Joshua Cardoso, Jason Eberspeaker, Carsten Fock and Daniel Gordon. Works by four artists all of whom expand beyond postmodernisms preference for horizontal movement. Although the term truth in many arenas still functions upon a modernist, linear, progress driven model in which truth and universal are synonyms.
Joshua Cardoso,
Jason Eberspeaker,
Carsten Fock and
Daniel Gordon
Thomas Erben is pleased to present a selection of works by four
artists all of whom expand beyond postmodernisms preference for
horizontal movement. Although the term truth in many arenas still
functions upon a modernist, linear, progress driven model in which
truth and universal are synonyms; contemporary thinking over the
past three decades has caused artists to recognize multiplicities,
fracturing and dispersal.
For some, the loss of absolutes results in an overarching skepticism,
whereas in the works exhibited nonhierarchical multiplicities are seen
and explored as multiple points of truth without irony. Together
with the new circularity with which history is now being viewed, truth
is contained and explored by its stylistic, conceptual and material
treatment. This is not to suggest the desire for conclusiveness within
these artists work but rather an ability to see infinite
possibilities within an inch of truth.
Returning after his well received solo show at the gallery earlier
this year, Joshua Cardoso (b. 1979, Boston, MA) presents the most
recent of his meticulously rendered, luminous, large scale ink
drawings. On his surfaces letters, numbers and glyphs swarm and
cluster in frenzied movements, finite but unfixed. The accumulation of
tiny marks creates a highly seductive microscopic or cosmic myriad as
observed through the apparatus of science or a non-ordinary state of
consciousness. The seemingly intangible forms evoke both a scientistic
knowledge of nature and a personal confrontation with the sublime.
Straddling the line between drawing and painting, Carsten Focks work
essentializes that which it chooses to leave out thus heightening what
is present. Born in 1968 and raised in East Berlin, Focks work is
best known for the weaving together and editorializing of cultural and
aesthetic histories. Both the seen: Capitalist slogans, literary
fragments and popular imagery; and the invisible: their placement in
time and space; are given equal weight. Their estranged relationship
is consecrated by
the exquisite, almost traditional quality of his brush stroke. Fock
has exhibited extensively in Germany and was included in the seminal
exhibition: Deutschemalereizweitausenddrei", Frankfurter Kunstverein,
2003.
Daniel Gordons (b. 1980, Boston, MA) No Title, again turns
photographys truth on its head. Departing from Yves Kleins
montaged Saut Dans le Vide, Gordon hurled himself through the air in
order to simulate split-second moments of flight. Anticipating the
viewers savvy in reading manipulated photographic reality, Gordon
reminds us of photographys ability to depict the physical world while
leaving as his subject the mediums ability to deceive. Deprong Mori,
a photograph of a fabricated, three-dimensional forestscape built out
of found photographs, achieves a similar shift in our perception of
the medium. Gordon had solo exhibitions with Angstrom Gallery, Dallas,
and GroeflinMaag Gallery, Basel; a forthcoming solo show is scheduled
at Zach Feuer Gallery, New York in 2007.
Through paintings, which at times take on unconventional supports,
Jason Eberspeaker (b. 1980, Grand Rapids, MI) liquidates the
distinction between the unique object of art and mechanized
production. Working with flattened images, devoid of particulars, his
highly varied collection pushes the aura of art past it's breaking
point towards a vacated, undefined mysticism. Finally, Eberspeaker
displays to us a nuanced, irreducible, unreflexive painterly gestalt.
A recent graduate of the MFA program, Yale University, this is
Eberspeakers first New York appearance.
In the project space Haeri Yoo puts forth an installation, using her
drawings and paintings, which weaves together a disrupted narrative of
feministic, culturally attuned mayhem. Bringing together the formal
vocabulary of her native Korea, psychological tension, outsider and
the graphic arts: the cumulative effect is simultaneously refined and
direct; bold flourishes in line and subject undercutting the delicacy
of her technique. Haeri Yoos work is akin to the unencumbered mind of
a child expressed with sophistication and eloquence.
Reception: Thursday, November 2, 6 - 8:30 pm
Thomas Erben Gallery
526 West 26th Street - New York