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14/10/2010

Two exhibitions

Winkleman Gallery, New York

Joy Garnett
Boom & Bust

Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present “Boom and Bust,” our second solo exhibition by New York artist Joy Garnett. In six dazzling new paintings, Garnett continues her investigation of sublime spectacle through works on canvas sourced from photography of military events. For the “Boom and Bust” series, her focus has shifted to the sky. Gone are the horizon lines or objects on the ground used to convey a sense of scale in her other works. Instead, Garnett’s explosive, phantasmagorical shapes evoke painterly tropes and pop iconography. They also bring to mind the psychological, cultural, and economic cycles of creation and destruction.

Garnett continues to develop her methods of the past decade, pulling source images from the Internet and other mass media outlets, where there is never any shortage of spectacular and apocalyptic imagery. Acknowledging that news footage and generic imagery of war, natural disasters and man-made catastrophes form much of our common, day-to-day experience both directly and through their derivatives in movies, gaming, television and entertainment culture, Garnett’s work diverts such imagery yet again through the “lens” of her painting, rendering it with a twist that is personal, playful, and moving.

Without a horizon line, the frame of both landscape and painting is suddenly afloat, aloft, escaping the original narratives of their source imagery and representations as we might come across them in vernacular settings. This approach permits a direct exploration through specific traditions in painting, as well as pop culture motifs. Hence, while presenting us with a central explosive form, each painting draws upon a range of cultural tropes, from the loose geometry of "O.P.P." and the evocative homage of "Rose," to the cartoon-like whoosh of air in "Poof" [pictured above], and the cataclysmic but no less compelling abyss of "Lost."

As Garnett has written about this work: “Perhaps perversely, the very unctuous medium of paint is an excellent tool to turn on the dominant form of the image today, which is electronic and photo-based. Paint offers us a real counterpoint as a material and as a mode of communication, and it packs a serious backlog of motifs, languages and genres that can be called into play literally with the flick of a wrist. What’s important to me, from the point of view of someone who makes paintings, is to allow the viewer to come to any meanings – any interpretations of content – on their own. What matters most is contemplation.”

Joy Garnett's paintings, based on images she gathers from the Internet, examine the apocalyptic sublime at the intersections of media, politics and culture. Notable past exhibitions include”That Was Then...This Is Now,” MoMA P.S.1 and “Image War,” Whitney Museum of American Art. She is a recipient of a grant from Anonymous Was a Woman, and serves as Arts Editor for the scholarly journal Cultural Politics. Garnett lives and works in New York.

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To John J. O'Connor from Nam June Paik
Organized by Seymour Barofsky

Beginning in the 1970s, in response to the early appreciation expressed in reviews of his artwork appearing in The New York Times, artist Nam June Paik mailed a stream of materials to the Times’ television critic John J. O’Connor. In one of his earlier letters, Paik declared O’Connor “the savior of video art itself.” For more than two decades Paik kept him abreast of his thoughts, work, and travels.

“To John J. O’Connor from Nam June Paik” comprises a selection of the letters, drawings, postcards, holiday greetings, and annotated books and articles sent by Paik and set aside by O’Connor over the years. Serious, yet full of whimsy, they remain as telling and delightful as they were when they were meant to charm a newspaper reviewer. They offer an insight into the long-term working relationship of a significant and groundbreaking artist and an important and influential critic of his work.

The exhibition, which includes a sampling of O’Connor’s writing on Paik as well as an example of Paik’s work that was broadcast on television, is a fascinating record of the mutual appreciation of an artist and critic. It is timed to coincide with and commemorate the first anniversary of the death of John J. O’Connor.

Nam June Paik (1932-2006) was a leading exponent of media-based art. He has had a profound influence on art, video and television.

John J. O’Connor (1933-2009) was television critic of The New York Times from 1971 to 1997. Before that he had been arts editor of the Wall Street Journal.

The exhibit was organized by Seymour Barofsky, a former editor (Schocken Books, Random House, etc.) and teacher.

Image: Joy Garnett, Poof, 2010, Oil on canvas, 48" X 60"

Opening: Friday, October 15, 2010, 6-8pm

Winkleman Gallery
621 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 - 6 PM
admission free

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