NYAB Event - Alex Rose “A Most Hatedman”

Alex Rose “A Most Hatedman”

Envoy Enterprises (87 Rivington St.)

This event has ended.

Alex Rose’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery consists of a new series of collages and photographs. Collectively, the work demonstrates that Rose thinks as a Poet, but that the essence of it, like with Romanticism, lies in the unspeakable.

The dark beauty of Alex Rose’s work commonly features personal torment and uncertainty as to whether the nature of man will bring salvation or destruction. Its gloomy tone, its color and nonconformist themes, dig deep into the human mind and tend to be engaged with the idea of darkness in the human soul, or a certain dark outlook on society in general.

The collages and photographs in the exhibition oscillate between Rose’s version of ‘Faisandage,’ in which he adapts images of anthropomorphized evil as more telling guides to man’s inherent nature, and the awareness of impermanence or transience of things. Alongside we find a transient gentle sadness at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.

Through the pasting of cut pieces of paper items and disposable ephemera collected in the course of the artist’s daily outings, the collages in ‘a most hatedman’ form a visual diary, which breaks down the barrier between art and everyday life. Some of the figures throughout the work, mostly boys with melancholic facial features, seem to be frozen in a gesture of ideal somnambulism. Unaware of the movements they make, they are so immersed in their dreams that it is as if they’ve been removed.

The same concept of removal is applied to the photographs. After having been photographed, original artwork is retired and when creating work from existing imagery, Rose re­-appropriates the image by re­photographing it. The work is then changed by using fluids such as bleach and wine and its size is altered. As they’re being photographed, the photographs loosen and change color. Some turn out deep sepia, others are weathered or torn while some start molding and foxing. Almost all of them end up ritually burned or buried.

The Romantics believed that any artist who wanted to explore his own emotions, had necessarily to stand outside of the throng of money­making, political gimmickry, and urban noise in order to assert and maintain their positions. As ‘a most hatedman’ suggests, this is exactly what the artist addresses throughout his work. It refers to the very idea of “self­expression” that has to be associated with physical and spiritual isolation and it is this existential alienation, which fuels the artist’s work in all its complexity and symbolism.

Alex Rose was born in 1970 in Cork, Ireland, where he lives and works. Selected solo exhibitions include: Action With Spirits, Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2010), Alcoholic Perfume, Volta, New York, NY (2009), He Hates Me, The Black Mariah, Cork, Ireland (2008), Recent Acquisitions, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland (2008), Paperboys, White Light Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany (2007). Selected group exhibitions include: Dark Paradise, Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil (2013, curated by Tim Goossens), Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland, Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, Ireland (2013, curated by Stephen Brandes), Rien faire et laisser rire, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium (2013, curated by Bob Nickas), Lost Boys: The Territories Of Youth, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork, Ireland (2013), Albion­Hypnagogue­Ghost, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, UK (2012), Creatures of the Blue Lagoon, Martos Gallery, New York (2012, curated by Bob Nickas), Wishful Thinking: In Remembrance of Peter Christopherson, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, UK (2012), In Search Of The Miraculous, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland (2011, curated by Rachael Thomas), The Weaklings, Five Years, London, UK (2011, curated by Dennis Cooper), Catalogue of the exhibition, Triple V, Paris, France (2011, curated by Bob Nickas), Phot(o)bjects, Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2009, curated by Bob Nickas), That’s Us / Wild Combination, Three Colts Gallery, London, UK (2007).
Selected bibliography: A decade of Another Man magazine, Rizzoli (forthcoming Fall 2014), Berger, Aaron. DIAcussion, Beautiful Decay, 25 April (2013), Duffy, Russell. Alex Rose, Something for the weekend, sir?, 31 March (2013), Brian Eno invites Cyclobe, The Kilden, Kristiansand, Norway (2012), Bob Nickas. Catalogue of the exhibition. 2nd Cannons Publications (2011), Richard Brereton, Caroline Roberts. Cut & Paste 21st century collage. Laurence King Publishing Ltd, Another Man Magazine, Natural Science (portfolio) Fall/Winter (2010), Dazed & Confused, issues # 58 and # 60, London, UK (2008), Porcelain boy, Callum James publishers, Portsmouth, UK (2008), Deerhunter, art work for cd/vinyl on 4AD, Suicide/The Horrors, art work for vinyl on Blast First Petit Records, UK (2008).

Media

• Graphics
• Photography

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