David Nolan Gallery
527 West 29th Street, 212-925-6190
Chelsea
May 28 - June 23, 2009
Reception: Thursday, May 28, 6 - 8 PM
Web Site
David Nolan Gallery is pleased to announce Slough, a group exhibition curated by gallery artist Steve DiBenedetto. The impetus behind this exhibition is the flexibility of the word slough, which has various interpretations. Pronounced slew, slough can describe a bog-like, swampy, dark, primordial and somewhat mysterious realm. The alternate and less used, but maybe also appropriate interpretation, is a state of moral degradation or spiritual dejection that one cannot extract oneself from. Slough, as in sluff, also refers to that which has been cast aside or shed off, like a skin. It can also describe the manner in which material tends to accumulate at the edges of a performed task, such as the accumulation of dust on the rim of a fan, snow on the edge of a shovel, or trash in the breakdown lane of a highway.
Either way, these notions, in a very general sense, will be used as the stimulus to explore ideas about marginal territory, accumulation, holes and residue. Some works will have a more obvious connection to these conditions, (i.e., Larry Poons, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, and Tony Feher), while other works might be a little more unexpectedly related, (i.e., Jessica Craig Martin, Philip Taaffe, and Hanneline Rogeberg).
A certain dynamic at work will be the inclusion of things that may not even be apparent as art at first, coexisting with virtual masterpieces of traditional forms. The works, which represent a highly diverse range of mediums, from established 20th century masters to cutting edge contemporary artists, will associate with various states of deterioration and repair, forging unusual and unforeseen connections between old and new work. While not an exact follow-up to DiBenedetto’s last curatorial effort, Loaf (2000), which involved sculpture exclusively, Slough does bring back some of the same artists.
Proposed artists include: Vito Acconci, Joe Bradley, Werner Büttner, Dan Colen, Carroll Dunham, Keith Edmier, Tony Feher, Lucio Fontana, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Eugène Leroy, Markus Lüpertz, Jon Kessler, Fabian Marcaccio, Jessica Craig Martin, Matthew McCaslin, Pat McElnea, Jonathan Meese, John Miller, Malcolm Morley, Larry Poons, Hanneline Rogeberg, Dieter Roth, Alexander Ross, Bill Schwarz, Mike Scott, Michelle Segre, Frank Stella, Philip Taaffe, and Andy Warhol, among others.