Two exhibitions
dal 19/9/2002 al 26/10/2002
Segnalato da
19/9/2002
Two exhibitions
Metro Pictures, New York
Robert Longo, Monsters: The seven outsized charcoal drawings of massive, thundering waves bear the names of renowned surfing beaches or surfing terms such as: 'Hell's Gate', 'Dragon Head', and 'Black Tube'.Jim Shaw presents a selection of recent O-ist Thrift Store Paintings, faux found objects that reference the artist's invented religion O-ism.
Robert Longo
Monsters
21 September  26 October, 2002
Robert Longo will exhibit new drawings, Monsters, at Metro Pictures from
September 21 through October 26. The seven outsized charcoal drawings of
massive, thundering waves bear the names of renowned surfing beaches or
surfing terms such as: 'Hell's Gate', 'Dragon Head', and 'Black Tube'.
Rendered in high contrast black and white, the drawings reproduce the moment
of a tremendous surge of unleashed force, as the rich expanse of velvety
charcoal surfaces parallels the subject's vastness, mystery and intensity.
Devoid of people, location and color, the looming crests of exploding power
are notably singular portraits of emotional and physical forces. The near
abstraction of the waves is strikingly dissimilar to the more familiar
representations of the sea as poetic and romantic, or in terms of 'man
against nature'.
Robert Longo's studio is in Lower Manhattan, he lives in Brooklyn with his
wife, the German acrtess Barbara Sukova, and their two sons. An exhibition
of his 'Freud Drawings' (exhibited at Metro Pictures in 2001) will be on
view at the Krefelder Kunstmuseen, in Krefeld, Germany, in its Haus Lang and
Haus Ester during November and then at The Albertina in Vienna. A catalogue
will accompany this exhibition. Longo has had retrospective exhibitions at
the Hamburger Kunstverein and Deichtorhallen, the Menil Collection in
Houston, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hartford Athenaeum, The
Isetan Museum of Art in Tokyo and Ashikaga City Museum. His work has been
included in a myriad of group shows such as Documenta, The Whitney Biennal,
and the Venice Bienale. The artist is represented in the collections of the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the
Guggenheim Museum, the High Museum in Atlanta, the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art, the Menil Collection in Houston, Musee d¹art Contemporain in
Montreal, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center, in
Minneapolis, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Georges Pompidou
in Paris, and the Albertina in Vienna.
Reception 20 September, 6-8 PM
This exhibition runs concurrently with: Jim Shaw, O-ist Thrift Store
Paintings, on view in the upper gallery.
_________
Jim Shaw
O-ist Thrift Store Paintings
21 September  26 October, 2002
Jim Shaw presents a selection of recent O-ist Thrift Store Paintings, faux
found objects that reference the artist's invented religion O-ism.
Described as a parallel-universe Mormonism, O-ism dates back to
nineteenth-century America. While its originary myths are centered around
an unnamable goddess symbolized by an 'O', the 'Book of O-ism' and its
revelations have spawned a midwest movement which encompasses a powerful
fraternal organization with secret rites and mythologies. Shaw has already
staged and documented an elaborate fraternal 'initiation ceremony', complete
with uniforms and musical instruments, and is developing several other
groups of O-ist-related artworks. The collection of paintings in this
exhibition was supposedly gleaned from O-ist-operated thrift stores
throughout Nebraska and Iowa. The ambiguous and anonymous authorship of
these works holds an essential psychological aspect.
The 'O-ist Thrift Store Paintings' express Shaw's interest in the
proliferation of visual and cultural material as generated by the dogmas of
his pseudo-religion. Shaw has compared the transcendental myths present in
the religion to the failed transcendental tendency of Modernist thinking.
O-ist Thrift Store Paintings runs concurrently with an exhibition of the
artist's work at the Swiss Institute in New York, on view September 14
through October 26; the exhibit there will focus on the historic tableaus of
a fictional O-ist abstract painter.
A recent retrospective of the artist 'Everything Must Go' was on view at
Casino Luxembourg, MAMCO in Geneva, and the Contemporary Arts Center in
Cincinnati; his 'Thrift Store Paintings' were shown at the ICA, London.
Shaw¹s work has been represented in major shows of Los Angeles artists such
as 'Helter Skelter' at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles,
'Performance Anxiety' at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and
'Sunshine and Noir', which originated at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
in Denmark and traveled throughout Europe and the United States. His work
was included in the 1991 Whitney Biennial and in this year's Biennial of
Sydney, Australia. Shaw attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
and the California Institute of the Arts and currently lives in Los Angeles
with his wife Marnie Weber and their daughter.
Reception 20 September, 6-8 PM
This exhibition runs concurrently with: Robert Longo, Monsters, on view in
the lower galleries.
For additional information or images, please contact Jan Endlich or Allison
Card at Metro Pictures.
P) 212 206 7100 F) 212 337 0070
Forthcoming Exhibition:
Mike Kelley 2 November  7 December
Image: a work by Jim Shaw
METRO PICTURES
519 WEST 24TH ST NEW YORK 10011 T: 212 206 7100 F: 212 337 0070