Leo Koenig, Inc.

Leo Koenig, Inc. http://leokoenig.com/ en Copyright 2008, Leo Koenig, Inc. Sat, 17 May 2008 08:31:02 -0400 Exhibition: Tom Sanford, "Mr. Hangover" <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">May 9 - June 14, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, May 9, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1423"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/15/15961.jpeg" alt="It's Our Pleasure to Serve You" height="504" width="344" /></a> <p>Tom Sanford, <em>It's Our Pleasure to Serve You</em>, 2008</p> <p> Oil, acrylic and fake gold on paper, 48.5 x 32 inches </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p><span class="caps">TOM SANFORD</span><br /> "Mr. Hangover"<br /> May 9th through June 14th, 2008,<br /> Opening reception, May 9th, 6-8pm</p> <p>Maybe we should just forget the whole statesman, warrior scientist, artist, thinker, businessman- idols of that type are dead or dying surely? People who cling to such figures- are they just slave to nostalgia, nostalgia for the real, for the heights and depths to which earlier ages aspired? Are they epochal snobs, so to speak, anachronisms clinging to the judgment that pop culture is just too pop to be taken seriously? Are they just refusing to believe that the place of real heroes could be usurped by mere performers-when in fact, that is exactly what has happened? - Thomas de Zengotita, Mediated How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It</p> <p>I like people who are really f---ed up. ... I am very high strung and suffer from multiple personalities. Jane. She's crazy and she always wants to kill me. Tila. ... Poor Girl. ... She deserves a break. ... I do a lot of things that are self-destructive. ... I've always been a nerdy geek trapped inside a umm ... woman's body. Yea. ... That's me. People love me for some reason. I don't know why. ... I do but I just say I don't know why just to be modest. - Tila Tequila, star of A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, in a post on her MySpace page</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of by Tom Sanford entitled "Mr. Hangover." Featured in the exhibition are new works modeled after ubiquitous street posters that are plastered around most cities to advertise events, movies and products. Comprised entirely of hand painted posters that are unframed and tacked to the wall, they suggest influences that come as much from the broader consumer culture as they do from the arena of fine art. In "Mr. Hangover," Sanford references a world of disposable cultural objects and ephemera, and the glut experienced after being inundated by these elements. </p> <p>Tom Sanford's work is littered with the icons and detritus of pop culture obsessions. In this exhibition, these references become a fractal projection of his identity. Personal identification mixes with celebrity iconography offering glimpses into a lexicon of the artist's experience. These images exude a curious combination of veneration and disdain for the subjects depicted, even when (or especially when) the subject is the artist himself. </p> <p>Alternately sweet, sarcastic, caustic and mundane, Sanford briefly attempts to share a personal aside only to shout "gotcha!" with the next image. Tarnished sports heroes share the walls with portraits of cheap beers and even cheaper pop stars. Sometimes the stars are depicted as themselves, other times they are depicted as a character they play in a film or TV show. All the while, the quintessential New York paper coffee cup proclaims "It's Our Pleasure to Serve You." In the artist's own words, Sanford calls this his "mad magazine version of Marxist critique-and a subtle acknowledgement of the position of the artist in the culture economy." This presentation induces a dizzying push/pull, mimicking the schizophrenic nature of our contemporary surroundings and the way competing imagery and attitudes incessantly vie for our attention. </p> <p>Tom Sanford has a BA from Columbia University. This is his second solo exhibition at Leo Koenig Inc. Sanford recently exhibited his exhibition at Galleri Faurschou in Copenhagen and he is preparing for a solo exhibition with Galerie Erna Hecey in Brussels. His work was seen in the group exhibitions "The Incomplete" at the Chelsea Museum and "Heroes!...like us?" at the Palazzo Delle Arti in Naples, Italy. He lives and works in New York City. </p> <p>Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10-6 pm. For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/1423 Exhibition: Alexis Rockman "South" <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">March 28 - April 26, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, March 28, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1350"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/15/15036.jpeg" alt="South" height="103" width="500" /></a> <p>Alexis Rockman, <em>South</em>, 2008</p> <p> Oil on gessoed paper, 75 x 358 3/4 inches </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Alexis Rockman<br /> "South," March 28th through April 26th, 2008<br /> Opening reception March 28th, 6-8 pm</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of new works by <br /> Alexis Rockman. Inspired by the artist's recent trip to Antarctica, Rockman continues his recent exploration of painting landscape as an alchemical event. </p> <p>Anchoring the exhibit is South, a seven-panel work on paper that is over 30 feet long. South is a diaristic work about the 12-day voyage by ship from the tip of South America to the Antarctic Peninsula. Accompanying this piece is a suite of watercolors inspired by the trip, as well as an allegorical painting titled Food Chain (After Breughel) about the stress on the food chain in that fragile ecosystem.</p> <p>Foremost in Rockman's experience of the Antarctic was how alien its landscape is to the human perspective. The nearly hallucinatory experience of traveling among the glaciers had a profound impact on Rockman. "I've never seen anything like it. Ice conducts light, it gathers it and projects it at you. That is something that cannot really be photographed, so the piece becomes a construction of notes, memory, and photographic documentation," states Rockman. </p> <p>The terrain is inhospitable and most Antarctic life clings to the edge of the ice and coast. All human activity is limited to the artificial environment they bring with them, much like going to another planet. Rockman observed penguins, seals, whales and other players in the ecosystem. There was also a reminder of the legacy of human disaster in the area. Upon arriving at the Peninsula their ship, the Lindblad Endeavour, received a message that another ship, the Explorer, had hit a piece of ice and was sinking. The Endeavour was the first on the scene and they witnessed the foundering ship and the passengers stranded in lifeboats. This event is embedded as an incident in the work, overwhelmed by the vast landscape. </p> <p>Continuing Rockman's long-term interest in scientific pictorialism, South shows simultaneous views of above and below the water, allowing for the representation of the impossible. However, the artist's painting technique over the past few years has moved away from an illustrative approach--he allows the materials to interact in such a way that the act of painting both resembles and mimics the interaction of weather and landscape. </p> <p>Alexis Rockman has a <span class="caps">BFA </span>from the School of Visual Arts and has exhibited his work in galleries and institutions worldwide. A solo exhibition of Alexis Rockman's recent works on paper will be mounted at the Rose Museum, Brandeis University, in May. As well, the work "South" has already been chosen for an exhibition at Mass MoCA. Most recently he has had solo exhibitions at the <span class="caps">CAC</span> Cincinnati, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, Camden Art Centre, London, and the Wexner Center for the Arts, <span class="caps">OH. </span> Public collections that have acquired Rockman's work include the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, <span class="caps">NY, </span>and the Whitney Museum of American Art, <span class="caps">NY. </span> Rockman lives and works in New York City.<br /> Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10-6 pm. For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/1350 Exhibition: Aidas Bareikis - "Easy Times" <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">February 21 - March 21, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, February 21, 8:00 PM - 11:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1326"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/14/14401.jpeg" alt="Easy Times, 2007" height="276" width="368" /></a> <p>Aidas Bareikis, <em>Easy Times</em>, 2008</p> <p> Mixed media installation, Dimensions vary with installation </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Aidas Bareikis<br /> "Easy Times," Part <span class="caps">II, </span> February 21st, through March 21st , 2008</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. in pleased to open the second act of the solo exhibition of new work by Aidas Bareikis. This exhibition "Easy Times" is a re-interpretation of the artist's installation at the Athen's Biennial. With "Easy Times," Bareikis continues his rumination on the excruciating costs of sustaining the world's leisure class. </p> <p>In many ways this installation is one of gesture and negation. The artist regards his work as not involving strategies of deconstruction or post modernism. Bareikis utilizes spontaneity and inherently tempers it with a moral stance in order to underline the premise that there is no compromise with the indictment of history. </p> <p>Humanity's struggle with its history as it leaps into the future has always been a pervasive aspect of Bareikis's work. His process begins with impulse and a necessity to approach issues and observations that are uncomfortable, yet ubiquitous. Imbued with a feeling of haphazard cruelty, his installations are amazingly intricate and obsessive, often incorporating a tableaux of decaying grandeur. It is this dichotomy that the artist relies upon to communicate the inadequacies of contemporary existence, relating perhaps, that the more things change, the more they remain the same. </p> <p>Aidas Bareikis has exhibited extensively throughout the <span class="caps">U.S. </span>and Europe. Most recently his work has been seen in "Destroy Athens," the Athens Biennial of Contemporary Art, "Fancy Meetings," Locust Projects, Miami Fl., "When Humour Becomes Painful" at the Migros Museum, Zurich, Switzerland. He lives and works in <span class="caps">NYC.</span></p> <p>Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10-6 pm. For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/1326 Exhibition: Lily Ludlow, Bill Saylor and Anke Weyer, Aaron Brewer <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">February 20 - March 21, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Wednesday, February 20, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1325"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/14/14454.jpeg" alt="Installation view" height="305" width="500" /></a> <p>Aidas Bareikis presents Brewer, Ludlow, Saylor, Weyer, <em>Installation view</em>, 2008</p> <p> </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Aaron Brewer, Lily Ludlow, Bill Saylor and Anke Weyer,</p> <p>February 21 through March 21, 2008</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce a group show curated by Aidas Bareikis. <br /> Bareikis has assembled these works by artists that he has admired and has had a dialogue with for several years. In these artists' disparate works, Bareikis detects a language that is instinctual and exhibiting what he calls a "Subjective <span class="caps">DNA,</span>" while possessing an abiding intellectual rigor. The codex that links these works are not reliant upon appropriation or quotational strategies. Instead, Bareikis sees these works linked more so by a trust in process, and demonstrating a courageousness in personal gesture.</p> <p>Aaron Brewer assemblages of often unidentifiable objects, paint, spray foam and other materials. Appearing as chaotic and unintentional gatherings of items and materials, Brewer plays with the notion of the complexity and incomprehensibility of daily existence. His sculptural examinations provide a plethora of physical and emotional relations ranging from uncomfortable to the humorous and absurd. </p> <p>Aaron Brewer is an artist, theorist, and curator, who has exhibited widely throughout the United States and Canada. He has contributed essays to numerous exhibition catalogs and is a regular contributor to C Magazine based in Toronto. He is one of the original founders of <span class="caps">CANADA, </span>the New York based gallery. Brewer attended Tyler School of Art and Hampshire College, and lives and works in Los Angeles.