NYAB Event - Dennis McNett "Reaping Waves, Vital Vessels and the Passing of the Wolfbat"

Dennis McNett "Reaping Waves, Vital Vessels and the Passing of the Wolfbat"

Joshua Liner Gallery

This event has ended.

Joshua Liner Gallery, in collaboration with gallery artist Dennis McNett, presents a first-ever, spectacular event in the streets of West Chelsea: The Passing of the Wolfbats.

Part art parade, part shaman uprising, the “Passing of the Wolfbats” will gather art enthusiasts and neighborhood residents for a celebratory procession through the heart of the New York art world. The purpose? To wake up the city’s sleeping spirits of creativity, expression, and personal soulfulness.

Led by a Viking ship, drummers, marchers with banners and battleaxes, and a flock of Wolfbats—McNett’s signature symbol of transformation—the procession will feature many elements from the artist’s work, including mythological figures and folklore, animal and skeleton forms, and masks and costumes, all emblazoned with McNett’s distinctive linocut imagery. McNett has evolved these characters into a personal mythology that he deploys in woodcut prints on paper applied to wall installations, sculptures, papier mâché masks, costumes, ships, and more.

The community is enthusiastically invited to participate in the procession in whatever form it chooses, from wheatpasting prints to the hull of the ship, to creating and wearing costumes, to offering expressions in song and dance during the procession. All participants are welcomed to join the celebration of community energy and collective spirit outside the Joshua Liner Gallery on 28th Street, where a second ship (with band aboard) will be moored. The ships themselves are roughly twenty-six feet in length, constructed of wood entirely by hand, and feature ten-foot sails of printed muslin and a hull papered in prints by McNett and myriad other artists.

“The size of the ship is important,” says McNett. “It represents an invasion into whatever space it inhabits and is large enough to be collaborative. It’s an armature for communal ritual, big enough to facilitate everyone’s work.” It is McNett’s intention to celebrate collectivity and collaboration in the construction of the ships, the tradition of storytelling, the energy of the procession, and the egalitarian medium of printmaking itself.

Media

• Painting
• Sculpture

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