100 New York Mysteries. Works in the exhibition include photographs of new and discarded consumer goods as well as the artist’s own sculptures comprised of commercially manufactured objects.
100 New York Mysteries
For his first exhibition at DCKT Contemporary, Aaron Krach stakes a claim to a piece of the rich and varied history of artists inspired by New York City. “My new work fits somewhere between late, jazzy Piet Mondrian and early, East Village Madonna," says Krach. “It’s a genuine but perhaps futile attempt to capture the beauty of Manhattan streets and the sex appeal of pure, unadulterated pop culture."
Works in the exhibition include photographs of new and discarded consumer goods as well as the artist’s own sculptures comprised of commercially manufactured objects. The raw materials of Krach's art are the overlooked and underappreciated parts of the cityscape-wheat-pasted advertising, steam that billows up from under the streets, and discarded kitsch. But this is no straight documentary: Krach transforms images and the ideas behind (or underneath) them into myriad different media.
100 New York Mysteries is a stack of 100 self-published books filled with 100 of Krach’s photographs of the steam that seeps, spews and sprays up from under Manhattan streets. Krach transforms the ephemeral into static images only to degrade the images by producing machine-made books ordered online with minimal attention paid to production. Longer Periods of Happiness is a poster of a photograph of fake flowers “wild-posted" on a wall inside the gallery, on a two-story billboard on the exterior west wall of the gallery building, and around the city.
Aaron Krach lives and works in New York. He published his first novel, Half-Life, to critical acclaim in 2004, and has exhibited artwork in low-fi venues in high-profile locations from Copenhagen to Cuba, Seattle to Sao Paolo. Most recently, Krach’s work was included in The Studio Visit at Exit Art, New York.
The exhibition will be on view at DCKT Contemporary, 552 West 24th Street. Summer hours are 11am to 6pm, Tuesday through Friday.
There will be a reception for the artist on Thursday, June 22 from 6 - 8 pm.
DCKT Contemporary
Dennis Christie & Ken Tyburski
552 West 24th Street - New York
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-6pm