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18/11/2005

Two exhibitions

Pierogi 2000, New York

Gallery 1

John J. O'Connor
One Hundred Days In a Year

Pierogi is pleased to present our second one-person exhibition of John J. O'Connor’s large-scale works on paper, rendered primarily in graphite and colored pencil. O'Connor develops idiosyncratic systems of mark making, beginning with data and statistics—from rates of obesity and alcoholism by state, to temperature prediction and chaos theory. He develops numerical abstractions of texts as diverse as Nostradamus’ prophecy relating to religious wars, the Atkins diet, Dante’s Inferno, the Farmer’s Almanac, and Bible Code II, to determine where to place marks and how to shape them. O’Connor looks for similarities—principles or systems that may guide seemingly disparate phenomena. The systems and resulting drawings convey the complexity and interconnectedness of every day life, as well as the hierarchical processing of chance experiences. O'Connor cites antecedents as diverse as John Cage, Rube Goldberg, and Alfred Jensen for his work. According to O'Connor—

"My drawings, then, are the graphic representations of layered systems. I usually begin with a simple idea, which then evolves with greater complexity. All the diagrammatic notations remain on the image combined with the fully realized abstract form. Equally important is my attempt to ultimately create an autonomous aesthetic image."

O’Connor’s work was recently on view in PS1’s “Greater New York 2005” exhibition and is included in the collection of MoMA, NYC.

Also on view, the ever-expanding and peripatetic Flat Files housing original works by 700+ artists.

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Gallery 2

Joshua Dorman
lost travels in end land

Pierogi is pleased to present new work by Joshua Dorman. Dorman paints and collages on found maps, drawing upon their systems. He uses their graphic symbols (be they topographical indications, county lines, lakes, streams, et cetera) as a point of departure, or a point of entry. One dotted county line on a map of the Monticello area turns into a stone wall, while another becomes a road for trucks and cars; at the mark pinpointing a town, buildings sprout up and out, piled one on top of another. On a Topographical map of Lake Champlain a small shape denoting an island telescopes out into a complex green plateau. Dorman notes:

"I am not a landscape painter. My goal is not to depict the way light plays on treetops, but I do want to get inside to see the rings of the trees, explore the structure of the roots and branches, understand the bark. Lately, I’ve been using maps to find my way. I was seduced by these obsolete weathered pages—their elegant lines revealing eons of geological shift and erosion—all translated by human mind and hand.

I tilt these flattened lands into the frontal plane and then I seek routes and valleys back into space. I’m hoping for vertigo. But there is no one way to lose my balance. I follow a river with ink. I clog a harbor with oil paint. ...After the Fall of 2001, I found I needed to erect buildings out of the grid work of the maps. I could no longer avoid the human presence in my work or continue to invent a pastoral universe."

Paul Auster, who curated an exhibition of Dorman’s work, writes:

"The map pieces are tantalizing, elusive works. Though small in scale, they are difficult to describe, almost impossible to pin down in words, and yet they hold our attention in the same way that stories do. So much is going on in them that we feel compelled to look for a narrative, as if by ‘reading’ the images before us we could finally grasp them in all their complexity. But the story I will read in one of these pictures is not the same story you will read." (Auster, 2004)

Image: John J. O'Connor, Nostradamus, 2005. Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 82.25 x 52.5 inches

Pierogi 2000
177 North 9th Street Brooklyn, NY 11211
noon to 6p friday through monday and by appointment

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