PRISKA C. JUSCHKA FINE ART
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present Here
Could Be Anywhere, a presentation of recent works by Daniel
Mirer.
Daniel Mirer's artwork is a continuous examination and
documentation of the postindustrial experience embodied in architectural
spaces. His photographs expose the collapse of aestheticism that can be
witnessed in the uniform design of office buildings, shopping malls, stadiums,
open corridors, parking lots etc.
The artist's architectural portraits record both the spatial and temporal
dimensions of the postindustrial experience. Spatially, by photographing
these industrial, mass-produced spaces from a frontal and sufficient distant
point of view, which creates a flat, banal and melancholic aspect in the
images which become revealed to the viewer. Within these spaces, the individual
becomes insignificant and lost, vanishing from the glare of fluorescent
light. Temporally, they evoke an often haunting sense of the ephemeral.
Mirer's interest in these spaces was initiated from
a firsthand experience of working as a construction and demolition worker
in order to earn his way through college. He built and tore down the very
type of spaces that he now photographs.
These spaces are structured as rational grids, designed to eradicate
suspicious and, above all, irrational thought through the police apparatus
of surveillance in a transparency of space. They are spaces in which the
flattening of shadows on surfaces creates an architecture without depth
for the individual, who is buried, disappears, dissolves into its structure.
This sense of an uncanny presence is introduced through Mirer's
choice to photograph these spaces when they are empty.
Even though these structures and spaces evoke a specific style relating
to the history of architecture, they seem to exist outside of history,
in a continuous present. They are spaces in which one office, corridor
or parking lot is virtually indistinguishable from another, in which redundancy
annihilates difference into an architectural singularity.
Daniel Mirer has exhibited in numerous galleries and
museums around the country, including Bronx Museum of the Arts, Florida
Atlantic University & Contemporary Art Museum, Pittsburgh Center for
the Arts curated by William Stover, Assistant Curator of Contemporary
Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the current exhibition at the
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Open House: Working in Brooklyn.
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present new drawings
and sculpture by Rachel Selekman. In these works, Selekman
continues to explore the interaction between objects and their observers.
She addresses ideas of nurturing and growth with an array of materials,
giving form and structure to abstract concepts.
Selekman's works are metaphoric in nature, poetic juxtapositions
of loss and re-growth. The interplay between these two themes is inherent
in all of her work, including Turning, where she has cut teardrops from
40 velvet leaves. The tears represent her personal sense of loss, while
the leaf forms embody her understanding of the flourishing sure to come.
In another pair of works, she has created a negative-positive relationship,
where the remnants of one piece, Shed (September 11th, 2001),
are used to form another piece, Blossom (Shed Reborn).
In the former, Selekman has cut hundreds of teardrops out
of a single sheet of paper, expressing the overwhelming sense of loss she
felt following September 11th. The latter, Blossom (Shed Reborn),
is a spiraling flower constructed from the teardrops cut from Shed
(September 11th, 2001). This piece exemplifies her ensuing feelings
of hope, optimism, and regeneration.
Selekman's work, whether two or three dimensional, embodies
sculptural concepts, which act as extensions of herself and expressions
of her desire to reach out to and communicate with her viewer. The connection
is achieved using metaphorical forms such as watering can spouts, flowing
water, and shimmering colorful threads, welcoming the viewer into the nurturing
realm she has created. Selekman employs similar sculptural forms in her
charcoal drawings, embellishing them with jewels and beads, and luring her
observer with their sensual appearance.
Rachel Selekman is a graduate of the MFA program at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner
Foundation award. She has had several solo exhibitions and participated
in numerous group shows around the country. She lives and works in Brooklyn,
NY.
Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 to 6:00 PM or by appointment.
