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December 14, 2006- January 20, 2007
Reception: December 14, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Michael Bevilacqua
Chelsea Art Museum
556 W 22nd StMichael Bevilacqua’s first exhibition of drawings, grouped under the title, DUI: Fables of the Reconstruction, redefine the traditional relationship between drawing and painting. Traditionally this relationship has been one of sequence, drawing acting as a site of pre-composition, a place where elements of the future painting are studied, mapped, tested. The immediate difference in Bevilacqua’s drawings is that they are made post facto, after the painting. But what is most radical about these works is that they are formed through a principle of recycling. The drawings are constructed from elements which have gone into Bevilacqua’s paintings over the last ten years and, as such, function as a veritable
mine or reconstruction of the icons and symbology which frequent his work. Time is scrambled, imagery is open ended and the surfaces heave and breath like a living organism.
The drawings are composed of layers that were originally Xerox’s of found imagery scaled up or down and traced onto the canvas. The individual “templates” are then amassed on the paper, overlapping, juxtaposed, some painted in bright acrylics, some black or white, some left untouched.
In terms of his imagery, Bevilacqua combines a multitude of reference; personal elements from his everyday life are juxtaposed with iconic images that can be read by those tuned in to both popular and punk culture, but each one important to Bevilacqua at various transitional stages of personal and artistic development. The names of a favorite band (Sisters of Mercy, The Ramones), an art historical reference, (the early works of Mathew Barney, particularly images from Cremaster 4) illustrations from children’s books (Dr. Seuss or Harold and the Purple Crayon), symbols of the manufactured dreams of the media and consumer world, all interact on both figurative and formal levels to produce a shock of realization – the real world thrust into the space and gaze of the viewer.
Art Reviews of DUI (Drawing Under the Influence)
| New York Times February 16, 2007 | Martha Schwendener | "...The appropriation of pop images is by now a time-honored tradition. Robert Rauschenberg and James Rosenquist used pop appropriation to investigate art’s relation to mainstream culture, and 1980s artists like Jeff Koons and Ashley Bickerton turned it into irony-laden consumerist critique. But Mr. Bevilacqua’s references register more like MySpace “interests” or doodles on a high school notebook: sites for displaying your cultural preferences...." |
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