NYAB Event - "Law of the Jungle" Exhibition

"Law of the Jungle" Exhibition

Lehmann Maupin (536 W 22nd Street)

This event has ended.

Curated by Tiago Carneiro da Cunha.

For "Law of the Jungle," Carneiro da Cunha has selected a diverse group of artists from contemporary to outsider, both established and emerging, for a thematic exhibition based on ideas of survival: personal and collective survival, as well as the survival of the artistic practice at large. Carneiro da Cunha proposes a selection of works by artists from Brazil, Bali, the UK and beyond, in which Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” and the endangered livelihood of the artistic practice itself is conveyed.

Each of the artists in the exhibition draw upon elements of art history, applying facets of inspiration and the evolution of artistic practices to create works mindful of today and the world around us. While all tie back to the central theme of survival, featured works reference a range of views and approaches. Reflections of our society’s abundance of products and wasteful attitude through the use of re-appropriated items are present in Leirner’s composition of devalued Brazilian currency, Bickerton’s use of flotsam, or Caetano de Almeida’s geometric paintings composed by polluted Sao Paulo air. The blurring of boundaries between the natural and the man-made can be found in Verzutti’s compositions using cast tropical fruits, or Lopes’ wicker-covered bicycle, while a more classical approach is used in Almeida’s wooden sculptures, Marepe and Mourao’s works on paper, Cemin’s cast bronze, and traditional painting by Morley, Zerbini, McDevitt, Ricardo Ricardo and Varejao. Whatever the chosen medium, each artist presents a visionary take on both their craft and the world around them. It is a landscape constructed as much by the remains of the ordered, modernist worldview – as seen in the works of Gillick, Callaghan, Leirner, Cemin, Zerbini - as well as by the chaotic, trans-historical and violent mud that surrounds us– seen in the works of McDevitt, Carneiro and Morley - in many cases uniting both into elaborate, hallucinogenic compositions, like those of Kun, Varejao, Bickerton, Caetano, and Gemeos. Although these are often dramatic views of a maddening world, the unifying theme is not somber but is instead humorous and optimistic.

[Image: Adriana Varejao "Paisagem Canibal (Cannibal Landscape)" (2003) oil and polyurethane on wood 66.93 x 86.61 in.]

Media

• Painting
• Photography
• Sculpture

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