“Who’s Afraid of Pattern and Decoration?” Exhibition

Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts

poster for “Who’s Afraid of Pattern and Decoration?” Exhibition

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Kathleen Cullen announces a group exhibition “Who’s Afraid of Pattern and Decoration?”.

“In fact, while Pattern and Decoration has often been seen as a rebellion against the austere rigors of late modernism, a way of reclaiming simpler and more spontaneous pleasures, the patterning impulse can just as easily be seen as proceeding from one of the bases of modernist esthetics.”
- Barry Schwabsky, in a New York Times article "ART REVIEW; Pattern and Decoration, Abstract and otherwise" May 3, 1998

Chris Bogia – Meditation on Johnathan Adler Pillow
The sculptures themselves are assemblages of intricate hand-made yarn renderings, found furnishings and decorative objects, constructed furniture, and ephemera. I curate the objects into a sort of shrine or alter in the vernacular of interior design (trends ranging from the 1950s to the present). The hand-made yarn renderings are the focal point, with the other materials acting in concert to conjure an abstracted, "fictional interior space" - suggesting a more general narrative about the belongings present, and the people who live with them.

The Photos reflect a more personal narrative, usually depicting myself - sometimes with a model, performing an action within the space of each sculpture. The actions depicted are often aestheticized interpretations of the kinds of rituals associated with gay sex. The poses reference classical forms of devotion, traditional gay sex (poppers, enemas etc), intuitive movement, and camp.

Catherine Lan – Little Red Riding Hood 2010
I utilize fashion elements to explore themes of female identity. I use collage and assemblage techniques to create Baroque-style structure of folded fabric that deconstruct the pop mythos of classical narrative characters.

Julie Phillips – Veil Aqua, Blue, and Red
My paintings are “elegant remnants” which evoke a sense of old world beauty and of something that has witnessed the passing of time. My technique creates a contradiction that is both historical and contemporary in the overall effect.

Christina Empedocles – Brenda Starr
My practice involves accumulating and assembling found objects and images that stand in for the things I’ve lost touch with over time. By painting what is obviously a facsimile, I attempt to monumentalize the distance between myself and the original, using the intense act of looking as a futile means of getting closer to the things I represent.

Thomas Lanigan Schmidt - Mother Stone
“At that point I realized that Lanigan-Schmidt’s pseudo-Byzantine Funk-Pop vision, transgressive commingling of the sacred and the profane, and his use of reflective and transparent materials were so utterly unique” – Brooklyn Rail

Elizabeth Zans – Untitled
These paintings are a visual record of my first year living in Morocco. They reflect my increasing understanding of Muslim culture and life in Morocco, with its rich variety of landscapes, cultures and the arts. In my paintings these experiences exist as dreams and memories. They are fictitious moments about the similarities and differences between Islamic and American culture.

Mark Chamberlain – Untitled
The Right is assaulting religion, marriage, the family, the law, the Constitution, and historical and cultural norms in order to push a Republican agenda. So in the grand scheme of things, Mark Chamberlain parodies the central figures of the Conservative party.

[Image: Chris Bogia "Meditation on Johnathan Adler Pillow"]

Media

Schedule

from July 08, 2010 to August 11, 2010

Opening Reception on 2010-07-08 from 18:00 to 20:00

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