Jen Bekman Gallery blog

JBG Now Open on Sundays!

Installation view of Carrie Marill's Visual Aides at Jen Bekman Gallery

As the weather has suddenly become perfect for wandering aimlessly around our fair city, we'll be keeping the gallery open for an additional day each week, on Sundays. Next time you're out on your Sunday stroll, please do stop in from noon - 6 p.m. to enjoy our art-filled (and air-conditioned) oasis.

Currently on view (through May 8th) is Carrie Marill's Visual Aides (above). The works may look sweet from afar but come in, take a closer look and you'll discover subtly camouflaged social and environmental issues, which Marill has painted into these vintage French learning aides.

Paris by Gregory Krum

After that, on May 14th, is the opening of Gregory Krum's ...Practice...; we'll have plenty of details as the show approaches. Gregory's recent 20x200 edition, Paris, depicts a the quintessential summer dream, and had our own Sara Distin scouring the web for houseboat rentals on the Seine. If this is any indication, we are in for a dreamy summer show.

We hope to see you at 6 Spring St. in the coming, warm weekends!

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring St.
New York, NY 10012
(New) Hours: Wed - Sun, 12 - 6pm

Carrie Marill: For All Your Viewing Pleasure!

As months pass and we are forced to bid each show a sad farewell, it also means we get to welcome a new exhibition to our walls with a hearty hello. The gallery is repainted with a fresh, white coat and new works are hung, each time surprising us by transforming the space into an entirely different world. Last winter's Mixtape with charged with a danceable energy, while last summer's Praia Piquinia elicited feelings for languorous days on the beach.

Carrie Marill's second solo show at the gallery, Visual Aides, opened last Friday evening and once again we have been transported. This time, her works take us to an imagined land of volcanoes and wind farms, seemingly pastoral, with tiny hints that beneath the facade something may be quite wrong in paradise. Like the pieces in Carrie's entire oeuvre, many treasures can be found in the teeny tiny details—asking you to get up close and put your nose right up to the glass. But, seen from afar, the images are illustrative documents of industry in the 1950s that saturate the gallery with bucolic airs.

If you missed the opening last Friday, we have lots of pictures up on Flickr for you to re-live the reception with us, as well as installation shots of the eight works on paper. However, as we always say (and always really mean!) —these pieces are really best seen in-person. So, we hope you'll come by 6 Spring Street before May 8th, and enjoy the world Carrie's helped us create with her Visual Aides.

Carrie Marill ' s Visual Aides Opens Friday, 3/26

Site of All the Greatest Stuff , 2009 by Carrie Marill

You are cordially invited to the opening of Carrie Marill's Visual Aides Friday evening at Jen Bekman Gallery. In her newest series, Visual Aides Carrie swaps her signature style for the colorful nostalgia of 1950s educational posters. However, the classic images have been subtly painted with details to account for environmental and social changes in the last 60 years. This will be Carrie's second solo show at JBG; her first solo show, Doing A Lot With Very Little opened in September 2008 and her work has also been included in the Ornithology and Summer Reading group exhibitions.

Carrie writes:

In 2006, I was traveling through France and found brilliantly colored, printed "visual aides" at a flea market. Originally, these visual aides were didactic drawings used in classrooms in the late 1950s to illustrate different aspects of the world—farming, industry and the natural world—for children.

I scanned and reproduced these images on watercolor paper and updated them to reflect current events that relate to the state of our environment and how humans anthropomorphize the planet. The chosen events were inserted into the drawings using a style similar to that of the original works, so the completed image is a "Where’s Waldo" of what has evolved and devolved environmentally and socially since the 1950s.

If you can't make it to NYC, you can also see the work online. Nine editions of Carrie's work, including two from Visual Aides, are available from 20x200.

If you're interested in reading more about Visual Aides, Allison Arieff, founding editor of Dwell and contributor to GOOD and columnist at The New York Times, has written a great essay to coincide with the exhibition titled Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible: Carrie Marill [pdf].

