NYAB Event - Joachim ‘Yoyo’ Friedrich and Sam McKinniss Exhibition

Joachim ‘Yoyo’ Friedrich and Sam McKinniss Exhibition

Envoy Enterprises (87 Rivington St.)

This event has ended.

I met Joachim ‘Yoyo’ Friedrich at a group exhibition Can I Get A Witness organized by Tisch Abelow, Jashin Friedrich, and Dakotah Savage, for ART BLOG ART BLOG, a pop up exhibition space in 2011. I saw these drawings on the wall on newspaper and on paper and upon seeing them I asked someone who they were by. They pointed to a man with white hair and an embroidered cap and I was introduced to him. He spoke with a German accent and he directed me to his daughter who he jovially called his ‘agent’. She wrote his name down and her name down and his email on a piece of paper. I emailed him the following day and asked to do a studio visit. I went to his studio and became enamored with his work and his person. I promised that day that soon, someday, I would do something with his work because it was so good and it seemed such a shame that it wasn’t being seen.

I met Sam McKinniss at an opening. He was there with a friend who I briefly met before. We clicked instantaneously. We met for a drink. We had many drinks. We set up a studio visit. We kept in touch. We did more studio visits. We kissed ‘hellos’ and hugged when we saw each other on the streets and parties of New York. I saw more of his work throughout the year. We ate meals together. I kept saying his name to people who asked who is making good art these days.

I am pleased to be presenting the works of Joachim ‘Yoyo’ Friedrich and Sam McKinniss at envoy enterprises. They are very different artists. They make very different work. They have very different lives lived and to live but they share something beyond the art they make and the people they are. They are a certain breed of artist who will always make art, their art, exactly the way they want and need to. There is something obvious to that but also rare.

There are shared interests, considerations, and aesthetics that brought me to select these artists and their works. This can be seen in their connections of color and poetics of form. The works on view capture moods and tell short tales of a moment, a day, or a fantasy imagined. On view will be a selection of works on paper, newspaper and sculpture by Friedrich that range from the 1970s to 2013 and oil and canvas paintings by McKinniss from 2012 to 2013.

-Jamie Sterns, June 2013

Joachim ‘Yoyo’ Friedrich(b. 1941), Berlin, Germany, lives and works in New York. Solo and group exhibitions include: Galerie Joanna Hofft, Pruisunic, Gestaltreform, Dinter Fine Art, Galerie Brigitte Schenk, PS1, O.K. Harris Gallery, Egon Von Komenke Galerie, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, and Baltimore Museum of Art.His works have been reviewed in Flash Art, Moderne Kunst, Brooklyn Rail, and Art Review.

Sam McKinniss(b. 1985) is a 2013 graduate of NYU Steinhardt’s Studio Art MFA program. His work has been exhibited at Real Art Ways in Hartford, the New Britain Museum of American Art, Proof Gallery in Boston, DNA Gallery in Provincetown, Second Guest Projects, Ana Cristea Gallery, La Mama La Galleria and elsewhere.

Jamie Sterns is an independent curator based in New York City. She has organized exhibitions for PPOW Gallery, envoy enterprises, Interstate Projects, and BRIC ROTUNDA Gallery. Exhibitions organized have been reviewed in: The New York Times, Art In America, The Village Voice, Modern Painters, The Huffington Post, Rhizome, Zinc Magazine, Art Fag City, Artinfo, L Magazine, and Hyperallergic. She maintains a weekly arts/culture blog called YaYaYa and was a co-founder of the project space New York City. She is a member of the New Art Dealers Association and is on the board of Dirty Looks, New York.

Media

• Drawing
• Photography

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