NYAB Event - “Don’t Make a Scene” Exhibition

“Don’t Make a Scene” Exhibition

Kai Matsumiya

This event has ended.

“Don’t Make a Scene” is comprised of 4-day solo presentations, running from February 7 through March 12, at Kai Matsumiya. There will be a total of 11 solo exhibitions in the second and third galleries. The first gallery will remain empty. Kai Matsumiya will remain open seven days a week between 12 – 6 during the course of Don’t Make a Scene.

On one hand, the colloquialism “Don’t Make a Scene” is used by the parent to the bratty child, or the boyfriend or girlfriend to their respective partners. The rationale prohibits expected behaviors within certain environments. On the other hand, “Don’t make a Scene” is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the decline of scenes in general due to present changing economic, social, technological, and cultural circumstances. Many of such rationalizations are often dependent on a number of psychological and generational dispositions and experiences.

Some may declare that “a scene is dead”; “the scene is passé”; “it’s all about the scene”; “it’s just part of the scene”; the scene has mutated into a type of insincere “branding” strategy driven by suspect orientations; the scene may in fact represent the virtuous exemplification of certain communities where the manifested result was never intended or witted.

And, in another way, maybe it doesn’t have to be so serious. The formulaic gallery opening itself introduces the scene. Throughout Don’t Make a Scene we may forego the opening in favor of a closing or a middling. The show may end when it all begins, or it may somehow remain in the middle.

Continuing Philip Metten’s emphasis on the vacant show which took place last December in “153.Stanton”, Rainer Ganahl’s investigations into the context of the institutional worlds of artists in “S/L” previously, and Lucky DeBellevue’s founding of the now 55 member strong Foundation Barbin which filled the space to its absolute limitations and concludes Friday, February 5th, Gallery 1 will remain a space to take a break from it all. The first space will also be active as it will be used for temporary storage during the rapid installation/de-installation cycle that will ensue, as we simply have no room left at the gallery.

Don’t Make a Scene at Kai Matsumiya begins with ephemeral solo openings by Sam Gordon and Jake Ewert, and closings with Walter Robinson and Graham Durward. More solo shows will be presented as parts of “Don’t Make a Scene” TBD in the coming weeks.

Presenting:

SAM GORDON AND JAKE EWERT
Sunday, February 7th - Thursday, February 11th : Galleries 2 and 3
Opening Reception: Sunday, February 7th, 5-7pm

and

WALTER ROBINSON and GRAHAM DURWARD
Saturday, February 13th - Wednesday , February 17th
Closing Reception: Wednesday, February 17th, 6-8 pm

Sam Gordon

A selection of works on paper from various periods by the artist, (1996-2016) paired with folk art, thrift store finds and souvenirs from abroad from Gordon’s personal collection. This exhibition functions in conjunction with World Made By Hand at Andrew Edlin Gallery, Feb 7th- March 19th which was organized in cooperation with the artist.

Sam Gordon is an artist and curator living in Brooklyn. From 1997 through 2013 Gordon’s painting, drawing, photography, and video work was regularly presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions at Feature Inc. His work is included in the collections of the Museum Of Modern Art, New York and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. Gordon’s recent curatorial projects include Contemporary Poetry, for NADA New York 2014, PURPLE STATES with Andrew Edlin Gallery, 2014, and #FFFF at White Columns, 2015. Most recently Gordon was a visiting professor at the California Institute for the Arts in January 2016.

Jake Ewert – “Paintings”

Working with the architecture of the gallery, Jake Ewert creates paintings in response to the space, and is an artist living and working in Queens.

Walter Robinson

So guys what’s your agenda? We’re going to stick to our goals and follow our nutrition plans and eat healthy, right? Fuel up for a wintry day with some egg oatmeal with blueberries and chopped walnuts, or a wholesome green salad with chopped carrot, cucumber and tomato. Never underestimate the deliciousness of simplicity. A person could easily take the day off and binge on blockbuster movies in Times Square, but if you have big plans for your health and wellness, you won’t reach them by slacking off. It’s not easy to be driven by passion. It’s exhausting and can feel hopeless. But who wants to live life on autopilot? How can you miss the chance to experience the immense joy that comes from knowing you’ve touched someone else’s vital center? I struggle to inspire people to change their outlook and create paths to freedom. Painting has been good to me, and I would love to pay this forward and show people how they too can achieve happiness and peace and begin living their own lives of freedom. It’s the most fulfilling thing in the world, and the time to start is now.

Graham Durward

After all, whose tongue is it anyway?

I was looking through some paintings in the studio, as I often do in order to “make sense” .When did I do these? oh yes not so long ago perhaps, that one only last week? I rarely work on “shows” , so many artists do these days .I prefer a circuitous route to whatever. I like to catch myself unawares and believe in poetry.

Oh, there’s one and there’s another they seem to relate! Was I feeling the same that day as I was just then? There is sometimes a strange continuity to what can randomly occur! Or perhaps not, given ones essential being. So, having corralled paintings from far corners of my studio what do they mean to me now?

Do I think this?. I was trying to paint something that described the sensation of a deep kiss. A “French Kiss” in which a “desiring tongue discovers another tongue as equally desiring,between lips. And, the sensation of physical abandonment is sensed in the other which opens out into a liquid void of disembodied pleasure.”

Was I attempting to show this from the outside looking in or from the inside looking out?

Its a little like kissing, lips meet, the tongue finds its way, there is an initial understanding, a relenting,a reciprocation. Its just that one has to be both sometimes. There will be four or five paintings.