Still fresh (and probably still nauseous) from his live-in installation “Stability and Other Tenuous Positions” at Lawrimore Projects in Seattle, Ward Shelley now returns to New York for another solo show at Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn from April 17 – May 17, 2009. Note that the opening reception is on Saturday, the 18th.

“Who Invented the Avant-Garde – and other half-truths” is the second showing of Ward’s time-line drawings at Pierogi. In this new show Shelley has expanded his concerns from the lives and careers of individual artists (Re-materializing Art in 2006) to mapping the role of art as a shaping force in the world. These expansive graphic depictions reveal and simultaneously question the complex relationships between events and people over time. Though rich in factual details, they are more than historical documents. Shelley’s eccentric drawing style claims a subjective relationship to his themes: above all, these are beautiful painted drawings.

The eponymous and central painting in the show (above) explores and interprets the history of the Avant Garde, from its nascent murmurings, to its radical heydays, and eventual domestication and aestheticization.

A piece commissioned by Bomb magazine, Downtown Body, lays open the 100-year corpse of art and bohemianism in downtown New York. In addition to the visual arts, lines trace theater, music, and literature, graphically depicting the Rise of the Scene and the explosion of interdisciplinary work as a network of intersecting veins and organs. Also noted are the beginnings of downtown institutions, including the Whitney Museum, which began as a studio club a stone’s throw off of Washington Square Park. A limited edition of prints of this piece are on sale for the benefit of Bomb.

Matrilineage is a celebration of American woman painters – beginning with the impressionist Mary Cassat – who achieved enduring careers prior to the 60’s and second wave feminism, in a world frequently hostile and unsympathetic to independent women with strong voices. Hundreds of individual lifelines are included, giving visual weight to their largely overlooked contributions.

Other strong voices that receive treatments are Andy Warhol (as filmmaker) and Frank Zappa. Other paintings are here.

In the Back Gallery … For Pierogi’s back gallery a new installation, “The Sleeper Experiment”, will feature Ward sleeping (during regular business hours from April 17 till April 30th) in a cabinet with a speech generating computer. The visitors, virtual or actual, are invited to contribute random input (in the form of words, short phrases, or images) that will become the basis for concept maps. This input will be read into the artist’s mind by the computer during his sleeping hours. In the evening he will rise and begin drawing, leaving the results on view for the following day. Submit your input at [email protected] More info and guidelines at : Sleeper Experiment