination”. The show will feature works of art in video installations screened through M55 Gallery storefront windows and projected on the brick wall across the street as a virtual graffiti. During the exhibition dates, performances will take place in and around the gallery 24/7.
Video Loops. Art. Music. Noise. One Place. One Weekend.
So how you could be involved?
Options to participate:
For all artists:
Submit your portfolio on a CD and you will be part of hundreds of artists projecting and presenting on a monitor and a projector. All CD’s must be in JPEG format.
Submit a monitor with a DVD accompanies your CD and you will have an individual slot to present your work.
Submit a projector with a DVD accompany your CD and you will have a individual slot to project your work
Submit a slide projector with slides and you will have an individual slot to project your work.
Submit a digital photo frame with Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Microdrive, MultiMediaCard, SD Memory Card, xD-Picture Card and you will have an individual slot to present your work.
Submits a monitor, a digital photo frame and a projector accompany your CD and you will have an individual slot to present your work
Any other creative ideas for projecting and presenting your work virtually are strongly welcome.
For video artists:
Video work will be projected from sunset till sunrise.
What to submit:
Submit Your Video(s) on a standard NTSC formatted DVD that plays in a DVD player. Video should be no more than 60 minutes in total length and each video on the DVD should be a single chapter. No QuickTime files. Clearly mark the outside of the DVD with your name and title(s) of the work(s). Do not submit original work.
Maximum 1 projector/monitor/slide/DVD per artist/organization
This project is a first come first serve MARC JACOBS style methods.
Drop off equipments and Materials starting from Sunday February 14.
To schedule a drop of and for any other info about the event feel free to contact Assa Bigger director M55 Art Gallery at info@m55art.org
For Performance artist:
Musicians, Yoga masters and macramé grannies. Come join us- per hour, in/out doors. To take part please submit a concept for an hourly performance to better show your field of interest.
For all organizations, institutions, businesses:
Submit a monitor with a DVD player and you will have a individual slot to advertise and promote yourselves.
For additional info please contact Assa Bigger at info@m55art.org
Please put in the subject line Long Island City Armory Fest.
"DRAWING ON PAPER"
January 28, 2010 - February 14 , 2010Opening Reception: February 4, 6-8pm
M55 44-02 23rd Street Long Island City NY 11101 is pleased to Presents
“DRAWING ON PAPER”
Jan 28 – Feb 14
Opening Reception
Thursday February 4 6-8 pm
Featuring drawings by gallery artists
Alexis Kuhr
Alfred Martinez
Alix Ankele
Annette Morriss
Assa Bigger
Ed Rath
Eileen Mislove
Garrett Klein
Ilia Reyentovich
Jeff Way
Judy Russell
Karen Gentile
Kathleen Granados
Kenneth Park
Lisa Fellerson
Marcin Wlodarczyk
Melissa Starke
Peter Charlap
Peter J Hoffmeister
Rand Hardy
Richard Pitts
Teresa Jarzynski
Yosuke Ito
Enid Sanford New Paintings
January 7, 2010 - January 24, 2010Opening Reception: January 14, 2010 6-8pm
M55 44-02 23rd Street Long Island City NY 11101 is pleased to announce
Enid Sanford New Paintings
January 7 – January 24, 2010
Opening Reception Thursday, January 14 6-8 PM
Opening Night Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/m55art/sets/72157623263744490/
“There is a simplicity to this body of work while creating an immediate, complex, and deep relationship with the viewer, at the same time the paintings maintain a resonate relationship to each other.”
Anthony Cafritz
The exhibition consists of paintings and a group of drawings, all created within the last year. They are being exhibited for the first time and this exhibition will be Sanford’ first one-person show at M55 Gallery.
The paintings within this exhibition mark an important step forward in Sanford’ oeuvre. The influence of scientific theory is present in familiar built-up biomorphic patterns upon which the images are built. Sanford continues to investigate the complexities of space that painting alone is able to conjure, drawing on the tension between organic and in-organic forms. Sanford’s new work speaks not of forms but of forces and intensities, not of the stabilities of the pattern but of dynamic movement—some of the conceptual possibilities available to pictorial space when one pushes paint around and through and ultimately off the pattern.