Visual Aides
8 works on paper by Carrie Marill
Opening Reception: Friday March 26, 2010, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
On View: March 27, 2010 through May 8, 2010

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
New York City, 10012

Available as limited-edition prints on 20x200:
Flying, Shipping and Selling by Carrie Marill

Be Realistic Demand the Impossible by Carrie Marill

Time to Retire the Dogs Playing Poker Links Edition

Our founder, Jen Bekman, was on FOX Business News, speaking with Eric Bolling about Jen Bekman Projects. The clip is above and if you watch the whole video, the title of my post will make more sense.

We have all been busy here at Jen Bekman Gallery (and all of JBP). Here are some quick links to keep you posted on all that has been going on.

Over at We Covet blog—well, they covet the work of JBG artist Carrie Marill!

Mixtape is open. You can check out install shots and photos from the opening on the gallery Flickr page.

Brad Moore over at ACAD Photo.

Driver steals and deals an Andy Warhol work.

Coolio has a cookbook and The Village Voice is on it, providing the best quotes.

Dan Flavin's work is up at David Zwirner through December 19th. As always, it is rad.

Painter Allison Schulnik did an awesome video for the band Grizzly Bear.

Lastly, Jen Bekman Gallery will be at PULSE Miami so come by and see the paintings of Sarah McKenzie in booth I-107.

You Only Have Two More Days!

Bible Study Book (Prophet in the Wilderness), Vicksburg, Mississippi by Alec Soth

So be sure to get yourself over to the gallery to view our group show, Summer Reading. The exhibition is up now through August 22nd—this coming Saturday! Before you know it, the walls will be cleared and painted as we ready ourselves for the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Group Exhibition.

Summer Reading
Closing Saturday, August 22
Jen Bekman Gallery | 6 Spring Street | NYC

Really can't make it? You can view all of the work here.

Carrie Marill ' s Visual Aides

Hot Water, 2009 by Carrie Marill

Jen Bekman Gallery artist, Carrie Marill, will open a solo show of new work this Thursday at Seattle's Howard House Gallery. The exhibition, Visual Aides, recontextualizes educational images found at a Parisian flea market. Of the work, Marill writes:

Originally these visual aides were didactic drawings used in classrooms in the late 1950’s to illustrate for children different aspects of the world (farming, industry, water tables the seashore, etc). I scanned, archived and reproduced these images on watercolor paper and updated them with specific current events which relate to the state of our environment and how humans anthropomorphize the planet. The chosen events were applied to the drawings in a similar style as the originals so the completed image becomes a “Where’s Waldo” of what’s evolved and devolved environmentally and socially since the 1950’s. Collectively the works introduce contemporary issues and ideals into a 1950’s world view creating a sometimes satirical, but persistently critical look into to our collective past and future.

Visual Aides
Howard House | 604 Second Ave | Seattle, WA
Opening reception: August 6th from 6-8pm
August 6th-29th

View more of Marill's work on her site, and on her gallery page. You can also purchase her work from 20x200 here.

Summer Reading: The Pictures

Full gallery view.

[caption id="attachment_2172" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Summer Reading Install"][/caption]
West wall view.

 [caption id="attachment_2173" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Summer Reading Install"][/caption]
West wall reverse view, anchored by Steve Lambert's It's About Power.

 [caption id="attachment_2175" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Summer Reading Install"][/caption]
East wall view.

 East wall detail featuring Coast / Coast, 2009 by Michael Mandiberg.

[caption id="attachment_2181" align="alignnone" width="333" caption="Summer Reading Install"][/caption]
Back corner view.

 

[caption id="attachment_2182" align="alignnone" width="333" caption="Summer Reading Install"][/caption]
Front of the gallery and It's About Power, 2009 by Steve Lambert.

 

Come in and see for yourself. Summer Reading is on view through August 22, 2009.

Summer Reading Opens TONIGHT!

We Love Having You Here, 2001-08 by Zoe Strauss

Summer Reading
Opening Reception | Wednesday, July 15, 2009 | 6pm-8pm
See images from the show!

