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Email PageGrant Worth "True Magicians, Holy Ghosts"
November 19, 2005- December 17, 2005
Alex Kwartler
John Connelly Presents
625 W 27th StLocation: JCP Annex
John Connelly Presents is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Alex Kwartler. This will be the first solo exhibition for Kwartler and JCP's inaugural exhibition at our new ground floor location at 625 West 27th Street (between 11th and 12th avenues). An opening reception will be held on Saturday, November 19th, 2005, from 6-8 PM. Also the gallery will launch it's new permanent project space , the JCP Annex, with a debut exhibition of photographs and video by Grant Worth.
Often disparate, Alex Kwartler's work incorporates a pluralistic idea of painting that ranges from abstraction to references of the everyday. His iconography, oscilating between the fleeting gesture and static icon, emphasizes the colluding dialogue between nature and culture. Although Kwartler works with formal languages of abstraction and minimalism, his paintings and drawings are less interested in investigating the form or content of an image than playing with its own logic. Looking at pictures and not understanding them is an experience everyone shares at some point, but frequently the act of looking, itself, determines the function of the image. This, with, Kwartler's purposeful hanging, which simulates relationships between various paintings of ranging form and content creates a causality which reveals itself at opposing speeds. In addition, Kwartler often sets up a unique paradigm of multiple display where his paintings are at once interrogating and informing one another. Kwartler also often hangs his paintings over or next to hand rendered wall works. These works are sometimes drawn, scratched or painted directly on the wall.
Alex Kwartler graduated with a BFA from Cooper Union, New York NY in 2002. His paintings have been shown at Champion Fine Art, New York; Rivington Arms, New York and Galerie Johnen + Schottle, Berlin. He is currently featured in the exhibition "The Painted World" curated by Bob Nickas at MoMA/P.S. 1 Museum in Long Island City. Kwartler will have a solo exhibition with Galerie Johnen + Schottle, Berlin in 2006.
For a young artist in his twenties, Grant Worth's Polaroid photographs and videos demonstrate an extraordinary level of sophistication in their formal composition. The devotion to the commonplace and peripheral recall the intimate and exhaustive Polaroid work of Walker Evans from the early 1970's. In this sense, Worth's first solo show, "True Magicians, Holy Ghosts", can be read as updated discourse on Evan's documentation of the contemporary and ephemeral. Using what was one cutting edge technology but is now an antiquated medium in the age of digital photography, Worth captures the challenge we face everyday in finding comfort and magic in our mundane lives. By chasing after things like light and sky and shadow, Worth demonstrates that the ingredients for a private personal utopia lies in our ability to focus on the quotidian spirituality and magic of what is already around us.
Grant Worth graduated with a BFA in Photography and Imaging from the NYU Tisch School of Arts, New York in 2001. His work has been shown at Daniel Reich Gallery, New York; Deitch Projects, New York; Agnes B. Galerie, Paris, Tate Liverpool, United Kingdom and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in San Francisco. This is Worth's first solo exhibition.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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