</p> <p>Lily Ludlow contributes a painting in a muted palette. The painting shows two nude figures amidst a flurry of patterns, evoking both a tentative sensuality and a humorous aside on the male gaze.</p> <p>Lily Ludlow is best known as a designer for Imitation of Christ and one of the founders of Somnus, a collective that encompasses fashion, film and art and is represented by Canada Gallery</p> <p>Bill Saylor navigates freely between gestural brushwork, alternatingly rough and detailed drawing, street tag-like text, and collage. While initially chaos seems to rule, a second look reveals an intrinsic balance. Through this process, Saylor has found a territory where abstract expressionism, the rawness of punk rock, and pop art iconic imagery can coexist in one composition.</p> <p>Bill Saylor has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. He has had solo exhibitions at Leo Koenig Inc., New York, Hiromi Yoshi Gallery, Tokyo, and Galleri Loyal in Stockholm Sweden. He lives and works in New York City.</p> <p>Anke Weyer's paintings are dark, gestural, compositions of suprising complexity. While her paintings have a spiritual link to German expressionist painters such as Dix, Grosz and Kirchner, she retains a singular voice provocative voice. Weyer's brooding abstract works are an invitation to reflect and also be consumed by beauty. </p> <p>Anke Weyer is a graduate of the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste, Staedelschule, Frankfurt Germany where she studied under Per Kirkeby and has had a solo exhibition with Canada Gallery, <span class="caps">NY. </span> She lives and works in <span class="caps">NYC.</span></p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/1325 Exhibition: Aidas Bareikis <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Fancy Meetings"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 10 - February 8, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, January 10, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1320"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/13/13210.jpeg" alt="Fancy Meetings, 2006-2008" height="313" width="500" /></a> <p>Aidas Bareikis, <em>Fancy Meetings</em>, 2008</p> <p> Mixed media installation, varies with installation </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Aidas Bareikis<br /> January 10th through February 8th, 2008<br /> Opening reception Thursday, January 10th, 6-8pm</p> <p>"The pool of energies which constitute Myths, which man no longer embodies, is embodied by the theatre. By this double, I mean the great magical agent of which theatre, through its forms, is only the figuration on its way to becoming the transfiguration. It is on the stage that the union of thought, gesture and action is reconstructed. And the double of the Theatre is reality untouched by the men of today." - Antonin Artaud</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to open the New Year with a solo exhibition of new work by Aidas Bareikis. In this exhibition, Bareikis presents a "theatrical spectacle devoid of entertainment." Conceived in two parts, his installation is an operatic progression. The first "Act" will be entitled "Fancy Meetings." This installation is vaguely inspired by a short story by Victor Pelevin where a ghost participates in a saturnalian ritual and meets a little girl, all the while unaware that he has passed to the spirit world. In "Fancy Meetings," Bareikis articulates the confrontation between self-awareness and alienation. The opulent creations not only do not recognize themselves, but they turn a blind eye to their own destruction.</p> <p>At the end of February, Bareikis will present the second act entitled "Easy Times." For this installation Bareikis focuses his ebulliently nightmarish vision on the excruciating costs of sustaining the world's leisure class. Here he posits a recognition of the burden that superficial grandiosisty engenders; yet all are complicit in being somehow unmoved by that recognition.</p> <p>Humanity's struggle with its history as it leaps into the future is a pervasive aspect of Bareikis's work. Contemporary anachronisms are collected and transformed into a tableaux of orchestrated chaos. Bareikis surveys the detritus resulting from consumer culture, environmental decay and decomposition alongside the philosophical and emotional limbo modern society can produce. The artist has confined his creations to a perceptual purgatory, between a world of excess and exploitation and one of conscience and intent. As well, Bareikis re-asserts that it is the artist role, not only to produce work that excites the eye, but also to expose the monsters created by the human condition.</p> <p>Aidas Bareikis has exhibited extensively throughout the <span class="caps">U.S. </span>and Europe. Most recently his work has been seen in "Destroy Athens," the Athens Biennial of Contemporary Art, "Fancy Meetings," Locust Projects, Miami Fl., "When Humour Becomes Painful" at the Migros Museum, Zurich, Switzerland. He lives and works in <span class="caps">NYC.</span></p> <p>Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10-6 pm. For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/1320 Exhibition: Tony Matelli <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"The Old Me"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 10 - February 8, 2008</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, January 10, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1297"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/12/12839.jpeg" alt="The Old Me, 2008" height="240" width="360" /></a> <p>Tony Matelli, <em>The Old Me</em>, 2008</p> <p> steel, porcelain, paint, wick and liquid wax, </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p><span class="caps">TONY MATELLI</span><br /> The Old Me<br /> January 10th through February 8th, 2008<br /> Opening reception Thursday, January 10th, 6-8pm</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to open the New Year with a solo exhibition of two new works by Tony Matelli. For his exhibition entitled The Old Me, Matelli focuses on the ideas of rebirth and reinvention. Known for his hyper realistic sculptures, Matelli often depicts characters, or things that are barely getting by; things nearly dead, hopelessly lost or otherwise, totally unwanted. His interest has always been in the underdog. </p> <p>Serving as metaphors for our own social malaise and general struggle for survival, Matelli's sculptures mimic inner states of desolation, panic, ambivalence and despair. These states are often associated with trying to locate ones self within our social world. Formerly his works have addressed an inescapable sense of doom. In this particular exhibition, however, Matelli has introduced a glimmer of hope. </p> <p>With a nod to 17th century Vanitas painting, Matelli presents a double self-portrait; two caricatures of the artist, seemingly made of vegetable parts (they are in fact painted bronze). In one portrait the vegetables are fresh, and robust, while nearby they have rotted and collapsed. The image of the two figures is comically poignant, one contemplating its own inevitable demise. The glimmer exists in the form of some new growth sprouting from the rotted head. A resurrection. The other sculpture in the show is The Old Me. It consists of a few airbrushed headshots of the artist, placed on a table and burning. A classic Vanitas, The Old Me burns continuously throughout the course of the exhibition constantly reminding us that death always precedes rebirth.</p> <p>Tony Matelli has exhibited extensively in the US and in Europe. His work was most recently seen in "I am as you will be," the Skeleton in Art, Cheim & Reid Gallery, and "Baroque Biology" at the <span class="caps">CAC</span> Cincinnati, and currently in "Undone," at the Whitney Museum, Altria. Tony Matelli lives and works in <span class="caps">NYC.</span></p> <p>Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10-6 pm. For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/1297 Exhibition: Norbert Bisky <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"what's wrong with me?"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">November 20 - December 29, 2007</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/999"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/11/11876.jpeg" alt="Installation view of "what's wrong with me?"" height="332" width="500" /></a> <p>Norbert Bisky, <em>Installation view of "what's wrong with me?"</em>, 2007</p> <p> </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release:<br /> Norbert Bisky<br /> "what's wrong with me?" <br /> November 20th through December 22nd, 2007<br /> Opening reception; Tuesday November 20th, 6-8pm</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by artist Norbert Bisky. Previously known for his paintings depicting predominately blond-haired blue-eyed boys engaged in feats of endurance, athleticism and occasional debauchery, Bisky's new works extends his vocabulary towards a new intensity. These paintings are both visually and thematically more aggressive. It is as if the violence and confrontation that was seething just beneath the surface in his previous series of works, has finally erupted, unfettered, onto the canvas. </p> <p>As opposed to a historical perspective, Bisky points out that currently, he is dealing with present day dilemmas, personal and universal. His figures, in many cases are floating, falling, tumbling, without any gravitational axis. Untethered to the earth, they inhabit a landscape thoroughly in flux. The tumult surrounding the figures is punctuated by the cross pollination of cues from Christian ideology, art history, gay culture, pornography and apocalyptic visions. The feigned utopia and ideal previously referenced in his work has all but evaporated. It is as if the artist has turned the intent of his paintings inside out, no longer finding any reason for restraint or polite analogy. The works are abrupt, insistent and crucially tied to this particular moment in time. In them, there exists a dizzying choice of belief systems, and amalgam of desire, though rooted still to the commonality of false promise.</p> <p>Bisky further highlights the urgency of these works by the utilization of bold color along with a peculiar arrangement of space on the canvas. Soft pastels have been replaced by deep and bright colors, partially inspired by the artists' various trips to Brazil. Objects and figures are arranged in many cases, as if a tornado has lifted everything off of their moorings, embodying a very personal sense of upheaval. In all, Bisky transmits an impression of instability on the canvas that distinctly resonates with our contemporary state of affairs. </p> <p>Norbert Bisky was born in Leipzig, Germany. He graduated from the Hochschule de Künste in Berlin where he was a master student of George Baselitz. He also studied with Jim Dine at the Salzburg Summer Academy. He has had solo exhibitions at the Museum Junge Kunst, Frankfurt, Manheimer Kunstverein, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin and the Contemporary Art Center in Vilnius. Norbert Bisky's work has been acquired by many public collections, notably, The Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Museum of Modern Art, <span class="caps">NY,</span> Museum Der Bildenden Kunst, Leipzig. Norbert Bisky lives and works in Berlin. For further information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/999 Exhibition: Justin Faunce <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Pictophilia"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">October 19 - November 17, 2007</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/1096"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/10/10819.jpeg" alt="Pictophilia, 2007" height="357" width="500" /></a> <p>Justin Faunce, <em>Pictophilia</em>, 2007</p> <p> Acrylic on canvas, 10 x 18 feet </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Justin Faunce<br /> "Pictophilia," October 19th through November 17th, 2007<br /> Opening reception Friday October 19th 6-8 pm</p> <p>"But certainly for the present age; which prefers the sign to the thing signified; the copy to the original, representation to reality; the appearance to the essence...illusion only is sacred; truth profane: Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as the truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness."<br /> <br /> - Ludwig Feuerbach, from the preface to the second edition of "The Essence of Christianity". </p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is delighted to announce a solo exhibition of new work by Justin Faunce entitled "Pictophilia." The centerpiece of the exhibition is a painting by the same name, measuring 10 × 18 feet, which is the culmination of the artist's exclusive efforts for the past year and a half.