Trenton Doyle “Something American”

James Cohan (291 Grand St.)

This event has ended.

At James Cohan’s Grand Street gallery, Trenton Doyle Hancock will present a new suite of ink-on-paper works that comprise the second chapter of the artist’s most visionary drawing project to date: Trenton Doyle Hancock Presents The Moundverse. Designed as a traditional graphic novel, the intricate black and white illustrations provide a narrative master class in the characters and mythologies that have ruled Hancock’s work for the past twenty-five years.

On a fundamental level, this chapter explores the mechanisms of seeing—and the ways in which our sight fails us and leads us astray. The human vegans are unable to see their ossiform namesakes, the police mistake the Vegans for kindergarteners, and the proprietor of the health food emporium warmly welcomes the zombie cops who immediately plunder his establishment. Appearances can be deceiving, and truth can only be revealed through close looking and a questioning of what at first glance seems obvious. Art becomes itself a strategy of seeing—of looking at the world and laying bare its honest, ugly corners—while also finding beauty and humor.