NM returns to Midtown Manhattan with a major exhibition focusing on artistic process and materials
New York, NY – Norte Maar is pleased to return to 1285 Avenue of the Americas Gallery with a major exhibition titled Ways and Means: a new look at process and materials in art. The exhibition marks the fourth exhibition curated by Jason Andrew and organized by Norte Maar for 1285 Avenue of the Americas Gallery (previous exhibitions include: Jack Tworkov: A Retrospective; To be a Lady: Forty-Five Women in the Arts; between a place and candy: new work in pattern, repetition, and motif). Ways and Means will open with a reception on Monday, July 18 from 6-8pm, after which the show will continue through Friday, October 7. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 8am-6pm.
> Download Exhibition Brochure (PDF)
Curated by Jason Andrew, Ways and Means offers an eclectic group of twenty-five artists who through a combination of their process and materials, challenge traditional means. More concerned with the ways and means than the why and how, these artists are linked to an aesthetic where product is not the principal focus, where process is not the means but an end, and where materials are far from conventional, moving beyond paint and brush, stone and chisel, clay and wheel, thread and loom.
There is nothing cautious about the way this eclectic group makes art. Their gestural approaches to working—pouring, throwing, reclaiming, firing, tearing, gluing—impose unique dialogues with materials. And for these artists, process is their motivator. It informs and shapes their imagery and dictates how their imagery is conceived.
Inextricably linked to and informing their process are materials. Some pursue an exploration of a singular medium: Chakaia Booker is highly regarded for her use of discarded car tires; Amanda Browder for her site-specific fabric installations; Bruce Dow for his sculptural adaptation of Eames designed chairs; Ben Godward for his colorful variations in urethane foam; Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson for her heroic woven works of silk; Robert Raphael for his compositions in clay; Daniel Wiener for his amalgamations in Apoxie-Sculpt.Even the use of paint and brush, the most traditional of materials, is taken to the extreme in the mammoth works of Frank Owen and Jenny Hankwitz; sublimely used in the works of Bryn Jayes, Donald Traver and Susan Wanklyn.
For others, the combination of seemingly divergent materials is their pursuit: Ali Della Bitta combines steel and clay; Maud Bryt builds with plaster and paint; Bruce Dorfman orchestrates a variety of materials in his colorful assemblages; Max Estenger remains true to a synthesis of raw canvas, polyvinyl and stainless steel; Norman Jabaut creates eccentric forms through his found wood combines; Naomi Safran-Hon and Letha Wilson are inspired by photography yet combine this medium with cement in an intense fashion.
Sculptor Charles Goldman stands alone concocting his own material—a home brew of newspaper, junk mail, shredded credit cards, CDs and DVDs, electronics wires, packing Styrofoam, salvaged acrylic house paint and Portland cement.
Process has always dominated the work of Robert Moskowitz and Richard Serra. Although more intimate and image driven in the former and more monumental and assailing in the latter.
While material offers texture and physicality in the drama of each artist’s abstract narratives, process can also be more ephemeral and employ less rugged materials. Jill Levine and Steve Keister share an obsession with archeology. Dorothea Rockburne has long been inspired by mathematics, geometry and astronomy.
This exhibition explores the unexpected and the deliberate, the unforeseen and the anticipated—a new look at process and materials in art.
Featuring works by: Chakaia Booker (Courtesy Marlborough Gallery), Amanda Browder, Maud Bryt, Ali Della Bitta, Bruce Dorfman (Courtesy June Kelly Gallery), Bruce Dow, Max Estenger, Ben Godward (Courtesy Slag Gallery), Charles Goldman, Jenny Hankwitz, Norman Jabaut, Bryn Jayes, Hildur Asgeirdottir Jonsson (Courtesy Tibor de Nagy Gallery), Steve Keister (Mitchell Algus Gallery), Jill Levine (Courtesy Hionas Gallery), Robert Moskowitz (Courtesy Kerry Schuss), Frank Owen (Courtesy Nancy Hoffman Gallery), Robert Raphael, Dorothea Rockburne, Naomi Safran-Hon (Courtesy Slag Gallery), Richard Serra (Courtesy Richard Serra and Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Weyl), Donald Traver, Susan Wanklyn, Daniel Wiener (Courtesy Lesley Heller Workspace), and Letha Wilson (Courtesy Higher Pictures).
Ways and Means: a new look at process and materials in art is organized by Norte Maar. The exhibition is sponsored by the 1285 Avenue of the Americas Art Gallery, in partnership with RXR 1285 Owner LLC, as a community-based public service.
Norte Maar for Collaborative Projects in the Arts is a Brooklyn based 501(c)3 non-profit arts organization founded in 2004 by curator Jason Andrew and choreographer Julia K. Gleich to create, promote and present collaborations in the visual, literary and performing arts to connect emerging artistic communities and unite cultural forces to foster artistic expression and raise the imaginative energy in us all. Norte Maar is supported in part by the generosity of individual donors who believe in the transformative impact of the arts.
