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Artists' reception: Saturday, September 29th,
5:00-8:00pm
Exhibition Dates: September 29th – November 11th, 2007
The latest site-specific installations by Elana Herzog and Peter Dudek, presented
by Smack Mellon, complement one another in interesting yet indirect ways. Peter
Dudek's assemblages, consisting of found materials and fabricated objects,
are methodically positioned on the gallery floor. The interlaced objects remain
in a state of flux as Dudek continually modifies the arrangement throughout the
course of the exhibition.
Elana Herzog creates an image that also seems
to continually shift—a plaid pattern of fabric remains
in a state of emergence and dissolution as she affixes
yards of plaid fabric on drywall using thousands of staples.
In this new incarnation of Herzog's work, she seamlessly
introduces structural elements to the existing architecture
of the gallery.
As these two internationally recognized Brooklyn artists
transform Smack Mellon's 6000 square foot gallery
space, they create an exchange in modes and materials that
is both visually and conceptually striking.
Smack Mellon's mission is to
nurture and support emerging, under-recognized mid-career
and women artists in the creation and exhibition of new
work by providing exhibition opportunities, studio workspace,
and access to equipment and technical assistance for
the realization of ambitious projects.
This exhibition is made
possible with public funds from the City of New York
Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State
Council on the Arts, a state agency, and with generous
support from Smack Mellon's Members, The Greenwall
Foundation, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, Jerome Foundation,
Richard Massey, Judith and Donald Rechler Foundation
Inc., and Eve Sussman. Smack Mellon also receives generous
support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Brooklyn
Borough President Marty Markowitz, City Council Member
David Yassky and the New York City Council, The Andy
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Bloomberg, Foundation
for Contemporary Arts The Greenwich Collection Ltd.,
Independence Community Foundation, Jean and Louis Dreyfus
Foundation, Inc., Lily Auchincloss Foundation Inc., Milton
and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Inc., New York Community
Trust, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Inc., The Starry
Night Fund of Tides Foundation, and The Roy and Niuta
Titus Foundation, Inc.
Space for Smack Mellon's programs is generously provided
by the Walentas Family and Two Trees Management.
Peter Dudek
New Monuments to My Lovelife
mixed media
dimensions variable
[
click to watch video ]
Peter Dudek, Mixed
media, dimensions variable, (detail view)
New Monuments to My Lovelife is an elaboration on and expansion of several
ongoing projects. Each project takes the shape of an installation containing
various and sundry drawings, sculptures and photographs that are dispersed
throughout the gallery and, periodically, shifted about during the course
of the exhibition. At Smack Mellon sections of these projects are brought
together for the first time. New parts are added and original compositions
are reconfigured to play off of the considerable size of Smack Mellon's
space.
Laid out before the viewer is an expansively
comparative intermingling of ready-made and handcrafted
components. Amidst this sprawling network of low-tech
assemblages an intentional blurring between the found
and the fabricated is at play, resulting in a rambling
and discursive junction where modern architecture, design,
and modes of presentation intermix.
Peter Dudek lives and works in Brooklyn and
teaches sculpture at the School of Visual Arts and Hunter
College in NYC. He is also the Director of the Storefront
Artist Project in Pittsfield, MA www.storefrontartist.org and
the founder of Archicule www.archicule.com.
Solo projects have been held at Studio Facchetti,
Brooklyn, NY; Hopper House Art Center, Nyack, NY; Bravin
Post Lee Gallery, New York City and Revolution, Ferndale,
MI. Recently his work was exhibited at: Art Cologne, Germany;
Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield, MA; Gallery 51, North Adams,
MA; The Arts Center, St. Petersburg, Fland currently at
Gallerí Skilti/Sign Gallery, Reykjavik, Iceland
and Hudson Valley Community College, Troy, NY. In October
he will present a project at the Lab (47th& Lex) in
NYC.
As an independent curator Peter Dudek has
organized several exhibitions over the past 15 years including:
Dead-Fit Beauty (1997), Architecture! Architecture! Architecture!
(1998), Photasm (2000), American Sandwich (2001), T-Zone
(2005) and Nature More (2006).
Peter Dudek has been a recipient of the following
residencies and awards: Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation
Fellowship (1992); Centrum Rzezby Polskiej Residency, Oronsko,
Poland (1990), Creative Artists Program Service Fellowship
(1982) and Artist-in-Residence, Nethers Colony (1980),
Woodville, VA. Dudek is a 2007 NYFA Fellow in Sculpture
Elana Herzog
Plaid
fabric, staples and drywall
dimensions variable
[
click to watch video ]
Elana Herzog, Drywall construction, plaid fabric and staples on reinforced
drywall panels.
dimensions variable, (detail view)
For some years my work has involved stapling textiles to
these reinforced gypsum panels using thousands of metal
staples. Parts of the fabric and the staples are then
removed, and sometimes reapplied, leaving a residue
of shredded fabric and perforated wall surface, in
some areas, and densely stapled and built up areas
elsewhere. The structure of the embedded image is thus
generated directly from the weave of the fabric. The
progressively dematerialized image, articulated by
metal staples and fabric residue, seems to be simultaneously
emerging from and disappearing into the wall.
The work negotiates the often thin line
between attraction and repulsion, pain and pleasure,
the vulgar and the sublime. Although very much focused
on form, it evokes a visceral response in the viewer
that complicates any purely formal reading.
In several recent pieces I've designed and built
new walls in the exhibition space, altering the configuration
of the rooms. This project further explores the relationship
between built structures and their surfaces. Simple forms
emerge from the walls of the gallery. "Plaid" creeps
through the gallery space like a stain. Meandering images
scar the walls, insinuating themselves into the simple
geometry of architectural forms.
Elana Herzog lives and works in New York
City. She has had solo and two person exhibitions at the
Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut,
the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University, in
Ithaca, New York, PPOW Gallery, and GAGA, in New York City,
the Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont.
and DiverseWorks in Houston, Texas, the Zilkha Gallery,
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut.
Elana Herzog's work has been internationally
exhibited at the Reykjavik Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland,
the Gothenberg Konsthalle, Gothenberg, Sweden, and the
1994 Chilean Biennale, Valparaiso, Chile. Her work has
been included in shows at The Museum of Arts and Design,
The Brooklyn Museum, at The Sculpture Center in Long Island
City, New York, at the Anderson Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth
University. Herzog's work was recently been on view
in Riverside Park, in Manhattan, as part of "Studio
in the Park" curated by Karin Bravin. Her recent
two person show at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield Connecticut
was a collaboration with sound artist Michael Schumacher.
Elana Herzog's upcoming exhibitions
include a group show at the Fleming Museum in Burlington,
Vermont, and another at Lmak Projects in Chelsea, New York.
She will travel to Zurich, Switzerland in September of
2007 to install a site-specific project at K-3. Herzog
is the recipient of the 2007 and 1999 NYFA Fellowship,
the1999 Joan Mitchell Award, the 2003 Lambent Fund Fellowship
and the 2004 Lillian Elliot Award.
BACK to Past Exhibitions
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