Sanford’s latest work continues to explore new uses for abstraction while incorporating a wide variety of visual influences, from computer-generated graphics, to photography, and to kaleidoscopic formal arrays. The artist’s melding of architectonic composition and organic form is reflected the paintings; they are an organization of varying speeds and intensities—a pragmatic practice of the abstract mixing and rearranging of data. Her pictures are an assembly of generations of ‘readings’ that spring from an initial image, reinterpreted through shifts in color, shape and scale, and through the overlays of multiple webs of paint.
Sanford’s paintings and drawings combine biomorphic imagery with abstract pattern. The muted, earth-tone colors of her early work have progressively become more vibrant.
The artist states, “When I work, it takes me about two hours to get rid of all the babble/soundtrack in my mind. Getting rid of the painting clichés takes a little longer. Sometimes I surprise myself when I paint; then it really gets interesting and I realize what I didn’t know I know. This seems to take place on that mysterious level when we forget about what we think of as ourselves.”
Enid Sanford New Paintings will be on view at M55 Gallery at 44-02 23rd Street Long Island City through January 24, 2010.
Special Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, from 12:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.
For further information please contact
Assa Bigger
Director M55 art
T: 718-729-2988
Email: info@m55art.org
“A Night of 1001 Prints”
December 17 2009– December 20 2009Opening Reception: Thursday December 17th 2009 5pm-8pm
Cash & Carry Charity Fundraising Event
Everybody. Let the celebration of “A Night of 1001 Prints” begin!
The exhibition celebrates the unique aspect of the printmaking process. This event celebrates the Cultural diversity of visual art and provides viewers with the opportunity to experience the magical aspect of printmaking.
Featuring prints by:
Alex Choi, Alfred Martinez, Anka Jurena, Anthony Martino, Assa Bigger, Bill Opper, Boris Minkovskij, Bryan Coello, Dana Burns, Dongeun Lee, Eniko Szucs, Eric S. Killens, Firth MacMillan, Ged Merino, Jeff Way, Jennifer Congo, John Dowling, Jordan Liv, Joseph F Palumbo, Joshua Tousignant, Kaitlyn Jeffers, Kathleen Granados, Karen Gentile, Karen Holmberg, Kari Emil Helgason, Kirsten Flaherty, Kobi Perez, Lauren Eardley Evans, Lauren Mailey, Lisa Fellerson, Magda Carolina Gomez, Marcel Bronstien, Marcin Wlodarczyk, Maria Luisa Tamara, Maurizio Cattelan, Melissa Starke, Michal Katz, Nils Hasche, Pansum Cheng, Peter J Hoffmeister, Richard Pitts, Richard Prince, Samantha Jasanorsky, Sara Lauth, Susan Kim, Slavko D Juric, Veronica Staenle, Vica Adutov, Vladmir Sheremet, Will Haude, Zhang Qingyun
“A Night of a 1001 Prints” is a charity event, which all sales from this event will be donated to Angel Wish Foundation. Angel Wish was created in 1999 with the mission to provide the public with an easy way to grant wishes to the millions of children that are living with HIV/AIDS around the world. http://www.angelwish.org/
Opening Reception: Thursday Dec. 17th 2009 5pm-8pm
Event hours: Thursday Dec. 17th – Sunday Dec 20th 12pm-10pm
“A Night of 1001 Prints” Application
Thursday December 17th - Sunday December 20thOpening Reception: Thursday December 17th 2009 5pm-8pm
Open Call To all Artists
*Please submit all prints with the form below by December 6th , 2009 *There is $5.00 entry fee for each print. This will be used for the rent of the space, display, wrap service, and promotional purposes. *Please submit your Prints without matt-board or frame.
“A Night of a 1001 Prints” Application
Hand or send your entry to:
Gallery at 44-02 23rd Street, Long Island City, 11101
www.M55Art.org
718-729-2988
Acceptance to this exhibition necessitates that your work will remain on view for the duration of the exhibition and loan period. Artists should have their own insurance for their art. Include your name on all your artwork submissions. Delivery and pick up of the work is the artist’s responsibility. The pick-up dates are between Jan. 13th~Jan. 16th, 12pm to 6 pm. The Gallery will not storage any work after the pick up deadline. If you cannot make a visit during the pick-up dates, please send stamped, return envelop with your works along with your application.