Please join us today, Wednesday, July 15, from 6pm to 8pm, at the opening reception for Summer Reading. The exhibition features over sixty works from twenty-seven emerging and established artists who are using interdisciplinary ideas about text, in all of its forms, in the mediums of photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and installation.

Summer Reading features work from: Thomas Allen, Kate Bingaman-Burt, Kotama Bouabane, Lizzie Buckmaster Dove, Christine Callahan, Jorge Colombo, William Crump, Lauren DiCioccio, Nina Katchadourian, Gregory Krum, Steve Lambert, Michael Mandiberg, Carrie Marill, Mike Monteiro, Jane Mount, Kirby Pilcher, Jason Polan, Kent Rogowski, Ed Ruscha, Kelly Shimoda, Victor Schrager, Mickey Smith, Alec Soth, Zoe Strauss, Shaun Sundholm, Brian Ulrich and Tim Walker.

Summer Reading will be on view through August 22, 2009.

A Taste of Summer Reading ' s Artists around the world

As many of you know by now, our stellar Summer Reading exhibit opens this Wednesday, July 15th at the gallery. We've previewed a few of these artists over the past two weeks, but if you are just bursting at your seams with excitement and can't wait for the opening, here are a few of the artists who you can get out and see right now at other exhibits around the world.

Chemistry, 2006 by Thomas Allen

Thomas Allen's photographs can be found on view at the Galleria 1000 Eventi in Milan as part of a group showed, titled 5 + 1: From a Big Crash to a New Deal, and investigating the effects of the economy on contemporary art while suggesting that a renewal and re-energization of ideas is still possible. Thomas's work uses old pulp book covers as sculptures to create a playful theatrical interaction. If you find yourself in Milan, please go check out the show! Also, Thomas's work has recently been added to the permanent collection of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Congratulations, Thomas!

Goodbye Horses, 2008 by William Crump

William Crump has had a few shows on each coast since we first saw him on 20x200, with exhibitions in LA and New York, including X Marks the Art at Jen Bekman Gallery. His most recent, on display now until July 31st at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery in Philadelphia, is titled Manifest Desination. This two man show puts forth the idea that looking forward to the future is always a dangerous and delicate balance. William's "bittersweet, wistful" drawings convey this idea in that they "are a metaphor for all of us, as they survey and travel on towards a grand and abstract horizon." Be sure not to miss William's work in this show and check out his prints available on 20x200.

Dance?, 1973 by Ed Ruscha

Lastly, the great Ed Ruscha has recently been bestowed the honor of taking part in the Tate Modern's new d'Offay Artist Rooms. This brand new collection at the Tate was made possible through several generous grants and aims to be a new resource for contemporary art in Britain. Sponsored by The Art Fund and Department of Culture, Media and Sport, this new project will display some of the best work from the nation's collection, including work by Joseph Beuys, Gilbert & George, Agnes Martin and Jenny Holzer. Twenty-two pieces of Ruscha's work are presented in the d'Offay Artist Rooms and are on view now.

Come see work by all of these artists, and many more (24 more!) at the gallery tomorrow night at the Summer Reading opening from 6 - 8 p.m.

Carrie Marill on BOOOOOOOM!

The work of JBG artist Carrie Marill has been featured on the website BOOOOOOOM!. BOOOOOOOM! is a multimedia blog dedicated to "fostering a community of people excited to go out and be creative!" Other JBG artists have been featured on this site as well such as Amy Ross & William Crump.  

BOOOOOOOM! also listed 20x200's blog as one of the '17 creative websites to bookmark (unless you are dumb)' saying, "It’s a great cross-section of artists and all the work you see is available for purchase." Ain't that the truth? I should probably mention here that I just bought my first piece of art off 20x200 a couple of weeks ago and now that I'm looking again, I kind of want this one to be my second. I just can't get enough!

Now, I think I'll spend the rest of the day surfing BOOOOOOOM!. Happy Friday, everyone...