<br /> <br /> With this latest exhibition, Faunce explores the nature of our present day experience of reality. Pictophilia is a fetish involving the preference for pornographic images over actual physical contact. A true pictophiliac can only achieve gratification with the aid of pornographic images. Faunce conveys the premise that as a society, we are all becoming pictophiliacs, preferring the carefully packaged depictions of reality, to the actual experience. The constant bombardment of images and information that have been precisely altered to alleviate them from the burden of their context, in effect compromises the viewers ability to make critical examinations, thoughtful choices and commitments to meaningful social actions.</p> <p>Faunce attempts to turn the banal imagery of passive, consumerist titillation on its head. In his practice the artist has sifted through an enormous variety of found images, both familiar and obscure. With this considered arrangement, his visual language places familiar mediated images within a disturbing landscape of surprising malevolence. Faunces technique of obsessive devotion imbues the picture with an additional power of intent. Working with an extremely precise method of stenciling and layering paint, Faunce executes the work with an intense focus that concentrates on the smallest of details. This methodology and imagery, collude to spur an inquiry of intent that renders a passive response impossible. </p> <p>Justin Faunce received a Diploma from the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. His work has been seen in exhibitions such as Greater New York, PS 1 <span class="caps">MOMA,</span> Long Island City, New York, "Superstars," Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria, "Metro Pictures" at The Moore Space in Miami <span class="caps">FL, </span>and "Unlearning" at the <span class="caps">ICA,</span> Manitoba, Canada. For further information and visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/1096 Exhibition: Christian Lemmerz <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"The Omen"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">September 11 - October 13, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Thursday, September 13, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/998"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/9/9972.jpeg" alt="Abu Ghraib (The Lovers), 2007" height="312" width="500" /></a> <p>Christian Lemmerz, <em>Abu Ghraib (The Lovers)</em>, 2007</p> <p> White Carrara marble, 48 x 89 3/8 x 26 3/8 inches </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p><span class="caps">CHRISTIAN LEMMERZ</span>: "The Omen"<br /> September 13th to October 13th, 2007</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of a solo show by German artist Christian Lemmerz, entitled, "The Omen." Trained as a sculptor, Christian Lemmerz has worked with many different mediums, choosing materials according to their potential for making statements, and implementing his particular artistic strategies. Throughout his career, he has incorporated drawings, set designs, installations and films into his practice. </p> <p>For his show at Leo Koenig Inc., Christian Lemmerz has created a series of works that implicate the viewer in a world that is unrelentingly moribund. Anchored by large sculptures made from white marble, Lemmerz employs the figure to anthropomorphize our most basic fears. With titles such as "Abu Ghraib" and "Katrina," he confronts his audience with their own collective consciousness of present day terror, literally etched in stone. Lemmerz has stated in previous conversations that art has to operate in a profoundly disturbing way "like some smoldering danger where provocation entails confrontation." To this end, Lemmerz succeeds in these aims with his current exhibition "The Omen."</p> <p>The choices of so-called "classical" materials like marble and bronze help convey both the gravitas and absurdity of these fears. Though these materials have been deemed classical, Lemmerz perceives them as "contaminated". According to the artist, they represent among other things, kitsch, history and myth. The theatricality of these sculptures, some of which appear as tomb sculptures, blatantly critique our present day obsession with public displays of intense mourning, inevitably giving way to cowering fear where victims become symbols for political folly. The sculptures both negate the tawdry spectacle of national hysteria, and memorialize the absence of real grief, highlighting the requisite national amnesia that inevitably follows suit. </p> <p>Christian Lemmerz work has been included in numerous exhibitions, most recently a solo show at Horsens Kunstmuseum and is notably a part of the collection at The National Gallery of Art, Copenhagen, and the Saatchi Collection, <span class="caps">UK.</span><br /> He was born in Karlsruhe, Germany and now lives in Denmark.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh, or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/998 Exhibition: "You Always Move In Reverse," curated by Bjarne Melgaard <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">June 29 - July 31, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, June 29, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/930"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/8/8569.jpeg" alt="You Always Move In Reverse, Installation View (R. Bianco,J. Ono, R. Hawkins , B. Wurtz, J. Kristiansen, T. Vejvi, J. Dodge)" height="340" width="500" /></a> <p><p>You Always Move In Reverse,<br /> Installation View (R. Bianco,J. Ono, R. Hawkins , B. Wurtz, J. Kristiansen, T. Vejvi, J. Dodge)</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>"You Always Move in Reverse"<br /> curated by Bjarne Melgaard<br /> June 29th through July 31st, 2007</p> <p>Featuring:<br /> Rod Bianco<br /> Jason Dodge<br /> Audrey Ewell & Aaron AItes<br /> Richard Hawkins<br /> Lydia Lunch<br /> Jeff Ono<br /> Torbjorn Vejvi<br /> B. Wurtz<br /> Vincent Fecteau<br /> Jon Kristiansen</p> <p>*Special performance featuring Lydia Lunch on Thursday, June 28th, 7-9 pm<br /> Please call gallery for further information and reservations</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc is delighted to announce the opening of a group exhibition entitled " You Always Move in Reverse," curated by Bjarne Melgaard. </p> <p>The title of the show is taken from a piece by artist Jason Dodge which consists of a 1 kg. silver cube being thrown through a window, with glass and silver laying where they fall for the entire duration of the exhibition. The window will be simply repaired with tape. Although the idea of rebellion and teenage angst is instantly brought to mind, the intent of the piece, as with many of Mr. Dodge's works, is to initiate a personal narrative in the mind of the viewer, setting up the evidence of an event, focusing on absence of the individual who has left behind the detritus of his/her actions.</p> <p>Bjarne Melgaard has stated in previous conversations regarding this exhibition that "In our society today, we have this enormous focus on the teenage rebellion thing." This exhibition attempts to counter this focus on adolescence. With Jason Dodge's piece for instance, "it is not like he is rebellious and breaks something, but he tries to fix something that does not need to be fixed. This is like becoming older where you try to fix something that does not need (or cannot) be fixed." He has also said that as you grow older, there is a shift in focus from being looked at, absorbing the effects of the gaze, to a point where you are actually initiating the gaze. Melgaard takes this further by suggesting that the works initiate their own "gaze" upon the viewer. With this statement, Melgaard is suggesting the dialogue that develops from the act of looking at an artwork becomes interactive only after a certain time in ones' development. The ideas that have evolved in Melgaard's arena of thinking are about art as an ongoing crisis, the disappearance of the child in our culture, and how adolescence seemingly dictates our current discourse on art. There is an exploration of an abstract realism, with objects functioning simply as objects, and not maquettes of a piece. </p> <p>This exhibition is also a rumination on the passage of time, maturing, and the experience of shifting from a place where we are being observed to become one who observes instead. We also move from a place of appreciation of skill and ability, and hopefully to a discovery that is perhaps more intimate and reflective. </p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. would like to thank the following galleries for their assistance and support in the coordination of this exhibition: Feature Gallery, <span class="caps">NYC,</span> Greengrassi, London, Casey Kaplan Gallery, <span class="caps">NYC, </span>and Galleria Raucci/Santa Maria, Napoli, Italy. For further information or visuals, please contact the gallery by phone or email.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/930 Exhibition: Brandon Lattu <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">May 12 - June 16, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Saturday, May 12, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/890"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/11/11848.jpeg" alt="Installation view" height="339" width="500" /></a> <p>Brandon Lattu, <em>Installation view</em>, 2007</p> <p> </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Brandon Lattu<br /> 4 Models, May 12 through June 9th, 2007<br /> Opening Reception: Saturday, May 12, 6-8pm</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce "4 Models," a solo exhibition of new works by artist Brandon Lattu. Lattu utilizes photographic imagery to explore different aspects of perception, at once from a physical, psychological and philosophical perspective. Often employing a particularly precise process of digital manipulation, Lattu composes images that are impossible to see in nature. In his work, perspective is inverted, hidden angles are revealed, opaque and impenetrable surfaces become transparent. As a result, there is an odd "otherworldliness" to much of the work. Ultimately fascination and interpretation are held in simultaneous check, allowing one to revel in the seductiveness of the images but shift back and forth with an analysis of a familiar subject questioned in a pointed way. <br /> For his second solo show at the gallery, Brandon Lattu will be presenting 4 works that each distinctly represent a different model of visual empiricism. The anchor piece of the exhibition is a suite titled Library. With echoes of Fox Talbot's famous photographs of books from "The Pencil of Nature," this suite of works depicts covers of all the books in the home of the artist. Bookcases and stacks were initially photographed as they were found. In the finished works, full scale scans of the front, back and spine stand in for the books on a two color ground representing the bookcase and the wall behind. However, the pages of the books are not shown, emphasizing the visual information on the covers of books. Various ideas intersect in this work such as reading vs. seeing, intellectual fetishism, as well as the compulsion of collecting. <br /> Toys of a Two Year Old depicts all of the artist's two year-old child's toys that have eyes. The toys are presented on a plain while oval ground arranged from the largest at the center to the smallest at the edge. It is a dizzying array, at once disconcerting and humorous, pondering the visual cues associated with the development of language, and an adult striving for communication with his/her pre-verbal child. <br /> In Untitled Slide Piece, the notational snapshot is the basic compositional unit. Selected from a vast archive of images made over ten years, 160 snapshots are presented as a traditional slide-show with projectors and a dissolve unit. The photographs are ordered so that one subject in each image is repeated in the next. Similar to the film editing technique of a match cut, Lattu's piece differs in a significant way. Whereas in film editing cuts are planned in advance for narrative progression; this work is made by ordering unrelated experiences into an associative sequence. The piece frustrates narrative expectations, while at the same time suggesting a different model of empirical classification. <br /> Banqueting House is a sculpture produced by the model of perspective of a camera. The titular building in London was designed in 1619-1622 by Inigo Jones in a neo-Palladian style and decorated with ceiling panels by Peter Paul Rubens. Following Vitruvian models of proportion and form the great hall of the building is a double cube: twice as long as it is tall and wide. Lattu photographed the entire interior of the hall from a standing viewpoint in the center of the room, halfway between the entry and the throne. These photographs have been reversed to wrap the exterior of a sculpture that is a hybrid between the double cube and the perspective of the camera.