Across the street from Penn Station, past the psychic on the way upstairs, and within a former counterfeit handbag store is The Grey Market, an exhibition of twenty-one contemporary artists curated by Daniel Canestaro-Garcia, Andy Cushman and Leah Dixon.

Featuring artists who live and work throughout the United States, and who create art in a variety of media from differing stages in their careers. The work harmonizes in its distance from the events and issues received through the omnipresent media sources and countless social interactions they depict. These objects respond to a mythic, constant narrative that seemingly always occurs in an intangible place. The works evoke destruction, decay and conquest yet are tempered by a sense of empathy, and occasional dark humor. An avalanche of information received, processed and channeled through impression and imagination in an consciously voyeuristic, sometimes guilty, seemingly addictive pastime.

Highlights include Noelle Mason’s Ground Control, in which the artist commissioned a tapestry depicting thermal imagery of the U.S./Mexico border from two Mexican artisans in exchange for the cost of illegally transporting a family of four across the border, Tom Fruin’s metal sculptures that depict housing projects buildings that are reminiscent of minimalism, and Kristof Wickman’s surreal, seemingly animated sculptures of bending brightly colored tombstones.

The Grey Market serves not only as an alternative space, but as a sign of the times: a temporary space created in an abandoned retailer of the fleeting image of wealth. Initially spread across two floors, the exhibition will be condensed into a single floor following the opening weekend, underscoring a sense of claustrophobia and displacement.

Artists and Collaborative Projects

Ryan Bartley; Zachary Bruder; Buffington, Trowbridge & Westbrook; Tryn Collins; Ryland Cook; Don Cameron; Leah Dixon; Tom Fruin; Heidi Hahn; Eric Hancock; Conrad Keely; Lazerhappy Studios; Noelle Mason; Jeremy McConnell; Geoffrey Owen Miller; Angel Otero; Grear Patterson; Lauren Seiden; Simon Slater & Matt Tackett; Kristof Wickman; and Michael Yinger

Gill and Jill Bumby will provide appearance appraisals during the opening reception.