Questions should be directed to Assa or Alex at: info@m55art.org
Download the word format submission here http://www.angelwish.org/events/m55/1001prints.doc
Download the PDF format submission here http://www.angelwish.org/events/m55/1001prints.pdf
*40 x 19 x 11 emerging artists*
November 12, 2009 – December 6, 2009Opening Reception: Thursday, November 12, 6-9pm
M55 Art44-02 23rd Street Long Island City NY 11101
is pleased to announce
40 × 19 × 11
emerging artists
a group exhibition by Art Collective
November 12, 2009 – December 6, 2009
Opening Reception
Thursday, November 12, 6-9pm
PRESS RELEASE
When the various guilds of fifteenth-century Florence were commissioned to fill the niches of the Orsanmichele Church with representations of their respective patron saints, their strategies were fundamentally similar: create works unique enough to establish their presence within the shared space. Knowing that most guilds were working with a classical approach, the wealthy Arte di Calimala, or wool merchants’ guild, hired Lorenzo Ghiberti to sculpt their St. John the Baptist within the International Gothic style. The aesthetic not only communicated their wealth and power—associations central to the style—but also served to distinguish them from a predominantly classical context. The very nature of competition was responsible for the appearance of many such artworks; receiving public attention meant greater prestige for both patron and artist alike. Such is the state of affairs that is intensely familiar today.
In a city with many more artists than available niches, the competition for space has never been greater in any other point in history, and neither has its diversity. Because art is reflective of the society that produced it, and changes stylistically depending on the pace of change within society, present-day artists create in a time of change so quick and dramatic that it is inevitable that their work would respond to it. What is more, our excavations and appropriations of non-Western art over the last few centuries have made the world’s immeasurably diverse artistic heritage readily available to us, expanding our standards, our expectations, and our view of the earth, diversifying our styles and exhibitions within it.
The title of the exhibition, 40’ x 19’ x 11’, uses the dimensions of the gallery to refer to our own niche carved within the four corners of the space. Just like the guilds and artists of Orsanmichele, it describes the honest concerns of the emerging, and no doubt, even the established artist: mainly, how one looks in a greater artistic context. The juried nature of the exhibition further emphasizes this idea, as it was through competition that artists were selected to display their work. This fight for space and attention is a critical part of the artists’ hopes of creating unique and compelling works that still manage to captivate even when viewed within a broad range of contexts.
Vladimir Sheremet, participating artist
November 2009
Featuring work by:
Nicole Devens, Christine Marzano, Faith Edeson, Jade Chan, Edyte Bialkowsli, Maria Luisa Tamara, Anka Jurena, Cassandra Holden, Princess Campbell, Carla Villaroman, John Furth, Zhi Huang, Hyungyung Bae, Anastasiya Tarasenko, Elijah Robinson, Katie Huber, Siobhan Mullan, Harold Hernandez, Leela le Noury, Josh Tousignant, Joanne Ambia, Arianna Santoriello, Magda Carolina Gomez, Dana Burns, Lauren Mailey, Miguel Brito, Kathleen Granados, Cristina Razzano, Heidi Wenzel, Emma Taylor, Vlad Sheremet, Pansum Cheng, Bill Opper, Ashley Alcime, Teresa Jarzynski & Mollie Bassett.
" LETTERS FROM THE MOON "
October 22 - November 7, 2009Opening Reception: Thursday, October 22nd, 6-9pm, 2009
M55 ART is pleased to announce
“ LETTERS FROM THE MOON “
An exhibition of works by:
Kathleen Granados
Peter J Hoffmeister
Teresa Jarzynski
October 22 – November 7
Opening Reception
Thursday, October 22nd, 6-9pm
44-02 23rd street
Long Island City, NY 11101
Gallery hours: Wednesday – Saturday 12-6pm
T: 718-729-2988
M55art.org
Opening Night Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/m55art/sets/72157623139044321/
Michal Shapiro : Mosaic Series in Recycled Media
June 23- July 12, 2009Opening Reception: Thursday, June 25
I have painted for many years on canvas, but my current body of work is created from the styrofoam trays grocery stores package meat and produce in. They do not degrade but for some reason are not recycled. About five years ago I stopped throwing them out and started using them in my artwork. The process I have evolved begins as I paint on the trays directly, randomly cut them up and thoughtfully glue them to canvas. I realize that each painted piece I cut is a microcosm (a beautiful abstraction in and of itself.) So I let the pieces lead me to a conclusion or I subordinate them to a larger, planned structure. The spontaneity of this process is engrossing, and I find myself stimulated by the aesthetic statements these pieces make in combination, which I might not have chosen under other circumstances. Color, texture and pattern collide, collude and create passages that are surprisingly organic for pieces that are geometric in shape. The surface activity can be linear or spatial or modular, sometimes sculptural and sometimes all of these. The gestures can be small, or grand; the paintings can be complex or simple. The process can take on the feeling of a cadavre exquise, though of course, I always have the ultimate say! My work is a combination of process and decision-making. Formerly I characterized my artistic endeavors as “chasing colors and shapes across a canvas.” This particular medium has expanded that chase.