<br /> Brandon Lattu holds an <span class="caps">MFA </span>from <span class="caps">UCLA. </span> Most recently his work has been included in "The Movement of Images," at the Centre Pompidou, National Museum of Modern Art Paris, "Big City Lab," curated by Friedrieke Nymphius at Artforum, Berlin, and "Symmetry' at the <span class="caps">MAK</span> Center for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Upcoming solo exhibitions are scheduled at Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver in July and the Kunstverein Bielefeld, Germany in October. He lives in Los Angeles. </p> <p>Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 10- 6 pm. For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/890 Exhibition: Torben Giehler <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">March 31 - April 28, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Saturday, March 31, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/866"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/11/11875.jpeg" alt="Installation view of "Eis Hexe"" height="319" width="500" /></a> <p>Torben Giehler, <em>Installation view of "Eis Hexe"</em>, 2007</p> <p> </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For Immediate Release:</p> <p><span class="caps">TORBEN GIEHLER</span>: "Eis Hexe"<br /> March 31st through April 28th 2007<br /> Opening Saturday March 31st from 6-8pm</p> <p>In his forth solo exhibition at Leo Koenig Inc., Torben Giehler presents a series of new paintings. He explores new pictorial solutions in combining traditional painting with digital encoding and techniques of construction. He creates vibrating rhythmical grids of color that are made of zigzag lines and angular shapes that sometimes are superimposed thus evoking an element of time and space. </p> <p>At first Giehler's paintings may seem overwhelming as the viewer gets caught in an abstract geometric maze of lines that suddenly change direction or seem to immediately stop until the eye of the beholder can fight its way through to recognizable spatial worlds. Line and color segments evoke structures that simulate digital networks or new urban spaces.</p> <p>Giehler's reference to landscape painting is less evident in this show. In his new work, colors follow an abstract logic that is defined within each painting sometimes allowing three-dimensional illusion of depth or creating compositions that resemble sectional views of four-dimensional hypercubes. Eventually the viewer is always brought back to the surface of the canvas. Giehler's painting language has expanded, ranging from thin transparent areas where the underpainting is still visible to saturated opaque layers. This method evokes a wider variety of emotional responses similar to music. </p> <p>The album "Head for the Shallow" from the grunge band Big Business inspired all of the works in this show. With colors and lines he is painting visual metaphors to their energetic and raw sounds. Abstract painters like Kandinsky and Mondrian have always been fascinated by music's emotional suggestive qualities. Music expresses itself through sound and time allowing the listener a freedom of imagination that is not based on the literal or descriptive, but in the abstract. In that sense Giehler is deeply rooted in the origins of abstract painting. </p> <p>Torben Giehler is currently participating in the exhibition "Like color in pictures" at the Aspen Art Museum, <span class="caps">CO.</span> He has shown extensively in Europe and the <span class="caps">US.</span> His work has been included in many prestigious group exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, New Orleans Museum of Art, Chelsea Art Museum in New York, Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Wilhelm Hack Museum in Germany. In 2005, his work was selected for the Prague Biennale 2 and Greater New York at PS 1. In 2003 Giehler had a solo exhibition at the Centro de Arte in Salamanca, Spain. </p> <p>Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Saturday 10- 6 pm. For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery or visit www.torbengiehler.com</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/866 Exhibition: Kelli Williams <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Tooth and Nail"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">February 23 - March 24, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, February 23, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/891"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/11/11877.jpeg" alt="Installation view" height="320" width="500" /></a> <p>Kelli Williams, <em>Installation view of "Tooth and Nail"</em>, 2007</p> <p> </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Kelli Williams: "Tooth and Nail"<br /> "February 23rd through March 24th <br /> opening Friday February 23rd from 6-8pm</p> <p>All the conventions conspire<br /> To make this fort assume<br /> The furniture of home:<br /> Lest we should see where we are,<br /> Lost in a haunted wood,<br /> Children afraid of the night<br /> Who have never been happy or good.</p> <p>-W.H. Auden</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings by Kelli Williams entitled "Tooth and Nail." For this much-anticipated debut, Kelli Williams has produced a series of modestly-scaled works that exude Boschian excess and complexity. In them, gentle and comforting hues belie the debauchery and profanity of the compositions. </p> <p>In her works, Ms. Williams attempts to create a kind of master narrative, so overheated and unstable that It collapses upon and subverts itself, achieving a kind of cathartic release. In keeping with the tightly wound compositions, a fetishistic and obsessive attention to detail is evidenced. The paintings include multiple figures painted on a chalk gesso ground with detailed drawings underneath. Because of the complexity of both the materials and the methodology, the works take an extraordinary amount of time to complete. This show is the culmination of 2 years of work. </p> <p>Kelli Williams' work is, in her own words, influenced by kitsch and pornography. However, she is not interested in kitsch in a nostalgic sense but rather has an admiration for the way the genre depicts death, horror and the sublime in messy, uncontrolled and unironic ways. There is an affinity in thinking in Ms. Williams work, with cultural theorists such as Laura Kipnis who argues that the disgust exhibited by many feminists towards porn springs from a history of bourgeois desire to remove the distasteful from the sight of society, which links to a denial of the body, its orifices and desires. A cultural and anthropological interest in the genre is also evident, particularly with reference to ancient, quasi-religious beliefs about obscenity as a protection against death or the malice of others. In Ms. Williams imagination, these works act as talismans against the ugliness of the world, by instigating a subversive, rather than romantic form of escapism. </p> <p>Kelli Williams has an <span class="caps">MFA </span>from Yale University. She has participated in The Academy of Arts and Letters Invitational exhibition last year in New York City, and "Through the Looking Glass" at Galerie Bob van Orsouw in Zurich, Switzerland. This is her first solo exhibition. </p> <p>Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10-6pm. For further information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/891 Exhibition: Tony Matelli <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"New Works"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 12 - February 17, 2007</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/872"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/6/6981.jpeg" alt="Old Enemy, New Victim, 2006" height="390" width="500" /></a> <p>Tony Matelli, <em>Old Enemy, New Victim</em>, 2006</p> <p> steel, fiberglass, silicone, paint, yak hair, 37.5 x 72 x 62 inches </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Tony Matelli<br /> New Works<br /> January 12th through February 17th 2007<br /> Opening reception: Friday, January 12, 6-8pm</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition by artist Tony Matelli. </p> <p>Tony Matelli has always been interested in the underdog. He has become well known for his hyper-realistic sculptures often depicting characters and things just barely getting by; things nearly dead, hopelessly lost or otherwise totally unwanted. These sculptures serve as metaphors for our own social malaise and our general struggle for survival. They mimic inner states of desolation, panic, ambivalence and despair; frequent conditions associated with trying to locate ones self within our social world. </p> <p>The chimpanzee has for some years been a figure in Matelli's work as a stand in for the human id, or the human subconscious. For this exhibition he uses them to depict a violently upended social order: the poor eating the rich, the weak overtaking the powerful. Similarly, another ongoing project is Weeds, made in bronze to look exactly like the real thing and surreptitiously placed in the gallery. The weed, as always, is a persistent unwanted intruder and Matelli uses them as an emblem of struggle, and perseverance. They celebrate debasement and mock cultivation, an impulse that is simultaneously political and deeply personal. </p> <p>Also in this exhibition are Veg. Head, a self-portrait rendered in old, mouldy vegetables, and A Fucking Mess, a sculpture of hopelessly tangled rope. Both are reflections Matelli's inner state of incertitude, and unease. Fuck It, Free Yourself! is a small sculpture of burning money, casually set on a plain domestic table. It is perhaps the most direct example of Matelli's new ambivalent social order; an eternal flame commemorating total disregard.</p> <p>Tony Matelli has exhibited extensively in the US and in Europe. His work was most recently seen in "5 Billion Years," at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and Into Me/Out of Me, at <span class="caps">P.S.</span> 1 <span class="caps">MOMA</span> New York, travelling to KW Berlin Institute of Contemporary Art. Upcoming projects include Evolution: Tony Matelli/Alexis Rockman, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Still Life, at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand, and Die Macht der Dinge - The Power of Things, Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin. For information and visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/872 Exhibition: Bjarne Melgaard <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"A Weekend of Painting; A novel by Les Super"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">November 21, 2006 - January 6, 2007</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Tuesday, November 21, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/839"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/6/6964.jpeg" alt="Untitled 28" height="328" width="500" /></a> <p>Bjarne Melgaard, <em>Untitled (BM 28)</em>, 2006</p> <p> Oil on canvas, 78.75 x 118 inches </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Bjarne Melgaard<br /> "A Weekend of Painting; A Novel by Les Super"<br /> November 21st, 2006 through January 6th, 2007 <br /> Opening Reception; Tuesday, November 21st 6-8 pm</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc is pleased to announce a solo exhibition entitled "A Weekend of Painting; A Novel by Les Super," by artist Bjarne Melgaard. Long known for outrageous installations involving elements from a decidedly underground sensibility ranging from hardcore heavy metal music to allusions to graphic <span class="caps">S&M </span>trysts, Bjarne Melgaard's work has matured with his re-discovery of the basics, painting and drawing. Not completely gone are the scatological narratives, and flippant humor of his past works, but gone is the compulsion to shock with the ultra -violence of confrontation. </p> <p>Melgaards' angst-riddled constructions began as antithesis to the culture that surrounded him in good taste and minimalist aesthetics. Schooled in the Netherlands at the Jan van Eyck Academie, in Maarstricht, and the Riijksakamie, Amsterdam, Melgaard has been quoted as stating this time as the most miserable in his life. In his aesthetic "lashing out" he often offended, yet just as surely inspired minions of artists who also felt stifled by the fanaticism and over abundance of slick, finished-looking objects that flirted with decoration. Melgaard's work also evolved concurrently with contemporary transgressive literary writers such as Dennis Cooper, whose work involves passages of hardcore homosexual encounters and violence as a method to demonstrate an emphasis on difference, abnormality as opposed to the boredom of conformity. There is no interest in a collective identity whatsoever. </p> <p>Enter Les Super, Melgaards "minipig" character. Pathetic, gross, yet lovable, and endearing, the creature begins a journey exploring life in a slightly subdued but equally moving way. It is a testament to Melgaard's artistic mutability, that he can easily shift from the extroverted, muscular visual onslaughts to the more introspective paintings that will be exhibited here. Venturing from pure abstraction to expressive narratives involving Les Super, the works guide the viewer through a story of transformation that resonates on many levels at once. The paintings are in fact a gorgeous confluence of painting skill and newly discovered tenderness. Reminders of the past continue to insinuate themselves everywhere, sometimes appearing on t-shirt's, in other instances, the hesitant text surrounding Les Super like his own racing thoughts. These elements ever threaten to take the picture to another direction. They are there to tell us that Les Super is still defiant, not defeated, and always casting a watchful eye on the Human Stain .