The Garden at 4 AM, an exhibition curated by Paul Laster and Renée Riccardo, will be on view at Gana Art, 568 W. 25th Street, from February 12-March 14, 2009. There will be an opening reception on February 12 from 6-8 pm.

The group exhibition features an international mix of twenty-four contemporary artists and takes Hieronymus Bosch’s 16th Century masterpiece, The Garden of Earthly Delights, as its point of departure to present a selection of art works that reference the garden, nature, animals and enchantment, reverie, good and evil and the nuance of twilight and impending light. These subjects serve as metaphors for where we are and where we are going in these universally troubled times.

The title of the exhibition also references Alberto Giacometti’s enigmatic 20th century sculpture, The Palace at 4 a.m. The combination of the two iconic pieces reflects a conscious twisting of fact – which the Surrealists did and as contemporary artists continue to do – to create poetic, playful and referential works of art. The display of paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and new media pieces in the exhibition echoes the figures and objects interacting in Giacometti’s imaginary sculptural plane. Converging in a white space in late winter, the individual works on view construct a previously untold narrative of life, death and renewal.

Artists in the exhibition include Louise Bourgeois, U-Ram Choe, Brody Condon, Angelo Filomeno, Osang Gwon, Claudia Hart, Julie Heffernan, Yong Ho Ji, Min Kim, John Kleckner, Nalini Malani, Walter Martin & Paloma Muñoz, Ryan McGinness, Marilyn Minter, Paul Morrison, Marc Quinn, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, Tom Sachs, Shi Jinsong, Sally Smart, Jennifer Steinkamp, Michael Velliquette, James Welling and Wu Jian’an.

Paul Laster and Renée Riccardo are independent curators and former Adjunct Curators of Photography at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center. Laster is editor of Artkrush.com, a contributing editor at Flavorpill.com and ArtAsiaPacific magazine, and a contributing writer at Time Out New York and Art in America. Riccardo is the director of ARENA Projects, a roving curatorial and consulting entity. Laster and Riccardo’s recent collaborations include Word (2004), Bronx River Arts Center; Me, Myself and I (2004), Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton; Co-dependent: Construction and Deconstruction (2005), The Living Room, Miami; It’s a Beautiful Day (2006), Ise Cultural Foundation, New York: Emotional Landscape (2006), Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn; and The Garden at 4 AM (2009), Gana Art, New York.