K to J, Process still. Courtesy of K to J

Featuring: Lindsey Adelman, Laurie Anderson, Ei Arakawa/Aki Takahashi/Sergei Tcherepnin, Aranda/Lasch, Carlos Benaim, Best Made Company®, Zach Blas, Scott Bodenner, Boym Partners Inc., The Brasslab, Lady Bunny, A.K. Burns & Katherine Hubbard, Rafael de Cárdenas / Architecture at Large, Aisen Caro Chacin, Joseph Cavalieri, Chen Chen & Kai Williams, Nicole Cherubini, Ryan Matthew Cohn, Tommy Coleman, CONFETTISYSTEM, Keetra Dean Dixon & JK Keller, Mark Dion, Faye Driscoll, Miriam Ellner, The Extrapolation Factory, Karen Finley, FLATCUT_, Flavor Paper, Fodera Guitars, Fort Standard, FPOAFM Studios, Fredericks & Mae, Benjamin Fredrickson, David Galbraith, Brett Ginsburg, Charles Goldman, Marvin Goldman, Phil Groman, Surya Mattu, Robin Reid, and Federico  Zannier, Harriet Rosebud, John Hatleberg, Paula Hayes, H E I D I L E E, Hood by Air, item idem, Natalie Jeremijenko, J&M Special Effects, Misha Kahn, Victoria Keddie, Kings County Distillery, Ana Kraš, Steven & William Ladd, Jeffrey Landman, Eckhaus Latta, Let There Be Neon, littleBits, Phillip Low, Lower East Side Printshop, Martinez Hand Rolled Cigars, Ohad Meromi, Les Métalliers Champenois Corp., Metropolitan Opera, MILGO/BUFKIN, Marilyn Minter, Donald Moffett, Meredith Monk, Arnaldo Morales, Raúl De Nieves, Michele Oka Doner, papabubble New York, Sally Ann Parsons, Chris Pellettieri, Gaetano Pesce, Jason Polan, Ralph Pucci, Isa Rodrigues, Jason Sapan, Miriam Simun, SITU Studio, Spectacle Theater, Specular, Swill Children, Ginger Brooks Takahashi, Thunder Horse Video, Elaine Tin Nyo, UM Project, Amanda Wachob, Leslie Wayne, Richard Webber, Sylvia Weinstock, Welcome to Night Vale, Paul Wong / Dieu Donné, Caroline Woolard and BFAMFAPhD, Naomi Yasuda, Yemenwed, YOKO ONO PLASTIC ONO BAND, Jeff Zimmerman, and Or Zubalsky.

NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial
July 1 – October 12, 2014
The Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle
New York City
madmuseum.org

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As for where this is going we have several ideas that we are kicking around. A few of them include expanding Curate NYC to other states and other national and international cities. We aim to curate the world (laughs). Other ideas include deeper penetration into particular areas of the city involving nontraditional art spaces such as stores and restaurants. The goal is always to include more artists and art professionals and create greater economic opportunity and exposure for artists.

LO: Please speak about your life in the arts and why you think art is important.
DSJ: My life is fully emerged and integrated in the arts as I’m a working painter and writer, a collector, a curator, a gallery owner, have an arts foundation that serves adult artists and employees artists to work with children in NYC schools and the two galleries I run. I sit and have sat on many arts and culture boards of directors and have served as chairman of New York States Art Council. The arts are my life and one which is supremely satisfying.

The importance of the arts in everyone’s and especially children’s lives is incalculable. It feeds the spirit and fuels the imagination, it brings people together and promotes diversity, commonality and dialogue. Creating and viewing art in any form is soul satisfying. It is also a great source of economic activity for local and national economies providing thousands of jobs and billions in tax revenue for New York City alone.

LO: Do you think there is a difference or connection between making art and curating?
DSJ: Not all artists are curators or curators are artists. In order for an artist to be a curator one has to detach from a bias for work similar to ones own and understand the merits of styles and content of other artistic visions. Thats not always an easy task. The connection is an overall love for art. Both curators and practicing artists must bring a love for the arts when doing either.

LO: How where artist selected for Curate NYC?
DS: Curate NYC is an open call to join in the project which means any artist with a NYC studio or home address is eligable to participate. All an artist has to do is provide proof of NYC residence and upload an image of their work and biographical information and bang your apart of curatenyc.

LO: Curate NYC organized exhibitions in all five boroughs. How are the various art scenes in boroughs the same and/or different?
DSJ: I find that each borough has a different artistic identity as far as density of exhibition spaces and artists. The public is more accustomed to finding art in Manhattan than the other boroughs but as artists expand living throughout the city so do the amount of venues that show their work and the nature of the other businesses that support artists increase ie art stores coffee shops clubs music venues etc.