</p> <p>Bjarne Melgaard has shown extensively in Europe as well as the <span class="caps">US. </span> Most recently, his work has been included in such exhibitions as Superstars: The Celebrity Factor, From Warhol to Madonna, Kunstahlle Wien, Austria "In a Norwegian Wood,: Norwegian Art of the Last Decade at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland and "Playlist" at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France. Bjarne Melgaard lives and works in Barcelona Spain.<br /> <br /> For further information and/or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/839 Exhibition: Peter Saul <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Recent Works"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">October 19 - November 18, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, October 20, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/741"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4814.jpeg" alt="Bush at Abu Ghraib, 2006 acrylic on canvas 78 x 90 inches " height="440" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Bush at Abu Ghraib, 2006<br /> acrylic on canvas<br /> 78 × 90 inches</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Peter Saul<br /> "Recent Works"<br /> October 19th through November 18th, 2006<br /> Opening Reception Friday, October 20th, 6-8 pm</p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of recent paintings by artist Peter Saul which will be on view concurrently here and at David Nolan Gallery.</p> <p>Long known for his acid-hued paintings melding cartoon imagery with biting social and political commentary, Peter Saul has influenced generations of contemporary artists. Coming of age in the 50's and 60's, Saul was inspired equally by comic books as he was by surrealists and remained an unrelenting critic of various aspects of American culture. In the 60's, Peter Saul was associated with a group of imagists in Chicago called the "Hairy Who," that disavowed the various New York styles or schools of the moment. Instead they focused on the human image, conflated elements of high and low culture, were extremely anti-authoritative and promoted a particularly intense political critique.</p> <p>The paintings in this exhibition expound on the elements that Saul has utilized in his paintings for 45 years. The works are varied and timely. In one for example, George W. Bush's head looms, with a slightly maniacal smile, admiring a disfigured and bullet-riddled head as if eyeing a trophy. Entitled "Bush at Abu Ghraib," one can almost smell the sulfur... "Sardanapalus" relates the story of the Ancient Persian king who according to legend commits suicide and was later decapitated by his body guards in order to more easily strip his corpse of gold and jewels. In Saul's painting, the king looks eerily like Osama bin Laden and blatantly refers to the dissemination of the loot of war. And Saul doesn't leave himself out of his acrid pictures. Continuing a practice of depicting male figures with female attributes, in "Portrait of the Artist" as a Woman, Saul takes an experience where he and his wife were mistaken for two women and twists it to a completely absurdist end. While his paintings are visceral, enigmatic and often convey a caustic wit, Saul states simply that he would like to take attention off of a pictures style long enough to be concerned with its image, which he considers more interesting. </p> <p>Peter Saul has exhibited worldwide in numerous galleries, museums and institutions. Most recently he has had solo exhibitions at Musee Paul Valery, Sete, France, and Musee d'art moderne et contemporain, Geveva, Switzerland. His work was also recently included in "Disparities and Deformities: Our Grotesque," Site Santa Fe, and "Splat, Boom, Pow," at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston and the <span class="caps">ICA,</span> Boston. Peter Saul lives and works in Germantown New York. A catalogue with an essay by Brooks Adams will accompany the exhibition. For further information and/or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/741 Exhibition: Greg Bogin <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Greetings Earthlings"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">September 7 - October 14, 2006</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/766"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/5/5057.jpeg" alt="Greetings Earthlings, 2006 Installation View" height="244" width="360" /></a> <p><p>Greetings Earthlings, 2006<br /> Installation View</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p><span class="caps">GREG BOGIN</span><br /> "Greetings Earthlings"<br /> September 7th through October 14th, 2006<br /> Opening Reception, Thursday, September 7th, 6-8 pm</p> <p>Leo Koenig is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of new paintings and sculpture by Greg Bogin. </p> <p>For this exhibition, Bogin continues his examination of the evermore porous boundaries between painting and sculpture. Greg Bogin's work is informed by the mundane and the ordinary that surrounds us, and infiltrates our subconscious, even without our knowledge. Truck logos, supermarket signage, <span class="caps">IKEA </span>catalogues and highway markers are all sifted through and distilled onto shimmering jewel-like surfaces. Emblematic, and vaguely familiar, Bogin creates from the everyday detritus of our collective peripheral vision, the inverse of the commonplace. </p> <p>Greg Bogin has been keenly decoding our ubiquitous stimulae for several years now. In this new grouping of works, we see the progression of an artist technique to articulate and expand on an idea, that in lesser hands, could have become rote. Previously working with silk-screening on canvas, Bogin now uses automotive lacquer to make his paintings. Initially experimenting with the lacquer to achieve a more subtle gradation of color, that the silk-screening prohibited, Bogin instantly took to the new medium, preferring its directness and the luminous quality of the surfaces.</p> <p>As always, Bogin's titles relate a deadpan humor, that currently chronicles his interest in the optimism of science fiction series, such as Star Trek. Embedded metal flake obviously evokes ideas of hotrods and visions of warp speeds, but the static paintings in odd, component-like shapes, allow for an easy, symbiotic dialogue with his sculpture, evoking a cooler form of covetousness. A contemplative, visionary desire emerges..., pondering the questions that besieged Buckminster Fuller his entire career, as to why there are so many triangles in the future.</p> <p>The exhibition "Greetings Earthlings" will be accompanied by a 74-page color monograph by the same title, published by Leo Koenig Inc.</p> <p>Greg Bogin has shown extensively in the US and in Europe. Most recently, he has exhibited at Starmach Gallery in Krakow, Poland and Galerie Jablonka in Cologne, Germany. Greg Bogin lives and works in New York City. </p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh, or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/766 Exhibition: A.R. Penck <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Major Works From the 1960's - 1980's"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">June 27 - August 5, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Tuesday, June 27, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/672"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4584.jpeg" alt="" height="499" width="499" /></a> <p>A.R. Penck, <em>Invitation</em>, 2006</p> <p> </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc. is honored to announce the exhibition of works by AR Penck from the 60's throught the 80's Born Ralph Winker, Penck adopted several pseudonyms, finally arriving at AR Penck, which he borrowed from an Australian geomorphologist whom he admired. Born in the <span class="caps">GDR, </span>the chameleon-like changing of his name was in part a strategy and sly response to the rigid cultural policy of the country of his birth. Repeatedly harassed by authorities in the <span class="caps">GDR,</span> Penck found that works of art could be easier transferred to the west with various pseudonyms. </p> <p>Penck started painting the style for which he is known in the 1960's after finishing an apprenticeship as a commercial artist and doing a stint at an advertising agency in Dresden, sometime in the early 60's. Penck's style appears borrowed from primitive renditions of humans and their surroundings. Stick figures and emblematic renderings of animals are often depicted with mark making patterning creating an all-over effect. However, symbolic in appearance, the also paintings reveal an obsession with all manor of systems such as mathematics, cybernetics and information theory. Through the melding of these aspects, Penck intended to produce a visual language completely his own. However, in doing so it is easy to see how his work has inspired other contemporary artist. Some insist that every work produced by Penck is a political statement. Others believe that the works are autobiographical in nature, revealing the ongoing quest to align some sort of order from a chaotic and disparate universe. </p> <p>The works in this exhibition have been generously loaned from a private collection and have never been exhibited in New York previously. They run the gamut of his styles from incredibly dramatic works predominately in black and white or grey to the flashes of intense color which makes its appearance in his works from the 70's on. </p> <p>In 1980, Penck was expatriated to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), which had already acknowledged him as an important artist for a long time. Since 1972 Penck was represented at the documenta several times and in 1984 also at the Biennial in Venice. The artist obtained a professorship at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Düsseldorf in 1988. He remains one of the most influential artists of our time. </p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/672 Exhibition: Nicole Eisenman <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Progress: Real and Imagined"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">May 13 - June 17, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Saturday, May 13, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/673"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4346.jpeg" alt="" height="500" width="397" /></a> <p>Nicole Eisenman, <em>Untitled</em>, 2006</p> <p> oil on canvas, </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p><em>While allegory employs 'machinery,' it is not an engineer's type of machinery at all. It does not use up real fuels, does not transform such fuels into real energy. Instead, it is a fantasized energy, like the fantasized power conferred on the shaman by his belief in deamons.</em></p> <blockquote><p>Angus Fletcher, Allegory</p></blockquote> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of new works by Nicole Eisenman entitled, Progress: Real and Imagined. The centerpiece of the exhibition are two large scale panels that make a complete work that spans 8×30 feet. Within the painting, Eisenman revisits many themes and characters that have appeared in previous works, creating an allegorical treatise on a diverse range of topics.</p> <p>One panel centrally depicts an artist studio as an Ark. Adrift, a figure furiously draws, seemingly unaffected by the cascade of influence and history that crashes down. There is much going on beyond the confines of the ark, but the artists' focus is so intense, that nothing seems to break the spell. There is a bit of "Nero plays while Rome Burns" in the painting, suggesting the conflict of the thinking contemporary artist struggling with both the ordinary and the immense issues of the day.