Assa Bigger - Genesis 1: 1-31
June 6 - 21 , Seven Days a week, Sunset until SunriseOpening Reception: june 6 7-10 pm
*Gallery 2—Assa Bigger: Genesis 1: 1-31
Assa Bigger
Genesis 1: 1-31 is a time base & sound installation consisted of a collection of frames superimposing images of old masters’ works from the book of Genesis with numerous translations of Genesis chapter 1.
Having reconstruction these images as the background for the scrolling translation the work examine and highlights the issues of irony, history, assumption, diversity, mystical time, spiritual space, artistic authenticity and image consumption.
The sound that involved major figures in the artists life create another layer for the complicity of the text and to the babelion aspect that we enjoying every day in NYC
Celebration of life, beginning, diversity, sound & language.
The video installation is projected every night from sunset till sunrise!
The time base installation emphasizes the mystical and spiritual time on which the projection accrues.
The exhibition will feature a multilayer channel video installation and accompany with an artist book, both of which explore art historical representations m through the use of appropriated material.
The images produced by superimposing and re-photographing images of works by Renaissance and Modern masters Titian, Raphael that was borrowed from the wide world web.
The images, related to a series published in an artist book that examine how art history constructs the artist as a Tran historical subject and, in particular, how that construction is articulated in relation to representations of language. The resulting images are dissonant and grotesque, a mash-up of Renaissance figuration and lost in translation the language abstraction.
The conflict between the religious Disneyland and the meditative sanctuary!
Sharing the same physical room is the work of the polish born NY base artist Marcin Wlardotszk titled “Saints “. In his work he uses the sense of saint with the irony that the project got influence by famous criminals.
Genesis 1, 1-31 is a multilayer time based & sound installation combining images, language and sound through different mediums such as print, sound and video. It includes numerous translations of the text of Genesis chapter 1, voices of the people that are reading the text, images of old masters’ from the Renaissance and an ingenious sound track. The installation will be projected from inside of the Gallery to the glass window where passersby will find themselves in the middle of a sound and visual experience in a public realm. The installation will take place between sunset and sunrise –a spiritual timing indistinct whether it is a beginning or an end. The project’s emphasis is on the singular bond among all humans in all their diversity. The images as the background for the scrolling text translations of Genesis 1 and the voices with the sound track create the ambiance for the installation where the translations, the images and the sound are mixed indiscriminately. The project examines and highlights the issues of history, diversity, spirituality, artistic authenticity and image consumption. It reveals the complexity of the Babylonian aspect of any metropolitan city across the world.
The interactive aspect of the project is essential. The sound and emphasizes the diversity and brings different cultures, backgrounds and languages together. Another aspect is the invitation of the community to interact, engage and enjoy during the installation period. The goal is to create an art installation as if it weren’t a formal exhibition at all, but a gathering of friends, sharing stories and temporarily escaping the pervasively isolated nature of contemporary life in their natural habitat. The audience for this project is everyday people that don’t usually go to art events or never even thought becoming a part of an art installation; let alone thinking of their neighborhood and community as a place for art. The place would transform into a totally different environment applauding the people to stop, look, listen and remark. Their input will continue the dialogue and develop the project. During the research time I will interact with local community services, libraries and so forth. This will open the project for more information and knowledge – so far I have 28 languages I would like to use, but open to see if there are more.
A single piece of written text, the most popular in the history of the world, presented in a different context, will make people relate to one another, start a dialogue, broaden their knowledge without leaving their habitat. Using language, image and sound – which are all available matters – in a new way to bring mutual appreciation in the community. The goal of this project is to open up the casual space to dialogue, to allow for chance interactions and to physically show the fraying of the seams between art and life.
