Heist Gallery
27 Essex Street, 212-253-0451
East Village / Lower East Side
July 17 - August 10, 2008
Reception: Thursday, July 17, 6 - 8 PM
Web Site
“I’ll be your mirror…so you can break into endless shards”
Curated by Metro Color Collision, the creative team of Julie Fishkin and Matt Lucas.
While this exhibition is an obvious reference to the mythic Velvet Underground song titled “I’ll be your mirror” in which Nico sang in her beautiful ingenue voice the first part of this title, it is equally a celebration of love, life, empathy, death and everything we may endure through a shared experience with another.
I’ll be your mirror, reflect what you are/ in case you don’t know…..
When you think the night has seen your mind That inside you’re twisted and unkind Let me stand to show that you are blind Please put down your hands Cause I see you
The song is about how you can understand someone you love despite all the inner turmoil and twisted self-perceptions. It’s about ultimate empathy and the recognition of beauty in the simple of truth of being there, of that impending present moment that erases everything before it and supplants everything after.
The title is also an homage and reference to Nan Goldin’s brilliant collection of photographs for which the book bears the same name. As you know, they reflect her friendships, loves, lovers and everything they have been through over the years—their battle with drugs, AIDS, love and everything in between.
The work presented in this exhibition of thirty-one artists depicts their individual gazes, their perceptions of self and of others; they expound upon love, friendship and the personal story of each artist but through a lens of inherent contradiction that can only stem through utter introspection. The results are personal, beautiful, aloof, disturbing, twisted and unkind.
The featured artists are: Eric Ayotte Matthew Bradley Duane Bruton Christine Callahan Angela Cappetta Drew Conrad Colleen Cunningham Carlton DeWoody Stephanie Dodes Marta Edmisten Jonathan Feinstein Simone Frazier Rob Hart Conrad Kofron Tatiana Kronberg Christopher Martino Meredith Miller Jeanne Mischo Kelly Mola Kelly Mudge Trong Gia Nguyen John Peery Tod Seelie David Smith Jessica Smith Tara Smith Emily Steinfeld Andrea Taormina Vadie Turner Ryan Watkins-Hughes Bahar Yurukoglu