Ms. Bernhardt's exhibition is being divided between two venues. The show at Modern Culture At The Gershwin Hotel will consist of a wide variety of works that represent a variegation of scale, image, and material. The show at Team Gallery will primarily consist of six-by-eight-foot paintings in a number of vernacular styles, both figurative and abstract. Bernhardt's paintings are much more than kitsch, than arrogance, than disruption.
Modern Culture At The Gershwin Hotel will present a solo exhibition of new
paintings and works on paper by "Katherine Bernhardt".
A concurrent solo exhibition of new paintings by Ms. Bernhardt will take
place at Team Gallery.
Katherine Bernhardt's paintings are much more than kitsch, than arrogance,
than disruption.
Although her practice is stridently irreverent, her
investment in the material hybridity of contemporary painting marks her's
as an earnest voice.
Ms. Bernhardt puts it on, laying down paint
accurately with both economy and aggression, fully exhausting the
possibilities of artmaking over the rainbow and beyond the Golden
Arches.
We are clearly in a place of pleasure.
Ms. Bernhardt's exhibition is being divided between two venues.
The show
at Modern Culture At The Gershwin Hotel will consist of a wide variety of
works that represent a variegation of scale, image, and material.
The show
at Team Gallery will primarily consist of six-by-eight-foot paintings in a
number of vernacular styles, both figurative and abstract.
Ms. Bernhardt's work is clumsy, but its exuberance is catchy.
She attacks
the canvas with expressive gestures in the service cataloguing a world of
interest.
Her personal iconography includes--but is not limited to--such
disparate images as corporate logos; Versace and Gucci fashion models; the
pop singer, Bjork; Nike ad campaign materials; E.T.; travel posters; and
materials at hand.
Ms. Bernhardt turns McDonald's Golden Arches into
heaving breasts; inverting the image yields up juicy buttocks. Ms.
Bernhardt transforms Saul Bass' AT&T logo into an abstract signature of
modernity and, in so doing, renders a painting that looks like it was made
last week by a boy in Dresden.
Much like a disc jockey, "DJ KB," samples
culture, mixing a keen contemporary eye with an antiquated handling of
paint.
Her manipulation of materials--the thick, pictorial quality of her
brushstrokes and the transparency of spray paint--all form a repertoire
that endears as much as it repels.
Ms. Bernhardt's paintings suggest
something new while allowing us to take pleasure in old-fashioned painterly
excess.
Long live the new Expressionism!
29 November 2001, 6:00 to 8:00 pm, Opening Reception (Team Gallery)
29 November 2001, 7:00 to 9:00 pm, Opening Reception (Modern Culture At The
Gershwin Hotel)
Modern Culture At the Gershwin Hotel is located at 3 East 27th Street
(between Fifth and Madison Avenues) in the Madison Square District, on the
ground floor.
Team Gallery is located at 527 West 26th Street (between Tenth and Eleventh
Avenues) in the
West Chelsea District, on the ground floor.
Gallery hours for this exhibition will be Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 am to
6:00 pm.
For further information, please call Barry Neuman at 212.213.8289.
Modern Culture At The Gershwin Hotel
3 East 27th Street
New York NY 10016
212.213.8289 tel
212.213.8743 fax