</p> <p>On the other panel, a landscape unfolds. Here, Eisenman's vision spans frenetically from Goddess mythology, creation myths, and carnivorous obsession. In this work, babies float down rivers, to be scooped out & auctioned off, hamburgers appear as pods of desire, exploding upon impact while wormholes in space open up windows into alternative realities. Eisenman explores the idea of progress, creating a distopian universe whose populace is besotted with instant gratification and whose existence is underlined with a routine violence, where it seems completely rational that women hunt men for their sperm, and inseminate each other with high-powered rifles.</p> <p>This is a truly epic work which touches on the sympathetic journeys between the internal evolution of the artist at work traversing an interior mindscape, and the actual passage to a future state that is both inviting and dangerous. In addition to this work, Ms. Eisenman will present a series of smaller paintings that could be viewed as singular portholes emanating from the larger work.</p> <p>Nicole Eisenman has been included numerous exhibitions, notably the Whitney Biennial in 1995. She has had solo exhibitions at Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, in Mexico City, The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, The Centraal Museum Utrecht, Holland and the San Francisco Art Institute. She has an upcoming solo exhibition at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne. As well, her work has been included in recent group exhibitions at the Ludwig Museum Cologne and the Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/673 Exhibition: Alexis Rockman <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"American Icons"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">April 8 - May 5, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Saturday, April 8, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/674"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4554.jpeg" alt="" height="241" width="281" /></a> <p>Alexis Rockman, <em>Disney World I</em>, 2005</p> <p> oil on wood, </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc is pleased to announce the opening "American Icons" an exhibition of ten new paintings and five new drawings by Alexis Rockman. Beginning where he left off with the epic painting "Manifest Destiny" in which he imagined the future of the Brooklyn waterfront, Rockman has envisioned specific American landmarks, such as the Gateway Arch, in Saint Louis, the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, and the Capitol building in Washington DC after the effects of global warming. Rockman imagines the future of these most beloved contemporary markers in the tradition of the sublime ruin. The transformed landscapes show how ecosystems continue to thrive, regardless. In keeping with the theme of climate change, Rockman's oil drawings show severe weather phenomena.</p> <p>Although Rockman's subject matter remains disquieting, these paintings and drawings reveal a new-found painterliness and a fascination with the alchemy of materials. A decaying Hollywood sign appears against a spectacular sunset. The Capitol building appears like Angkor Wat from underneath vegetation that has nearly engulfed its Neo-classical architecture. In a painting entitled "Lawn," dandelions stretch out as far as the eye can see, their voraciousness hidden in the guise of a cheerful yellow flower. The scenes are lusciously tactile, and act as luminous cautionary odes to future that may very well transpire, but whose alternative fleetingly lies within our reach.</p> <p>A native New Yorker, who spent much of his childhood at the American Museum of Natural History, Rockman's work is partially inspired by botanical and zoological renderings while being informed by art historical references from Thomas Cole to Robert Smithson. He has a <span class="caps">BFA </span>from the School of Visual Arts and has exhibited his work in galleries and institutions worldwide. Numerous catalogues have been published of his work and he most recently had a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, Camden Art Centre, London, and the Wexner Center for the Arts, <span class="caps">OH.</span> Public collections that have acquired Rockman's work include the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, <span class="caps">NY, </span>and the Whitney Museum of American Art, <span class="caps">NY.</span> Rockman lives and works in New York City.</p> <p>A 48-page hardcover catalogue including full-color reproductions of all the paintings in American Icons and co-published with Baldwin Gallery, in Aspen Colorado will accompany the exhibit. The catalogue also features reproductions of oil drawings included in Rockman's simultaneous exhibit, Big Weather at the Baldwin Gallery through April 16. The catalogue includes an introduction by Dorothy Spears, and essays by the art historian Robert Rosenblum and the environmentalist, Bill McKibben.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/674 Exhibition: Tom Sanford <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Tom Sanford"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">March 10 - April 6, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, March 10, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/675"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4531.jpeg" alt="Lil' Kim in Jail, 2005" height="483" width="500" /></a> <p>Tom Sanford, <em>Lil' Kim in Jail</em>, 2005</p> <p> oil and acrylic on wood, 28 x 28 inches </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of new paintings by Tom Sanford. Sanford's paintings and drawings form a tableau depicting the dark side of America's celebrity obsessed popular culture. For this exhibition, he has executed eight pieces ( six paintings, one drawing and one series of 30 drawings) each of which deals with the events and personae that define the artist's relationship to popular culture. Some of the paintings depict events that occurred in the arena of mainstream popular culture, such as "the Assasination of Dimebag Darrell" or "The Vibe Awards Stabbing." Others, including "The Triumph of Passion over Reason" and "Follow the Boys," address events and issues of celebrity culture within the New York art community.</p> <p>The experience of viewing these paintings are somewhat like watching a car wreck. One simply cannot turn away, yet the image burned into one's consciousness is undeniably disturbing. It is this attraction/repulsion that is the impetus for Sanford's work and reflects the artist's ambivalent relationship to the culture he not only depicts, but of which he is also an avid consumer. The paintings are tethered between the crass opulence of celebrity, and the hysterics of its fans (a group of which Sanford is a self-identified member)</p> <p>In his paintings, Sanford often employs the tropes of Renaissance portraiture, history painting or Byzantine Icon painting, substituting contemporary figures into classical compositions. The use of these conventions invites the viewer to venerate our contemporary icons, while at the same time, the paintings suggest a recent history as epic as the mythologies depicted in paintings of the western canon.</p> <p>Sanford has also invented a caricature of himself which is included in many of his paintings. This caricature, "Tompac" originated in a project where he reinvented himself, losing weight, getting himself pierced and tattooed, in order to look more like Tupac Shakur. "Tompac" was born to fail, and is in Sanford's own words, the "most pathetic gangster." In his paintings Tompac appears as the fool, either seemingly commenting on the scenes or stiffly posing within them. The insertion of an awkward likeness of himself into his paintings underlines his uneasy relationship with the subject matter he depicts. But in the end, his visage assumes more of the traditional role of court jester, taking on the task of comically critiquing "royalty", when other means of censure would prove too risky.</p> <p>Tom Sanford was born in Bronxville, NY and has a BA from Columbia University. He has had solo exhibitions at Galerie Faurschou, Copenhagen and Tomoya Saito Gallery in Tokyo. His work was most recently seen in the group exhibition "Star-Star: Towards the Center of Attention" at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. He lives and works in New York City.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/675 Exhibition: Les Rogers <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Lindsey - New Paintings"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 28 - March 4, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Saturday, January 28, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/676"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4467.jpeg" alt="Teach Peace" height="500" width="393" /></a> <p>Les Rogers, <em>Teach Peace</em>, 2005</p> <p> Oil on canvas, </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of new paintings by Les Rogers.</p> <p>In the spring of 1954, Pablo Picasso discovered a young woman, Sylvette David at a pottery studio across the street from his studio. Picasso became entranced by the young woman's classic looks and modern air. Sylvette became known as the girl with the pony tail, which to Picasso, accentuated and complimented her profile, while making her appear as a young sophisticate emerging from adolescence into womanhood. Picasso completed up to 40 portraits of Sylvette in two months ranging in style from Neo Classical to Synthetic Cubism, often with the styles overlapping.</p> <p>For his exhibition at the gallery, Les Rogers is presenting a series of portraits of a contemporary teenager named Lindsey. However the nature of the artist-model relationship has shifted a great deal. Lindsey is a "virtual" model, discovered on one of the many online community sites permeating cyberspace. The artist and model have never met in person, but have only communicated online. Lindsey, like many millions of others, posts new pictures of herself weekly, along with the usual lists of favorite bands and books and the occasional blog. Here it is the individual who projects the various changing and overlapping images of themselves. It is Lindsey who allows one to witness the emergence of a young woman, determining for herself how she would like to be perceived, and how perhaps that is ever-evolving. Picasso had referred to painting as a process of "opening windows," which translates neatly to contemporary online vernacular. In essence, through this new series of paintings, Les Rogers has opened yet another window into Lindsey's life.</p> <p>In this exhibition, Les Rogers sees his paintings evolving in much the same way that Lindsey's persona evolves on the web. On a surface level, this is a simple portrait show, focusing on a young woman who has captured an artist's imagination. However, within those strictures, Rogers is ruminating on the array of choices that an artist makes when approaching a work. The exhibition is an investigation of the art-making process itself, espousing the idea that part of an artist's job is to constantly reinvent himself/herself. Experimentation must be valued as much as rigor. This certainly applies to Rogers' oevre. In the past, Roger's work has ranged in stylistic choices from photo-realist to a very lyrical abstraction, often times overlapping the various styles in one work. His abstractions are often a "collection of glimpses", where images are layered atop each other, thereby moving in and out of abstraction to representation at a blink of an eye. To Rogers, the process of making art is in fact, discovering ones own language anew, every day,</p> <p>Les Rogers has shown extensively in the United States and in Europe. Most recently, he has exhibited at Suzanne Tarasieve Gallery in Paris, and Karlheinz Meyer Gallery in Karlsruhe, Germany. Les Rogers lives and works in New York City.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/676 Exhibition: Marcin Maciejowski <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Marcin Maciejowski"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">December 9, 2005 - January 14, 2006</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, December 9, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/677"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4571.jpeg" alt="" height="500" width="442" /></a> <p>Marcin Maciejowski, <em>Kostium. Tadeusz Kantor. Teatr Cricot. 