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17/12/2003

Mama's Boy

White Columns, New York

curated by Jane Harris

An exhibition of boyish, awkward, and often-pathetic work in various media by Chris Bors, Michael Coughlan, Anthony Goicolea, Larry Krone, Cary Leibowitz, Robert Melee, Jon Routson, and Michael Zansky.

Curator Jane Harris writes,

"It's hard to pin down any one definition of a mama's boy. There's the cliché kid who clings to his mother's apron strings, sings in choir, and gets his ass kicked. Then again, there is the troubled oddball who burns bugs, hides at home, and plans a future of sociopathic revenge. The artworld is full of them - all those sad sacks, dandies, neurotics, and geeks who form a veritable boys' club of outsider (turned insider) chic. Some like Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, and Sean Landers wittily skewer the male ego in its various guises to explore issues of masculinity and psychosexuality, undoubtedly influenced by their own mother-son relationships, although rarely is this expressed.

The artists in this show represent a new male order where the formulate bond of mother and son, and the complexities of the self and identity it engenders, is no longer sublimated or shied away from. Theirs is a boyish vision, deliberately retarded and humorously awkward; one that eschews the slick surfaces, high production, and fussy detail so common in art today. Many have made works that deal explicitly with the subject of their mothers, and all seem intuitively to acknowledge her significance in matters of love, self-esteem, and sexual worldview.

Call it a sensibility, call it a predicament, in the end it's just a silly moniker. Or is it?"

About the curator: Jane Harris is a curator and critic whose reviews have appeared in Time Out New York, Art in America, Artext, Bookforum, and Artforum, among others. Her most recent catalogue essays have been published in Curve: The Female Nude in Contemporary Art (Rizzoli, 2003), Anthony Goicolea (Twin Palms Press, 2003), and Vitamin P (Phaidon, 2002). She teaches art history at The School of Visual Arts.

WHITE ROOMS (solo exhibitions for artists unaffiliated with a New York gallery):
Joan Linder has been examining her environs in paintings and drawings since 1996. She has depicted seemingly disparate subjects, including her family members, office machinery, eighteen-wheelers, buildings, radio and television towers, businessmen, and furniture. These subjects are taken directly from her immediate surroundings and depicted in a straightforward manner. In her White Room, Linder presents scroll-like drawings of trees, each 15 to 17 feet tall. Drawn with monochromatic pen and ink in short, linear strokes that do not hide mistakes, these works embrace the intervention of the artist's hand. Linder has had solo exhibitions at various spaces in New York, including Riva Gallery, Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery, and the Queens Museum of Art. Her work has been featured in many group exhibitions at such venues as Caren Golden Fine Art, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, PPOW, and Art in General. She holds a MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Tufts University.

Jenna Spevack's drawings explore various systems of theory and belief, from scientific thought to religious values. For example, an ongoing series uses three basic objects-sticks, stones and strings-to explore paradigms of physics, from the Theory of Relativity to superstring theory. Her recent drawings introduce floods and explosions to the mix, sending their subjects floating out to sea or hurtling through the air. In some, depictions of animal patterns butterfly wings, turtle shells, zebra skins, etc.) evoke nature in a highly stylized manner. Spevack's delicate drawings examine the interaction between humans and their environment, both harmonious and doomed. Spevack has shown work at many venues, including most recently at Monya Rowe Gallery, Art in General, Parlor Projects and Rotunda Gallery. She holds a MFA from RISD and a BFA from SUNY Buffalo.

Image: Anthony Goicolea, Amphibians 2003

White columns
320 West 15th Street
New York

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