Ready for Recognition? Time to Collect Accolades? Coming out of the shadows to now claim their due and bask in the spotlight? Sounds like that movie character, Eve Harrington, from the 1950 film “All About Eve” where an assistant streaks past the star she works for and garners fame by all means necessary. “No More Rock Stars” at Galerie Protégé presents the works of studio assistants who have been toiling behind some of NYC’s stellar artists.
AF fastened its seat belt and got ready for a bumpy ride but the multi-disciplinary group show twinkled bright as these artist assistants held their own star wattage. Robert Dimin curated the show to move the spotlight to this talented group. It’s time to step out of the rock star glare and just show art that rocks!
Mia Berg places her nature photography inside Mexican silver frames and draws you into a sanctuary of sorts where the intimacy with environment is protected. Her self-portrait with a goat in a verdant forest illustrates that intimacy. Coupled with her presentation that this can be a new direction in reverence towards a new religious icon. Nick Doyle sculpts to explore narrative and further evoke the nuances of human experience with 3-dimensional objects. He made a miniature wall that has pockmarked surfaces, weathered texture, deterioration, and each brick (that was hand molded) subtly tells a story. The inanimate becomes a narrator of time and what it experiences. Laura Greig marries (the work is based on her bridesmaids) the world of technology and art by coding in pictures from her wedding of cherished friends to a robotic arm that paints out an interpretation of it. A video accompanied the paintings showing the process and it is a leap forward to artificial intelligence getting creative. Justine Hill presented paintings in the genre of gestural abstraction that honed in on themes that explored landscapes and space. Making the bold strokes and truncating colors that pertain to physics and history of painting which gives it a fresh perspective. Henry G. Sanchez uses his extensive experience as a video editor and digital media artist with his Lenticular Prints that were made specifically for the theme of the show where it ingeniously depicts the cyclical nature of protégé learning from the master. Bryan McGovern Wilson works with glass and put forth interesting photographic vignettes and his Kunstkammer (cabinet of curiosities) or shadowboxes of rocks from various countries that irradiate under black light. The clever presentation shifts your concept of material.
By all accounts, these artists have proven from their work alone that they can shine like the brightest star with the intensity of a thousand suns and rock your world! No need for Eve Harrington shrewd tactics to earn their gold star.
NO MORE ROCK STARS / On View: January 3 – 31, 2013
Gallery Hours: M-Th (1:00p-7:30p) / F – Sat (10a-6pt) / Sun (11a-5p)|
Galerie Protégé.197 9th Avenue (lower level). NYC ,NY 10011
Art Review by: Oscar A. Laluyan
Event Photography by: Max Noy