LO: What kind of advice would you give artists who want to show their work in NYC galleries, museums etc.
DSJ: My advice to artists is mingle and go to shows to meet other artists. Join CurateNYC and go to galleries to talk about your work. Get out there and let folks know what your doing.

The New York art scene is very varied and lively with many interesting shows and events going on but it can also be commercial and market driven. What are your thoughts on the art scene in NYC?

The art scene in NYC is the liveliest in the world but there are other markets that are very important. Africa, Asia, Europe and other cities in the USA. The art market is fast becoming a global one. CurateNYC recognizes this trend and has engaged curators from around the globe to help market NYC artists.

LO: Who are your favorite artists and why?
DSJ: My favorite artists today are too varied to mention but from modern art history…Paul Klee, Cy Twombly, Norman Lewis, Wifredo Lam, Romare Bearden , Jean Michel Basguait , Andy Warhol, Ed Clark , Picasso, and the list goes on and on and on.

LO: To wrap up please share any upcoming shows and/or projects or shows.
DSJ: I have a newbook of poetry and painting coming spring 2014 as well as several exhibits around the country. An exhibition on abstraction I’m curating in three NYC galleries. I will be at Art Basel Miami and I have many day to day art activites and of course CuratenNYC 2014 and its new surprises.

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“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.

“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said.

“One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.

“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

-Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, 1871

The six New York based artists featured in Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast at Rod Barton, London make destructive, reconstructive, and experimental gestures through the renegotiation of material.  These bold, process-based approaches to painting and sculpture mark the inaugural exhibition at Rod Barton’s new space in Peckham, South London.

The viewer is confronted immediately by the theatrics of Dylan Lynch’s four Untitled 2013 sculptures. Here, four separate stacks of three partially smashed Breeze Blocks are centered along the nave of the gallery on the concrete floor. The crumbled grey remnants precariously rest on the floor beside the stacks, left as evidence of the previous action. Upon being partially destroyed the block’s functions are negated. Inverted,  the once substantial blocks now are vulnerable and surprisingly delicate. On the back wall, Grear Patterson’s applies a similar reuse to material, tarpaulin, originally used as a waterproofing fabric. In green and grey, Distinguished Grey, 2013 and red and white striped and black,  La Brea, 2013, Patterson stretches the material in a comedic and unexpected manner,  into two large emoticons. Each work is made from three separate symbols, the bracket shaped mouth, one “X” as one winking eye, and one “O” as the other eye,  the combination here making the whole of each face. The image is familiar yet re-imagined both in material, scale, and context as a deconstruction and recombination of the simple signs that create language.

To the left of these works artist’s Morgan-Richard Murphey and Landon Metz both present pairs as a forum to experiment with material. In the Case of Morgan-Richard Murphey, two pristine, raw, grey belgium canvasses are assaulted by a singular toe strap vertically centered on each of the canvases respectively. The viewer is left to bear witness to the tension created through the action of tightening the straps, the aluminum stretcher bars are crushed and distorted under the pressure of the applied tension. Metz displays the limits of materials as the work similarly to Lynch  Next, in his two Untitled, 2013 works,  a pair of dye and canvas paintings address the notion of impossibility through a much more idiosyncratic process. In this instance, Metz pours dye onto pre-stretched raw canvas and then moves the canvas so the dye pools and creates geometric forms. Once one work is completed, Metz attempts to re-create the same work. Here his making is confined to the physics of organic materials and the precision of the artists hand. The dried ink washes in their geometric pattern resemble the tones of a glass mosaic.  Chance becomes a pinnacle factor in the creations of his work.

Ross Iannatti’s quilt-like sewn arrangements of exploded car airbags also apply a chance element and an intuition to a traumatic material. Here in 3 works titled Hysteresis no.60 (with two consecutive 61 and 62) the revitalization of the airbags allows for the possibility of beauty to be extracted from the remnants of the chemicals and dirt of disaster. One can only speculate the haunting narratives of these three works sandwiched between the somewhat more direct, yet equally imaginative narratives of Torey Thornton in Original Wild Thornberry View, 2013 and Amongst A Portobello Fly, Holding Towel, 2013.  Harkening back perhaps to the fairy tale scene found in the opening quote from Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass, Thornton uses painting and fantastic titles to tell a wonky story. In pastel colors, crude almost representational forms of trees or human figures employ a language of their own, like Patterson, and a playful fresh exchange with traditional art material, like Metz.

Impossibility then, need not be a dead end, but rather a starting point—a way through, as shown here by the inventive actions of these young artists.

By Cory Scozzari

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