Selected by Miriam Katzeff

Gallery-C is pleased to present an exhibition of new videos and paintings by Alex Hubbard. The exhibition will run from the 7th of May through the 20th of June 2009. Gallery-C is an autonomous project space located within the walls of Team Gallery in New York, 83 Grand Street, between Wooster and Greene.

For the past few years, Hubbard has made works that combine performance, painting and video. Hubbard’s videos began on tabletops with a performer laying out, spilling, painting and arranging mundane objects. The editing creates the anticipation of a televised cooking show and its sensory possibilities. Just as a picture is composed, Hubbard ruptures the surface, bulldozing, spraying or tearing the arrangement. The physical swipes and transitions have a similar impact to the techniques employed by early video art pioneers like Peter Campus.

In the most recent work, Hubbard expands the focus from painting to three-dimensional space using stage sets and shifting walls. Situated in these environments, the performer gains increasing importance. In Weekend Pass, common household items are solemnly placed on a pedestal for admiration. As the camera rotates around the pedestal, the objects are comically demolished. Through the videos, Hubbard transforms silent film sight gags into tools of production.

While the videos initially suggest formalist art or paintings in the process of completion, the paintings give the feeling of stills after a disruption. Using a combination of silkscreen and painting, torn patterns or paint drips interrupt the composition, suggesting errors in a reproduced image.

Alex Hubbard is based in New York. He has had solo shows at Castillo/Corrales, House of Gaga, and Nicole Klagsbrun. His work has been included in numerous group shows in venues such as Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, The Kitchen, Johann König, the Palais de Tokyo, the Swiss Institute, Standard (Oslo), Whitney Museum at Altria and among others.