With douglas paulson, ryan kitson, stephen thornhill, karl larocca, jay kaplan Developed by cori barton

Zeitgeist Zeitgeist…everything is so precious is a group installation which questions the artist’s preworking state and the resulting awareness of their surroundings. It spotlights their ability to make something some consider trite, or worth passing over, without lamentation, important. Providing the usually passed moment or object with a depiction more pious…one without the socialized predication.

When an artist is in the fits and throes of making, they are helping create the overall spirit of their milieu, or the zeitgeist. But in the moments leading up to the making of their work, i.e. when the preciousness strikes, they become aware of something in their environment. This awareness actually pulls the artist out the actual rhythm, the spirit of the times. Their need to create is induced by an external element that is a small part of the quotient of the functioning word. They are not taking for granted an object someone may have disposed of. They create a dialogue about it and brining it to the forefront of your mind. A random external stimulus causes the realization of an object as effect. What stimulus triggers the artist’s collective unconscious?

Precious is something in particular produced from the world and happenings of it. The artist channels the character of this plucked precious, moment, or object(s), for the duration of their art making process. They channel this energy, or flow of creative inertia for the duration of this period, until a new object has been created for us to experience and find and behold for themselves as precious (or not).

Precious is both the initial idea, and the new object.

This show is a selection of different snippets of this continual process. It criticizes the social tendencies developed by present day academia, an overly commercialized art world, and occupational training/thinking and it investigates how they may hinder or block the active flow of creative inertia. What is the zeitgeist of a proscribed art World?

Ryan Kitson’s work is the result of collecting snippets from his stops along the way. Turning commonplace pieces into precious pieces of art. Giving the By-products of commodification with symbolic value a more elevated value and now, cost.

Karl Larocca (aka Kayrock)’s drawings and accumulations of graphite on paper are results from the end products of unfamiliar people and their transactions with ATM machines. Money is precious. The costs of his prints directly correlates with the pricing of a square foot of property you might buy if you had a lot of money.

Jay Kaplan’s sculptures are idols of types. He celebrates the wonderment one has experienced while pushing buttons and moving joysticks. He also makes poured resin paintings of urban and storybook legends.

Stephen Thornhill makes painterly drawings of moments and states of being that coarsely shape our lives. Kind of Like accidentally spitting on the hand of your boss while speaking to them. After viewing Stephen’s work you might feel alone in this big world, or embarrassed for the person who he depicts in his drawings. They each have different underlying characters.

The large part of the space will be filled with sculpture by Douglas Paulson who has made an escape raft for all the people he thinks would be the minimum he would “need to save after an NYC destroying [global warmingy] flood.” Doug’s raft signifies an utopia/distopia that would represent his weekend here spent with friends