Don Doe/Timothy Hutchings
dal 16/1/2004 al 28/2/2004
Segnalato da
16/1/2004
Don Doe/Timothy Hutchings
Bodybuilder & Sportsman Gallery, Chicago
This exhibition extends Doe's previous examination of the blurred distinctions between art and everyday life, between the authoritative nudes of master painters and the pulp images of contemporary erotica, and between heterosexual male desire and our relatively recent problematization of the male gaze. Timothy Hutchings' 2001 video projection, The Arsenal at Danzig and Other Views depicts the artist as an animated tourist walking through and interacting with buildings and interiors destroyed in World Wars I and II such as St. Peter's Church in Belgium, the Krasinski Palace of Poland and The Dyet in Russia.
Main gallery
DON DOE - New Paintings
Project room
TIMOTHY HUTCHINGS - The Arsenal at Danzig and Other Views
BODYBUILDER & SPORTSMAN Gallery is pleased to announce New Paintings, an exhibition of new work by New York based artist Don Doe. This is Doe's first solo show with Bodybuilder & Sportsman Gallery. In the Project Room will be a video projection by New York based artist Timothy Hutchings titled The Arsenal at Danzig and Other Views, 2001. This will be Hutchings' first exhibition in Chicago.
MAIN GALLERY Don Doe's New Paintings features a series of five large-scale oil paintings of nude and scantily clad women being photographed. They are titled after mythical tales and biblical allegory, popular depictions throughout the Western cannon. Also shown is a collection of small watercolors on paper from his ''Pirate Gals'' series. This exhibition extends Doe's previous examination of the blurred distinctions between art and everyday life, between the authoritative nudes of master painters and the pulp images of contemporary erotica, and between heterosexual male desire and our relatively recent problematization of the male gaze.
Don Doe's early paintings were designedly tautological -ink brush drawings about the artist trying to find inspiration though art, his conflict between realism and abstraction, not to mention the dealers, assistants, models, and the overwhelming anxiety associated with a blank canvas. The large paintings presented here have evolved into a more allegorical approach, depicting sultry nudes with lurking attendants who utilize the camera as a voyeuristic device. A delicate tension is constructed between the model and his artist, the viewer of the painting and the viewer within the painting, and photographic reality and interpretive painterly fantasy. These paintings are a pointedly fresh examination of historic-fictional subjects, specifically those concerning the precarious balance of power between socialized notions of male and female sexuality. These themes have been the subject of many works by master painters, from Artemesia Gentileschi, Rembrandt (Susannah and the Elders, 1610 and c. 1636, respectively) and Titian (Danae Receiving the Golden Rain, 1553) to John William Waterhouse (Echo and Narcissus, 1903) and Gustav Klimt (Danae, 1907/08). The style of these paintings has drawn comparisons ranging from late Francis Picabia, 50s Gents magazines and comic artists, to Van Dyck and Daumier. More recently, however, Doe's work shares a discourse with contemporary artists including Lisa Yuskavage and John Currin in that their figurative work engages tradition, mastery, narrative, and all-out beauty.
Like his larger paintings, Doe's watercolors on paper from his ''Pirate Gals'' series are titillating images of fantastical pirate women that somehow belie the lascivious nature of the images. His finely wrought technique, along with the scale of the images and the gorgeousness of his compositions recall the intimacy and sincerity of travel sketches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Don Doe lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from Yale University School of Art in 1987. Never comfortable with the medium of sculpture Doe returned to painting the figure. Doe received the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 1991 and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Grant in 1992. When not painting Doe illustrates editorials and caricatures for periodicals and on-line journals. Recent solo exhibitions include: Recent Paintings, Apartment 5BE Gallery, New York (2002); Scopophilia, Bellwether Gallery, Brooklyn, New York (2001); and Don Doe/Bartlett, Anna Kustera Gallery, New York (1998). Recent group exhibitions include: Project Room, Bellwether Gallery, Brooklyn, New York (2001); New Figurists, RedDOT Gallery, New York (2002); Luscious Too, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago (2002); New Drawing Acquisitions, Chicago Art Institute (2002); Toledo Area Artists, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH (2002); Summer Show, Edward Thorp Gallery, New York (2001); High Wire, The New Yorker Gallery, Conde Naste Building, New York (2001); Pierogi Flatfiles, Block Art Space, Kansas City, MO (2001); Drawing from Brooklyn, Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Vermont (2000); and Super Duper New York, Pierogi 2000 Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York (2000).
PROJECT ROOM:
Timothy Hutchings' 2001 video projection, The Arsenal at Danzig and Other Views depicts the artist as an animated tourist walking through and interacting with buildings and interiors destroyed in World Wars I and II such as St. Peter's Church in Belgium, the Krasinski Palace of Poland and The Dyet in Russia. Constant throughout the almost seamless grainy sepia-toned black and white ''footage'' is the ambient sound of a film projector.
Sophie Fels wrote about this piece that was first seen in Hutchings 2001 solo show at I-20, (Artforum.com, 2002) ''...a faux-vintage, faux-travel, faux film... While newly unfrozen swans stretch their necks on twinkling waves, the artist waddles and waves through in period costume, placing himself in the frame like a watch in an archaeologist's field photograph that gives a sense of scale to these artifacts of prewar architecture and identity...'' Combining video and digital animation, Hutchings has reanimated these buildings while allowing small errors of motion to remain -a clue for viewers that the apparent charm of these lost buildings is not exactly what it seems.
What at first glance appears poignantly quaint, or perhaps historian's fodder, reveals itself to be a complicated examination of issues regarding loss, memory, and nostalgia. The persistent yet subtle play between documentation and invention mesmerizes even as the illusion is dispelled. In addition to two solo shows at I-20 in New York, Timothy Hutchings' group exhibitions include ''Videodrome II'' at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. ''The Pretendings'' at New Langton Arts, San Francisco curated by James Bewley. ''Centro Renia Sofia'' Madrid, Spain curated by Elena Vopato. ''Greater New York'' and ''Some Young New Yorkers, Part 2,'' at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center; ''Parking'' produced by MayDayProductions; ''Keep Fit, Be Happy'' at DeChiara Stewart; and ''Dissin' the Real'' at Galerie Krinzinger in Vienna. Hutchings was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and educated at the Kansas City Art Institute. He is a recipient of a Skowhegan Fellowship and received his MFA at the Yale University School of the Arts.
Image: Timothy Hutchings, The Arsenal of Danzig and Other Views, 2001. DVD video projection, color, sound 7:39 minutes
Bodybuilder & Sportsman Gallery
119 N. Peoria St. 2C, Chicago, IL 60607
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11a.m - 6p.m.