calendario eventi  :: 

X

20/11/2007

Two exhibitions

Envoy enterprises, New York

“Dissidence” is Marc Séguin’s second solo exhibition at envoy. The show consists of six large-scale oil paintings that express the artist’s discomfort with our post-modern present. In a world that he feels is presently obsessed with speed, commodities, and all types of background noise that obscures, abstracts and accessorizes life, Séguin is interested in creating an open dialogue between himself and the viewers of his work that deals with the contrary nature of classical painterly representation.

Much like the formal aspect of Séguin’s paintings, the subject matter is pared down to the most basic elements: a life-size image of a girl puking a Chinese flag, a representation of the artist kneeling in front of a surveillance camera (dressed in a "hoodie,” kneeling as if in prayer, but not really...), the same "hoodie" urinating three endangered and highly prized species (black sturgeon for caviar, blue turtle as a prized meal for kings),...

Charcoal sketches (in chiaroscuro), inscribed in the historical and traditional way that paintings have been for centuries, lie at the basis of Séguin’s paintings.
Dark smudges and fine lines are painted directly onto the raw surface of the canvas creating an image surrounded by empty space. This brings us to the core of Séguin’s work: a painterly investigation between form and emotion that provides a strong impact with as little means possible.

Marc Séguin was born in Ottawa, Canada. He lives and works in Montreal and New York. Since his first solo exhibition in 1996, his work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Madrid, Barcelona, Venice, Berlin, Cologne, Brussels, New York, Chicago and Florida. The artist’s work is in the permanent collections of amongst others: the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec and the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.

...............

The Crooked Mirror, a Christmas story by Anton Chekhov, serves as the title for a group exhibition scheduled at a time when some parts of the world celebrate Christmas. Envoy’s “Crooked Mirror” however, is far from being a Christmas show, nor has it got anything to do with Anton Chekhov’s story. It is merely a reminder that, right from the beginning, the images in our mind do not render an objective picture, but provide us with a mirror into the fragility of our varied worldly perspectives.

While we wander in a hall of virtual mirrors, searching for authenticity and meaning, we only see remnants of truth, a manipulated, distorted and mendacious picture. “Crooked Mirror” is not only an account of implicit distortions, it is also a call to improve our mind, to free it from idols before we start any knowledge acquisition.
The goal of the exhibition is to reflect the individual and independent nature of the artist, to be a reflection of the creator, more powerful than the mirror.

The work of the twelve artists in the show can be divided in representational and formal interpretations of the exhibition title. In their painted self-portraits Scott Avett and Laura Baran present multiple selves as if they have been looking in a different mirror each time. Brandon Herman’s multiple selves are presented in a series of eight photographs of himself and seven other young men sporting the same crew-cut, as if stealing the identity of the person living on the other side of the glass. Max Wyse’s painting on Plexiglas is of a human figure both a consumer and donor of energy, while Mikel Marton’s photograph and Catherine Tafur’s painting of twisted twins take us even further into the psychological aspect of the exhibition. In his collages, Donatien Veismann presents a take on the farcical exuberance of the satirical theatre of miniatures, named “The Crooked Mirror,” from 1908’s St. Petersburg.

The abstract paintings by Arnold Kemp, Augusto Arbizo’s Rorschach paintings and the distorted photographs by Charles Hovland, provide a non-representational take on the exhibition title, while Carol Cole’s ANI (Anti-Nothingness Image and its reflection) and James J. Williams III’s installation (looking to document, suspend and praise the evils that ooze out of one's pours as well as the passion and roundness of existence), represent the three dimensional part of the exhibition.

Image by Marc Seguin

Opening 21 November 2007

Envoy
131 Chrystie Street, New York
Free admission

stampa

permanent link