How To Cook A Wolf: Part One
November 6, 2008- January 31, 2009
Reception: November 6, 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
547 W 27th St
DINTER FINE ART is pleased to present a group exhibition titled “How To Cook A Wolf: Part One”. Playing on a sexual theme—with allusions to food writing, and other wolfish associations—this exhibition runs a gamut from hardcore explicitness to soft eroticism, spiced with vulgarity and smoothed with refinement, both seriously and hilariously. The mise en place of this exhibition reflects a myriad of human desires and appetites, with it’s pleasures as well as it’s darker sides. Attraction, desire, lust, seduction, give way to subversive powers, with personal, political and philosophical implications—though not quite all the way to burning hell (leave that for another installment).
This exhibition presents an eclectic array of references to sex, literally, figuratively, and explicitly. Like an art collector’s cabinet of curiosities (or well-stocked pantry) we see a selection of works which include such meaty ingredients as writhing snakes by
Rob Wynne and
Philip Taaffe; ready to cook cocks and chickens, by
Mia Brownell and
Judith Hudson;
George Horner’s busy woodpecker; a lusty crocodile by
Jason Osborne; and mounting pandas by
Julie Ryan (“Because It Was There”).
Jack Pierson presents us with his soft focus (and surely perfumed) flowers, suggesting the steaminess of a hot kitchen;
Donald Traver anchors the stew, with two prongs, the female cross symbol, and all those chains;
Judith Bernstein leaves a charred screw in the soup, evoking what she did in extra large format for William Copley’s bedroom in some former time;
Mary Heilmann provides a pink teacup, recalling Meret Oppenheim’s furry one, this time stripped down and naked, ready for sipping. From there we move on to the dignified but tasty encounters of an Indian miniature (
Unknown Artist).
Paula Collery and
Karen Hesse Flatow show how things might have been stirred up in earlier times.
David Dupuis,
Chris Hammerlein and
Tracy Nakayama show variations of the joy of life;
Dianne Blell and
George Condo indulge us with some cooked up theatricality;
Konstantin Kakanias brings us up to date with sizzling political satire; and
Betty Tompkins slaps down in short order an astonishingly magnified piece of cake;
Nicolas Rule whispers about “unmentionables”; while
Aaron Sinift provides a splash of painterly poetics, and
Martin Kruck decorates flesh with thought;
Elizabeth Lennard tells us something about (how to eat) a cactus...oh yes, and don’t forget that mushroom. Last, but not least,
Michael Byron hauls us back in, soberly reminding us that this recipe has been in use by artists since time immemorial, a perennial and universal menu favorite...providing food for thought...in hungry times...
This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Iris Owens, 1928-2008.
Reviews of How To Cook A Wolf: Part One
New York Times November 14, 2008 | | Roberta Smith | | "...Dinter Fine Art has mounted another carefully assembled group show, this one large, X-rated and titled “How to Cook a Wolf, Part 1.”..." |
Recommendations of How To Cook A Wolf: Part One
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show