calendario eventi  :: 

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2/3/2004

Two exhibitions

Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art, New York

"New Work-Focus-New York" and "24 Frames" Photo-based Works by Arturo Cuenca and Linda Cummings

New York, NY - Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art (PSCA) announces the opening of two new exhibits entitled New Work-Focus-New York, featuring new mixed media works by Arturo Cuenca, and 24 Frames, exhibiting new photographs by Linda Cummings.

New Work-Focus-New York
Mixed Media by Arturo Cuenca
Arturo Cuenca, a Cuban-born visual artist will present new works in an exhibition at Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art. Cuenca's art combines photography, painting, and image manipulation on canvas. The works in this show focus on New York's architecture. The interaction of people with their environment, the relationship between individuals and the anonymity found in large buildings, the paradoxes that arise when one lives in a large, and sometimes overwhelming, urban environment. Cuenca's photo-paintings evoke the self and society in compelling ways.

Cuenca typically begins with a series of photographs that are scanned into a computer. Several negatives may be overlapped into a new single image. These are then printed on canvas, to which he hand paints the surface. The result is part mystery, part illusion. He captures the sometimes romantic view of one's relationship to the built space, while at others emphasizing the surprising power of nature to succeed in any situation, and still at others, the isolation which built environments can create. Buildings are meant to house and to protect. Cuenca questions whether individuals maintain their own identities and safeguard against societal norms. He causes the viewer to question everyday relationships between self, society, and the built environment.

Since his early days in the 1970s, Cuenca has been intrigued with blurring boundaries between various artistic mediums. He initially began as a painter working in a photorealist style and then by 1978 turned his attention more to photography, experimenting with the medium to create hybrid art forms with painting, sculpture, film, and installation art. According to Cuenca, his isolation in Cuba kept him unaware of many artistic developments. As a result he created his own brand of conceptual art, which he says links ideas related to photography and philosophy, or what he calls "photosophy." Cuenca says he is concerned with creating "a reflection of the subject of knowledge. For me, knowledge and everything that reflects reality has to do with light, with the concept of photography as an image of light." In his pursuit of both light and enlightenment, Cuenca uses photography as means to question subjectivity and perspective: "What I do in photography is to imitate the mechanism of mental knowledge."

Cuenca moved to New York in 1991 after he left Cuba in 1989. One of the most accomplished and well-known of the avant garde in Cuba at the time, he has continued his career in his new homeland and around the world. He is featured in recent major shows in Madrid and Barcelona. Cuenca was last seen at Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art in June 2002, when his show entitled "A Decade of Transition: 1983-1993" was reviewed by Craig Hauser in Art Nexus magazine. In conjunction with the show at PSCA, Cuenca's work may be seen also at the Armory Show in New York city.

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24 Frames
New Works by Linda Cummings
In this photographic exhibition of new work, Linda Cummings is extending her exploration of past themes of transfiguration, identity, and the floating world with photographic sequences that are a meditation on the experience of being a passenger. The experience of the passenger is to have one's body carried along, transported through time and space inside larger mechanical bodies, with one's feet barely touching solid ground.

Her frame of reference is the vast interconnecting systems of transportation in New York City. Each photographic piece is comprised of one unedited roll of 35-mm black and white film which has 24 frames. She intentionally wished to call to mind multiple references to the fluidity of time (i.e., the duration of 24 frames per second in the vernacular of the cinema, and the 24 hours which make up one's day). Taken together, the 24 frames constitute a kind of train of thought or thread of perception in which subliminal perceptions mix with recognizable forms. The sequence of images reveal a kind of hypnotic passage, space and time for dreaming, free association, and unexpected access or restrictions which orchestrate the experience and movement of the passenger.

Since the installation features the 24 consecutive frames from the unedited role of film, viewers experience the artist's movement and can attempt to reconstruct the thought processes that guided the taking of each frame. An unusual feature for collectors is that the works are available as the complete 24 frames or as any two consecutive frames within the role of 24. Cummings' uses silver gelatin paper and is known for her ability to finesse luscious and luminous grays and whites from her negatives.

Cummings, a graduate of the Whitney's ISP program, has had solo shows at Hampshire College, Raritan Valley College, and Rutgers University. Her art is in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York. Cummings has been the subject of articles and reviews in The New York Times, Blindspot, and numerous other publications. She was last on view at PSCA in October 2002.

Image: Passenger, 2004, Silver Gelatin Print, 6 x 13 Inches

Opening March 3rd, 6 - 9 PM, thru April 3rd.

ADMISSION Free

RSVP 646 613 1252

ON VIEW March 3 through April3, 2004 The gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday, Noon to 6 PM, and by appointment.

paul sharpe contemporary art
PSCA is founded on the premise that the artist comes first and is the raison d'être of the art world. The role of the gallerist is to nurture creative accomplishment and to cultivate the collectors and curators who can sustain artists. The artists represented are those whose work one would wish to collect and to enjoy, while helping to support their careers. PSCA is led by Paul Sharpe, formerly of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The space itself is meant to encourage a dialogue in issues in art today and as such is designed as a salon rather than a white box. The color scheme is blue, camel, and white and it is inspired by a Justin Knowles painting of the mid 1960s. The concept is to create a space where artist and art lovers can congregate and appreciate fine contemporary art.

artists represented
Robert Appleton Carlos Bandres Amaya Bozal Alfredo Cannata Anton Christian Craig Coleman Arturo Cuenca Linda Cummings Fairfax Dorn Gloria Garfinkel Laura Harrison Lenore RS Lim Katy Martin Robinson Murray Martin Penrose John Costa Rosis Alex Serna Dylan Blue Stone Tattfoo Tan Lee Whittier work available Amos Badertscher Judi Harvest Jeff Kowatch Michelle Mackey Robin Richmond

Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art
86 Walker Street Floor Six New York NY 10013

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