"Freed from the limitation of medium or methodology, open to
exploration and experimentation, unafraid to make a statement, these
are six artists on the move. Their art--experiential, open-ended and
engaged--beckons, inviting us to interact and react, to contemplate and
investigate these embodied narratives and the possibilities of vision"
Sue Canning, from her introduction to "The Young and The Restless."
Michael Steinberg Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of The
Young and the Restless, Part II, an exhibition of 6 emerging artists
based in New York. The show questions the contemporary concepts of
medium and artistic practice: by turns each of these artists ponder and
re-work the disciplines of painting, drawing, sculpture, and
photography. Building on personal experience--the artists hail from
diverse ethnic backgrounds including Grenada, Brazil, and Murmansk, as
well as native New Yorkers, and deal with issues equally as
diverse--from colonialism, genocide and cultural erasure to aesthetic
questions of color, composition and the nature of light. Christian
Weikop, in his April 4 review of the Gordon Parks exhibit in the
Saatchi Online Magazine, likened the 6 artists to the artists of the
early 20th century Brucke movement, in their earthiness, dynamism and
dedication to Utopian artistic goals.
Shervone Neckles, Tommy Mintz, Clara Fialho, Nikita Pashenkov and
Elise Co, and Will Corwin, have been showing together for the past two
years--spring 2007 at The Flushing Town hall (a Smithsonian Affiliate),
to great local acclaim, The Pickled Art Centre in Beijing, may 2008,
this past fall-spring, at Nancy Walker's Gallerythe, in Carroll
Gardens, Brooklyn, and the Gordon Parks Gallery in the Bronx, from
March through May, 2009.
Shervone Neckles is the recipient of several Joan Mitchell grants
and a Skowhegan Fellowship. She explores the African American
Experience, as well as issues of Carribean colonialism through printing
techniques as wide-ranging as printing on wall-paper and fabric to
printing on bread. Her wall-hangings, quilts and hand-made books,
redefine the cultural significance of traditional craft forms,
especially when recast through the eyes of the opressed. Tommy Mintz
teaches photography at Queensborough and Kingsborough Colleges. His
digital/photographic "Cheap Shots" are both a rejection of the
carefully staged high-production images of Joel Sternfeld, with whom he
studied at Sarah Lawrence, but an acknowledgement of the need for
contemporary photographers to develop a singular and recognizeable
voice, often through digital modification. Clara Fialho graduated from
Cooper Union, but Grew up in Brazil. Her lyrical and abstract paintings
transform the idea of pattern and texture, and though seemingly very
beautiful and decorative, have a darker, psychological, and critical
content. Elise Co and Nik Pashenkov are cofounders of the technology
and design company Aeolab. Elise and Nik met at the MIT Media Lab while
stuying there under John Maeda, and have been artists-in-residence in
places as varied as the Anderson Ranch Art Center and Eyebeam Atelier
in NYC. They create bottles of light with color-manipulated LEDS, and
drawings that glow and move, using industrial paints and computer
circuitry. Will Corwin is a regular at alternative art spaces such as
chashama, the LaMama Gallery in New York, and Gallery Aferro in Newark,
and has shown in Beijing and Taipei on a grant from the State
department as part of the President's Initiative for Global Cultural
Exchange. His installation/paintings deal with the connections between
the desecration of art objects and the disciplines of art/architecture
and archeology.