1974</em>, 2005</p> <p> oil on canvas, </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of new paintings by Polish artist, Marcin Maciejowski. Schooled at the Krakow Art Academy, Maciejowski was a founding member of Gruppa Ladnie / The Pretty Group, a student collaborative that garnered attention for incorporating the geography and social fabric of the city. Gruppa Ladnie presented their work in unusual locations such as empty suburban lots, city billboards and historic landmarks. As well, the artists created fanzines, comics magazines and compilation tapes to disseminate their work. Gruppa Ladnie soon gained international recognition, spawning the success of such artists as Wilhelm Sasnal and Rafal Bujnowski as well as Maciejowski.</p> <p>Marcin Maciejowski's paintings are odd. Imbued by an aesthetic influenced by his study of Graphic Arts and printmaking, the work employs flat, two dimensional imagery culled equally from mass media, pop culture and art history. For this series of paintings, the artist continues his exploration of male identity, religion and public policy from a perspective that both highlights and transcends Polish post-Soviet perspective.</p> <p>Often blocky and matter-of-fact, the paintings present what at first glance may appear to be banal scenes from contemporary life, but they exude a delight in the sensual qualities of painting. In the works, scenes appear as if interrupted mid-sentence, or perhaps as snippets of stories wafting in and out of earshot at the neighborhood pub. There are a few clues as to what led up to the moment depicted, and no hints as to what may occur in the future. In this way, the paintings are a stream-of-consciousness communication, immersing the viewer immediately into a work that is at once familiar, and yet somehow different. A parallel experiential universe is uncovered, appealing to the viewer through oblique and sometimes absurd humor that belies an often stinging social critique.</p> <p>Marcin Maciejowski's work has appeared in "Nation," at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main, Art Basel 35 Statements, and the National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow. He has had solo exhibitions at galleries such as Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna and Marc Foxx Gallery in Los Angeles. This is his first solo exhibition in New York City. Marcin Maciejowski lives and works in Krakow, Poland.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/677 Exhibition: Gelitin <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Tantamounter 24/7"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">November 16 - November 23, 2005</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/678"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/7/7029.jpeg" alt="Tantamounter 24/7, 2006" height="375" width="500" /></a> <p>Gelitin, <em>Tantamounter 24/7</em>, 2006</p> <p> mixed media, installation in gallery </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p><em>Leo Koenig Inc. will be closed Thanksgiving weekend The gallery will reopen on November 29th, and Gelitin's structure for Tantamounter 24/7 will be on view until December 3rd</em></p> <p>The "Tantamounter 24/7" is a gigantic, complex and very clever machine. It's like a huge huge Xerox copy machine, only bigger and more clever. The friendly customer places their personal objects, ideas, smells on one of the entry ports and after a short analysis will be informed of the time it will take to produce the copy.</p> <p>The "Tantamounter 24/7" can scan two and three-dimensional objects, analyze their flavours, ideas, concepts and contents. As a clever machine it can not just copy or duplicate objects, but of course be tantamount to them. Due to its complex emotional circuitry one will never know how the "Tantamounter 24/7" will reflect the input. After the announced waiting time the input object and its duplicate will be ejected through the exit slot. The working mechanism behind "Tantamounter 24/7" is some completely hardwired intense individual agents operating day and night under close supervision of a bankrupt psychiatrist.</p> <p>The "Tantamounter 24/7" is a novelty in an ever changing market and will have its first public test run on November 16th, 10 pm serving its audience 24/7 until November 23rd, 10 pm. The "Tantamounter 24/7" will be totally free of charge (Although it will be happy about food and love donations.) Get down and get your stuff tantamountered at Leo Koenig Inc., 545 W 23rd Street.</p> <p>Yes, Leo Koenig Inc. will be open 24 hours a day for the entire week of November 16 through November 23rd.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/678 Exhibition: Christian Schumann <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Variations and Suppositions"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">October 14 - November 12, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, October 14, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/679"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4514.jpeg" alt="" height="330" width="500" /></a> <p>Christian Schumann, <em>September</em>, 2004</p> <p> acrylic on canvas, </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc., in cooperation with Patrick Painter, is pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of new paintings by Christian Schumann. This new series of paintings emphasizes a shift in his work that has happened since his relocation to Los Angeles. Previously known for paintings that included text and cartoon figuration, Schumann has now distilled his work to a labor-intensive, miniscule mark making that unfolds into beautifully languorous abstractions. Only in one case do vestiges of Schumann's cartoon influences remain, in the form of the cross-hatching technique which compose the existentialist shadows so prevalent in the world of comic illustration.</p> <p>The mark making has become for Schumann a kind of notation, a repetitive, singular act which congeals into an atmospheric envelopment of the canvas. As if by some kind of aesthetic molecular reorganization, the figure as a reference has disintegrated, but the lines that compose that figure have remained. The visual genetic material has formulated into a resulting mist that envelopes the viewer with their own personal inferences.</p> <p>In the second room of the exhibition are three peculiar landscapes. The paintings depict a seemingly endless panorama of ramshackle architecture, and piecemeal homesteading amidst a devastated landscape. Although finished long before and having no correlation to recent events, one cannot help but notice the similarities between these paintings and the images that have been flashing on TV screens nightly. The bleached colors permeating the canvas add an unsettling brightness to the desolation, not unlike the blazing sunshine that accompanies Los Angeles' infamous Santa Ana winds.</p> <p>Christian Schumann has had numerous solo exhibitions worldwide. His work has been included in exhibitions such as "Proliferation," at <span class="caps">MOCA</span> Los Angeles, and "Pop Surrealism," Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. His work has been included in public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Dallas Museum. Christian Schumann currently lives and works in Los Angeles.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact <a href="mailto:%65%6C%69%7A%61%62%65%74%68%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Elizabeth Balogh</a> or <a href="mailto:%6E%69%63%6F%6C%65%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Nicole Russo</a> at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/679 Exhibition: Frank Nitsche <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Very Friendly Fire, (Born to Make You Happy)"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">September 9 - October 8, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, September 9, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/680"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/7/7123.jpeg" alt="KOK-03-2005" height="375" width="500" /></a> <p>Frank Nitsche, <em>KOK-03-2005</em>, 2005</p> <p> oil on canvas, 79 x 67 inches </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by German artist, Frank Nitsche. Nitsche's exhibition marks the first solo show at the gallery's new home at 545 West 23rd Street, and his second exhibition with the gallery.</p> <p>In his previous work, Nitsche bordered on the aggressive and confrontational, evincing the feeling of velocity and mechanical potentiality. In this new series of paintings, Nitsche is more restrained. Now the most elemental aspects of his abstraction are traversed, heavily dependent upon a linear grace, less relevant to a virtual speed. If in the past Nitsche's concerns were compression, speed and immediacy, he seems now more concerned with the essence of a moment, distillation of a template into it's purest form.</p> <p>Nitsche's point of reference is still the ubiquitous lines of design that encompasses everything from athletic wear to architecture. And gesturally, Nitsche's paintings still allude to elaborate urban graffiti. But there has been a departure, a more considered approach to the paintings that relish in a moment of color, ever delineated by graphic sweeping lines. Forms appear weightless, and drips that fall from every direction disorients the viewer temporarily. But in an instant they are anchored and substantial. The colors in his paintings further highlight his approach to abstraction. The grey underpinning of the works acknowledges history but also looks through history to the nanosecond of the present where, Nitsche asserts, grey is the prevailing hue utilized by architects of contemporary culture.</p> <p>Frank Nitsche's source materials are catalogued clippings from newspapers and magazine illustrations but really offer no direct links to his paintings except in a skeletal sense. Filed and catalogued, these imagistic materials serve as a compressed and conserved media diary. His systematic filing of resource material perhaps most closely influences the titles of his paintings, which are in fact simply serial numbers. His sources however, are digested and ruminated upon, later appearing in an outlined form upon a canvas as if through the process of some imagistic osmosis.</p> <p>Frank Nitsche has had exhibitions at Natalie Obadia Gallery, Paris, White Cube, London and Max Hezler, Berlin. His work has been included in such prestigious international public collections such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, Museum Ludwig and the Tate Modern among others. Frank Nitsche lives and works in Berlin.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact <a href="mailto:%65%6C%69%7A%61%62%65%74%68%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Elizabeth Balogh</a> or <a href="mailto:%6E%69%63%6F%6C%65%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Nicole Russo</a> at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/680 Exhibition: "Self Preservation Society" <div class="exhibition-subtitle"></div> <div class="exhibition-dates">August 9 - September 3, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Tuesday, August 9, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/681"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/7/7364.jpeg" alt="Installation view 1" height="375" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Installation view 1</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>For more information or visuals, please contact <a href="mailto:%65%6C%69%7A%61%62%65%74%68%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Elizabeth Balogh</a> or <a href="mailto:%6E%69%63%6F%6C%65%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Nicole Russo</a> at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/681 Exhibition: Aidas Bareikis, Justin Faunce, Gelatin, Torben Giehler, John Kacere, Tony Matelli, Erik Parker, Alexis Rockman, Tom Sanford, Kelli WIlliams <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Leaving Cockaigne"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">March 11 - April 30, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Friday, March 11, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/682"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4400.jpeg" alt="" height="500" width="375" /></a> <p>Tony Matelli, <em>Fucked</em>, 2004</p> <p> Sculpture, Mixed media, </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>"Leaving Cockaigne," March 11th through April 30th, 2005<br /> Opening Reception Friday March 11, 6-8pm.