Apexart in New York City Presents "The Peripheterists"

Written by Gloria Prescott Friday, 27 May 2011 21:54

New York City.- Apexart is pleased to present "The Peripheterists" curated by Jocko Weyland, on view from June 1st through July 30th. this group exhibition features work by Nicole Andrews Brandes, Natascha Belt, Dave Bevan, Dwayne Boone, Gerardo Castillo, Rick Charnoski, Edward Colver, Ale Formenti, Renée French, Joseph Griffith, Thomas Hauser, Mark Hubbard, Chuckie Johnson, Gary Kachadourian, Taliah Lempert, Doug Magnuson, Alfredo Martinez, William McCurtin, Stu Mead, James Niehues, Gloria Park, Daniel Pineda, Randy Turner, Dennis Tyfus, Unidentified Cameroonian barbershop painters, Sereno Wilson, Jesse Wines and Jason Wright

Tony Bennett unsuspectingly coined a new term of surprising relevance when he once said he liked what Oskar Kokoschka did "along the peripheter." Though meaning the perimeter and periphery in the painting itself, he innocently zeroed in on a murky netherworld away from the formal where success and failure, acceptance and indifference, and Tony Bennett and Oskar Kokoschka meet. Like these two disparate personalities, the artists in The Peripheterists elude the standard definition of outsiders to form a diverse and unaligned but oddly complimentary non-scene that doesn’t really register with either the hoi polloi or the intelligentsia. In many cases low-key and unsung though prodigiously gifted, all are fairly unconcerned with and unknown in that rarely satisfying milieu known as "The Art World."


The Peripherterists examines the wide-ranging connections, affinities, and allusions amongst works that posses the popular appeal often absent at the your typical white cube. That luck, social standing, ladder climbing, and a multitude of other variables determine who gets fêted is not news by any means, but it does give rise to an urge to address that vexing situation with a gathering of mostly uncelebrated rare birds. A few encounters amongst many will have Mark Hubbard's fantastical diagrams for actual skateparks, Gloria T. Park's expressionist wig designs, and Jim Nieuhues' paintings that are the basis for ski area maps consorting with Sereno Wilson’s glittery Nubian goddesses, Nicole Andrews' paper cutouts of ennui-suffused suburbanites, and Stu Mead’s poignant, troubling, and very funny depiction of sexually active adolescents. This is not a polemic but an excursion into parallel realm of wonderful art that combines the fiercely individualistic and unorthodox with the accessible, and brings up old-fashioned but eternal questions about what art is and why people bother.

Apexart is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit contemporary visual arts organization located in Lower Manhattan. Through their exhibitions, international residency, publication initiatives, and programs and events, they are committed to cultural and intellectual diversity and aim to stimulate public dialogue about contemporary art. Their exhibitions and programs are intended to promote consideration among the local audience while extending the dialogue to their international audience through their print and electronic outreach. Since its inception in 1994, more than 1,200 artists, from emerging to established and from all over the globe, have participated in 150 exhibitions. Each year apexart presents seven group exhibitions, hosts eight international residents, organizes numerous public lectures and performances, and distributes 70,000 full-color interpretive exhibition brochures to individuals and institutions in 95 countries. In addition, their web-based audience consists of over 17,000 unique visitors monthly from more than 100 nations. This widespread distribution and outreach of their programs is vital to apexart's ability to develop new audiences and to bring new voices and critical perspectives to New York. They have worked with such well-known individuals as Vito Acconci, Martha Rosler, Dave Hickey, John Baldessari, Hou Hanru, Ute Meta Bauer, David Byrne, Janine Antoni, Kerry James Marshall and Jean-Hubert Martin as well as other known and lesser known individuals from around the world. Visit the organization's website at ... http://www.apexart.org

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~