The main idea of the project is to explore the dynamics of visual, conceptual and linguistic presentation with a specific text and imageries. The project shows different perspectives of people sharing the same environment. The idea of using a space in an unusual way, in an unconventional time with everyday people is inspiring and stimulating. The mission of the project is to open the physical space and the people in it to a traditional and innovative dialogue during the creation and presentation of project. The exchange of ideas, thoughts, opinions, views, feelings, judgments and dreams – among the people in the community – are the core of this project; making it available to everyone, in a public space involving different senses to experience art.
The project will bring people from different backgrounds, cultures, mentalities, languages and religions to interact. The project will encourage the meaningful aspect of creation. Since the project deals with the concept of language, the way we read, hear and interpret different king of languages; the interaction will happen through out the project origin, production and presentation.
The project will celebrated the diversity of the community and will connect each and every person in that community.
Presenting the installation for the first time in Queens was a natural choice for being according to a 2001 Claritas study, the most diverse county in the United States among counties of 100,000+ populations and for the 138 languages spoken in the borough.
Yosuke Ito
June 4 - June 21, 2009Opening Reception: June 6, 2009 7-10pm
Gallery 1—Yosuke Ito : Lighting Loop
> Yosuke Ito is a Tokyo-based artist and international exhibitor. His artistic subject has focused on environmental issues through lighting, images and their gathering followed by their dispersal. In 2006-2007, Ito showed “Reflected Landscape” and “Floating Landscapes” at 55 Mercer Gallery. Ito used loops to symbolize a connection between shooting and projecting. While we normally take photographs the same way that Camera Obscura creates image/perception through the eyes, then projects the images in a dark space to show them, Ito instead set several hand mirrors between a projector and the walls to spread the reflected fragmented images, just as if the shot images were given back to the landscapes in situ.
>
> This time at M55 Art, Ito develops his ideas into a visual narrative. The dispersal of light is transferred to the circular motion of propellers powered by solar cells, suggesting the far-reaching implications regarding current global environmental issues.
Ed Rath
May 14 - May 31,2009Opening Reception: Saturday May 15. 2009
Gallery 1—Ed Rath : Terrible Trees
Ed Rath
In his latest acrylic paintings on view at M55Art Ed Rath pushes the idea of “the landscape as a representation of our inner world” to new heights. Through the use of anthropomorphic trees Rath depicts fantasies and behaviors that he has only hinted at in his earlier work. Combined with his repertoire of expressionistic color and flat abstract design, these characters personify various emotional states with total abandon and a new directness. Acting out scenarios of murderous rage, fear, sensuality, and loving tenderness, Rath’s trees get drunk, smoke, chop each other up, cavort, laugh, and at times are out of control. Embodying the angst of the “everyman” archetype, these caricatures express emotions that we cannot always act upon in real life.
Ed Rath’s work is a continual evolution of the figurative and metaphorical. This series is no different, and indeed follows a path that was started in Minnesota, where the artist was born, to the Yale University MFA program and finally to DUMBO, where the artist lives and works. For more information on Rath please contact M55Art
Ed Rath - Terrible Trees
May 14 - May 31,2009Opening Reception: May 16, 2009 6-8PM
Gallery 1—Ed Rath : Terrible Trees
Ed Rath
In his latest acrylic paintings on view at M55Art Ed Rath pushes the idea of “the landscape as a representation of our inner world” to new heights. Through the use of anthropomorphic trees Rath depicts fantasies and behaviors that he has only hinted at in his earlier work. Combined with his repertoire of expressionistic color and flat abstract design, these characters personify various emotional states with total abandon and a new directness. Acting out scenarios of murderous rage, fear, sensuality, and loving tenderness, Rath’s trees get drunk, smoke, chop each other up, cavort, laugh, and at times are out of control. Embodying the angst of the “everyman” archetype, these caricatures express emotions that we cannot always act upon in real life.
Ed Rath’s work is a continual evolution of the figurative and metaphorical. This series is no different, and indeed follows a path that was started in Minnesota, where the artist was born, to the Yale University MFA program and finally to DUMBO, where the artist lives and works. For more information on Rath please contact M55Art
Tyrome Tripoli | Found Architecture
April 2 - April 18, 2009Opening Reception: Saturday, April 4, 5-8pm
Exhibition in Gallery 2
Tyrome Tripoli works in Bushwick, Brooklyn as a full time mixed media sculptor creating installations as well as executing architectural metal work commissions. Tripoli’s Found Architecture at M55 Art is grounded in his interest in creating sculpture that mimics the urban setting in which he works. His new sculptures re-vision various urban icons. Tripoli’s “skyscrapers,” assembled plastic, wood and metal “garbage” fastened simply with a few screws, evoke a city with tall, tenuous futuristic architecture made from banal objects of the past.
