Neke Carson “Glam Conceptualism, Interventional Performance, et aliis rerum A survey: 1949–2018”
Mitchell Algus Gallery
[Image: Neke Carson in Retrospective dancing on Vito Acconci's Seedbed, Sonnabend Gallery (1972)]
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The Mitchell Algus gallery presents Glam Conceptualism, Interventional Performance, et aliis rerum, a survey of the art of Neke Carson from the age of three to the present day.
In 1968 Neke Carson and his Rhode Island School of Design classmate Marin Mull formed an art rock band that opened for Janis Joplin when she played at the school. The following year, after graduation, Carson moved to NYC where his RISD thesis project, Double Bubble Bath or Moon Man Fountain – a large sculpture where two people could sit inside plastic bubbles surrounded by water – was photographed by Philippe Halsman for an article on “Fun Art” in the autumn 1969 issue of Horizon magazine.
Interested in kinetic art, Cason began producing conceptual drawings for apparatus that could directly address existential problems, particularly those surrounding signification and mortality. His Suicide Egg is a large plastic egg to be affixed high on a building that once crawled into would release its emergent, human, embryo to “be born a splat on the earth.” Bite me and drink what you love is a blood-filled cross to be placed alongside cold cuts in a supermarket freezer inviting vampires to destroy themselves in order to obtain their desire. Pumping Hot Blood is a clear plastic chair plumbed with tubes circulating warm red dye providing a relaxing external cradle that echoes internal physiology in both form and function.
Living in the then-developing gallery scene in SoHo, Carson decided to jump right in and document the time he wasted showing his slides to art dealers. Given the continuing futility of this endeavor (it took four years before he was finally offered a show, terminating the piece) Carson decided to turn the Duchampian imperative on its head mounting interventional performances in galleries where, rather than turning readymades into art, he could turn art into readymades; dancing on Vito Acconci’s Seedbed; placing red Sold! sticky dots on Gilbert and George’s Singing Sculpture or Carl Andre’s brick Equivalent sculptures; walking into galleries and canoodling with a dog amidst the art (Crimes Against Nature); photographing a large carrot placed on work by Dan Flavin, Robert Rauschenberg, or even Picasso (The Longest Carrot in NYC).
Perhaps Carson’s most notorious invention/intervention is Rectal Realism. Here the artist produced paintings holding a paintbrush in his ass. Carson’s Rectal Realist portrait of Andy Warhol was made at the Factory in truly circular and collaborative fashion with Warhol filming Neke, while Neke observed and painted his subject.
In the late 1970s, ensconced within the burgeoning downtown New Wave scene Carson decided to gather its most visually intriguing denizens to start the La Rocka Modeling Agency. This project was surprisingly successful, obtaining high-profile modeling assignments (for Henri Bendel, for example), working with the likes of Stephen Meisel, Anna Sui, Betsy Johnson, and Michael Kors, doing runway shows for Kansai Yamamoto, and receiving lots and lots of press. The La Rocka Agency was central to the production of Slava Tsukerman’s 1982 cult classic Liquid Sky, providing both significant cast and presiding over a fashion show that established the film’s defining New Wave aura. La Rocka supermodel Anne Carlisle played both the male and female leads and co-wrote the script.
Neke Carson went on produce photographs of phosphorescent figurines, Closet Portraits of friends (John Waters, Debbie Harry, etc.) made by placing a camera on their closet floors and shutting the door. Other projects followed, the most recent of which is Fictitious Fruits, paintings of real and artificial fruits and vegetables, thirteen of which are being shown here.
On the side, and having taught himself to play the piano, Neke Carson curated and hosted a performance venue at the Gershwin Hotel from 2001 to 2014 presenting Jared Harris, the Poet Laureate Billy Collins, Nina Hagen, and Debbie Harry, among other downtown celebrities. Carson has also given piano recitals at the Andy Warhol and Rubin Museums.
Neke Carson (b. Dallas, Texas, 1946) is the youngest of three extraordinary and eccentric brothers. The oldest, L. M. Kit Carson (1941-2014) was an actor and screenwriter whose breakthrough came writing the screen adaptation of Sam Shepherd’s novel Motel Chronicles for the 1984 movie Paris, Texas. He was married at the time to Karen Black, and their son Hunter was one of the movie’s stars. Kit went on to write screenplays for the remake of Breathless with Richard Gere, as well as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. The middle brother, Reverend Goat Carson (1945-2018) was a Grammy award winning lyricist (in 2008 with Dr. John), Cherokee Medicine Man and professional eccentric, running for president in 1992 on the Blues Party ticket and adopting the campaign slogan “We want our money back.” Neke Carson lives and works in Sag Harbor, NY.
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Schedule
from January 12, 2019 to February 24, 2019
Opening Reception on 2019-01-12 from 18:00 to 20:00