“De-contextualizing objects from their original purpose as well as emphasizing the negative spaces in forms fascinates me,” explains Tripoli about his mixed media sculpture in Found Architecture. “Made from a deco 1950s vacuum cleaner, disparate objects form a factory building of the future. To highlight the old world craftsmanship and to accent the balance between objects, space, the past and the future, is the essence of my work.”
In 2001 Tripoli participated in the San Francisco Refuse and Recycle Artist in residency program. It was there he discovered the potential of working with mixed media and creating conceptual sculpture. Focusing on assemblage sculpture and installation, Tripoli collects found objects from the streets of Brooklyn and masters his creations in a garage studio in Bushwick while also fabricating large metal pieces in New York.
Randee Silv | Endangered Gestures
April 2 - April 18, 2009Opening Reception: April 4, 2009, 5-8:00 P.M.
Exhibition in Gallery 1
Randee Silv
With this most recent group of painting, Silv brings our attention back to the very origins of painting while exposing the roots of our visual culture. These pieces are distinct in the way that they consider the process of image-making in a way that is both current and extraordinarily old.
In “The Mind in The Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art,” David Lewis-Williams compares the controversial abstract marks in Upper Paleolithic cave paintings with entoptic forms that have been documented during altered states of consciousness. These zig-zags, dots, meandering lines and nested curves are what we all see on the edge of our vision.
It is within these most primordial moments, before these flickering forms congeal into recognizable imagery, that Silv finds parallels with her own work. She asks us, in viewing these paintings, to consider whether the concept of art may have been initially triggered by abstract rather than iconic imagery. And i we acknowledge this, these endangered marks could widen our dialogue with the transitional potentiality of abstract gesture.
Michael Biddle | The Respondent Surface: Paintings 2005-2009
March 12 - March 29, 2009Opening Reception: March 14, 5-8:00 pm
Basha’s Palace, 2009, oil on canvas, 60 × 50 inches
Exhibition in Gallery 1
An M55 Art Guest Artist Exhibition
Michael Biddle’s work is always endowed with a sense of playfulness, which definitely pervades this recent group of paintings. But, there is also an element of disquiet, due in no small part to the tensions that he creates by contrasting a multitude of irregular shapes, surfaces and colors. One cannot help but consider the lessons from Hans Hoffmann, when confronted with, what Hoffmann termed, the “push-pull” of the picture plane. However, Biddle’s palette does not reveal such immediate artifice, with subtle gray shapes that are juxtaposed with warmer hues, often with a more bold and painterly application, again to assert the tensions that are so important to his elaborate surfaces.
There is a charm to these canvases that resonates with the artist’s sincere experiences throughout the process of artistic creation and they seem devoid of illusion, though the movement throughout the picture plane is definitely some kind of trick. Another of Biddle’s contrasting dynamics are his use of raw, sensitive and fluid lines that delineate shapes or otherwise contain the surfaces that he has worked up to a fat, often heavily textured bravado, with nothing raw about them. In and around these often sculptural textures, there are broad flat planes of paint that are reminiscent of a beautiful Venetian plaster.
These paintings are abstractions, but many of the shapes interact in a lively and whimsical way that is evocative of some sort of primative symbolism, which could be open to multiple interpretations. Further primitive references are inevitable when trying to decipher his emotive use of line, often repeated or morphed into the shapes. Michael Biddle’s titles sometimes give a clue as to how we might reference his meaning, but they do not seem to elucidate so much as complement the work. Basha’s Palace is the largest piece in the show and has a decorative aspect that reminds one of an oriental rug or a multitude of hanging tapestries in a private place. Other works similarly evoke a sense of place: Venice and Blue Lagoon seem to beckon to some far off watery location. Some works are more suggestive of an occurrence than of a location, as in the painting Collapse, with elements seemingly tumbling out from the heart of a tumultuous event. This series of works also appears to be compartmentalized in a way that could refer to the complicated design of a potentate’s exotic sanctum.
Michael Biddle has had numerous exhibitions, was the recipient of a NYFA Grant and a Research Foundation Grant from the State University of New York. He taught at and was Chair of the Fine Arts Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Michael Sanzone | Wood
March 12 - March 29, 2009Opening Reception: March 14, 5-8:00 pm