</p> <p>Aidas Bareikis <br /> Justin Faunce<br /> Gelatin<br /> Torben Giehler<br /> John Kacere<br /> Tony Matelli <br /> Erik Parker<br /> Alexis Rockman<br /> Tom Sanford<br /> Kelli WIlliams<br /> </p> <p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the last exhibition in its current space, a group exhibition entitled "Leaving Cockaigne." Leo Koenig Inc. which has been situated at 249 Centre Street for over 4 years, will be moving to 545 West 23rd Street in Chelsea in May. </p> <p>Derived from Middle English and Middle French, from a word that essentially means "cake," Cockaigne has been known from medieval times as the mythical land of milk and honey. Cockaigne was a peasant's fantasy, offering the sweet dream of relief from backbreaking labor and the daily struggle for meager food. In the Middle Ages, many songs and poems were circulated about the place. Absurdists and Surrealists could have easily taken cues from this lore, where roasted birds fell from the sky like rain, trees produced ripe fruit all year round and people were arrested for working. Artist renderings depicted the imaginary Cockaigne as well, in forms of engravings and paintings. A well-known case in point is Brueghel's "The Land of Cockaigne," In this work, the darker side of utter contentment is highlighted. Brueghel's targets are gluttony and sloth, portraying fat, repulsive drunkards, passed out with symbols of spiritual impotence surrounding their visages.</p> <p>"Leaving Cockaigne" is meant to be an ironic and up to date glimpse at these very themes. Contemporary life often teeters between the world of abundance and over-indulgence. Celebrity culture and its flipside of puritanical moralizing seem to be equally sensational and repugnant. In "Leaving Cockaigne," the participating artists have created works that are not so much a critique of these seductions, but perhaps a winking call to pause from their ever-present, gravitational tug.</p> <p>Hedonistic abandon and a sense of play are mainstays of Gelatin's oeuvre. Often deliberately confronting fears or phobias first associated with childhood, there is a sincere joy evidenced in the installations, performances and static works that this 4 member art collective creates. In Torben Giehler's digitized landscapes, we are transported to a virtual utopia. Skewed perspectives give viewers the approximation of speed while blazing colors coax an excursion into the Hyper-real. John Kacere's paintings of women's bottoms replete with lacy /transparent lingerie are the pinnacle of voyeuristic pleasures. Though a decidedly Victoria's Secret stylized version of womanhood, the paintings are undeniably celebratory. Tony Matelli's sculpture "Fucked" depicts a sweet-faced primate suffering the fate of Saint Sebastian, and then some. Wounded, but still standing, "Fucked" epitomizes Matelli's sly take on present-day dilemmas. Psychedelic, and hallucinatory are words that have often been used to describe Erik Parker's paintings. In his most recent works, Parker has become more indulgent with his forms, sprouting asymmetrically, threatening to evolve off the frame. Contained within these forms are the nuggets of a collective cultural consciousness, deliberately engaging us in a game that utilizes our own unique memory of events. Alexis Rockman delves into the darkest possible consequences of our collective avarice. Gorgeously painted scenes depict futuristic landscapes struggling to thrive, finally devoid of human intervention. Hip Hop culture, religious devotion, recklessness, martyrdom and greed all collude in Tom Sanford's paintings. Incorporating devices from Christian Icon and Renaissance painting, Sanford creates scenes canonizing rap stars such as Tupak Shakur, Biggie, Eminem, Icecube, 50 Cent, P Diddy and others. Kelli Williams offers extremely detailed, jewel-like works that depict complex scenes of demonic amusements and sexual excess. Evoking references to Hieronymus Bosch and Goya, Williams paints a bacchanal that verges on the terrifying. </p> <p>Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 10-6 pm. For more information or visuals, please contact Elizabeth Balogh or Nicole Russo at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/682 Exhibition: Justin Faunce <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Thanks for All the Memories"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">January 25 - March 5, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Tuesday, January 25, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/683"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4506.jpeg" alt="" height="500" width="384" /></a> <p>Justin Faunce, <em>Thanks for all the Memories (detail)</em>, 2004</p> <p> Acrylic and glitter on canvas, 72 x 120 inches </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by Justin Faunce entitled "Thanks for All the Memories". Faunce's paintings are a labyrinth of color, pop imagery, cultural iconography with an underpinning of socio-political critique. Deceptively cheery, the paintings appear to be brightly colored, glittering confections. However, soon the imagery asserts itself as an incongruous juxtaposition between an ostentatious giddiness and a brooding malevolence. One sees alongside Vegas showgirls and charming cartoon characters, the emblems of corporate America, heroes and villains of our recent cultural past and reminders of the violence of our foibles. As to further illustrate this point, Faunce's compositions are done using a mirror image or Rorschach technique. One side of the canvas mimics the other, though upon closer inspection, one realizes that this is not altogether true. Within the mandala-like intricacies, there are glitches in the reflection, we are not seeing the reverse of the image, but its doppelganger.</p> <p>Faunce's technique is one of obsessive precision. Using a method of meticulous stenciling and applying layers of paint, the artist begins by assembling and arranging an enormous array of found images, both familiar and obscure. Faunce relates the sifting through this imagery as extracting something meaningful from the information void. Like so many of us, Faunce believes that the magnitude of information that we are bombarded with in contemporary life has become incomprehensible. The sheer force of its volume has made it impossible to form cogent narratives from our aspirations. What we are often left with amounts to a collective attention deficit disorder and personal histories reduced to sound bites.</p> <p>Justin Faunce prefers to construct his own complex visual allegories. His painstaking method painting, taking months to complete, is not unlike the meditative practices employed by eastern philosophies. With intense focus, and repetitive actions concentrating on the smallest of details, Faunce relates a particularly effervescent state of visual bliss. As well, his compositions, though eminently contemporary, also reveal a much more traditional underlying notion of duality. Patterns emerge, spliced from up-to-the-minute relics of a disposable society. Images mutate into each other, creating a perverse hybrid that immerses the viewer in a plethora of opposing representations where innocence exists alongside depravity, confidence alongside apprehension, hope within despondency. In these multi-faceted compositions, Faunce attempts to relate the impressions of a generation who are confronting a future of endless possibilities, all the while convinced of impending global catastrophe.</p> <p>Justin Faunce received a diploma from the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. This is his first solo exhibition in New York City.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact <a href="mailto:%65%6C%69%7A%61%62%65%74%68%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Elizabeth Balogh</a> or <a href="mailto:%6E%69%63%6F%6C%65%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Nicole Russo</a> at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/683 Exhibition: Erik Parker <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Let the Good Times Roll"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">December 11, 2004 - January 22, 2005</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Sunday, December 11, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/684"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/8/8518.jpeg" alt="Installation view of "Let the Good Times Roll," 2004, Leo Koenig Inc." height="318" width="500" /></a> <p><p>Installation view of<br /> "Let the Good Times Roll,"<br /> 2004, Leo Koenig Inc.</p></p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by Erik Parker entitled, "Let the Good times Roll". The work in this exhibition marks a subtle shift in Parker's paintings; Whereas in previous work, text and image were on nearly an equal footing, here, image, color and form are central. In the past, Parker's compositions tended to be symmetrical formulations, the canvas dissected with form between lines of text. In Parker's new crop of paintings, the forms are organic, sprouting and asymmetrically, evolving within the entire frame. The impact of the paintings arise from a color sense that borders on psychedelic. As well, Parker has refined a graphic approach to his paintings that articulates a sophisticated sense of space while consistently mining a litany of pop and art-historical influences. The effect is a group of works that are immediately engaging while remaining eminently challenging.</p> <p>Parker's work goes even further however. As always, Parker is a chronicler of recent, and sometimes, not so recent history. In the past, the themes of his paintings have ranged from pop to punk, hooliganism to hero worship, poetic justice to political satire. Never veering from controversy, Parker focuses in on issues that challenge the viewer on multiple levels. And issues that interest the artist are meticulously researched and distilled within an imagery that invites contemplation. Our sense of conscience, or collective cultural memory is piqued by a mere mention of a name or source. In this way, Parker's "lists" are meant to serve not as a cursory glance towards a complex theme, but to act more as neurons firing in the synapses of a collective consciousness. Topics that are included in this exhibition for instance range from the outcome of our recent presidential election, the mounting conflict in Darfur, to the gathering threat of America's evangelical movement to the seperation of church and state by promoting the idea of "creationism" at our public schools and parks. Added to this list of works are two paintings that are so intensely personal that the artist refers to them as "Self-Portraits".</p> <p>Throughout, Parker avoids moralizing, though the impact is resonant. Cartoony figuration often belies the weightiness of the words. Bemused misspellings and letters written backwards seem to negate their own import. Instead of obfuscating however, these devices collude to lend an arcane power to the entire composition.</p> <p>Erik Parker has been included in numerous museum exhibitions such as "Nation" at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, "Painting Pictures", curated by Gys van Tyl at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, "One Planet Under a Groove" at the Bronx Museum, (traveling to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis & Museum Stuck, Germany), and "The Americans" curated by Mark Sladen at the Barbican Art Galleries in London. As well, Erik Parker has had a solo show at the Cornerhouse Contemporary Art Museum in Manchester. He has exhibited extensively in Europe and Japan in such galleries as Paolo Curti & Co. in Milan, Arndt & Partner in Berlin, Jablonka Galerie in Cologne and Taka Ishi in Japan. Erik Parker lives and works in New York City.</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact <a href="mailto:%65%6C%69%7A%61%62%65%74%68%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Elizabeth Balogh</a> or <a href="mailto:%6E%69%63%6F%6C%65%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Nicole Russo</a> at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/684 Exhibition: Torben Giehler <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"J-PEG Twister"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">October 23 - November 27, 2004</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Sunday, October 23, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/685"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4381.jpeg" alt="" height="500" width="421" /></a> <p>Torben Giehler, <em>Chemical Imbalance</em>, 2004</p> <p> acrylic on canvas, </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc. is pleased to announce the third solo exhibition of new paintings by Torben Giehler at the gallery. For this exhibition, the artist has pulled out all the stops, completing a series of paintings that revel in a hue-amplified tempest. Alternating between flat grids and paintings that have a centered, focal point, Giehler's work has the viewer both gliding dizzily over his surfaces and getting caught up in a maelstrom of faceted color. All sorts of phenomena come to mind, tornadoes, shifting plate tectonics, faultlines, and volcanic craters. And all of these references come filtered through an electrified circuitry, reading as a virtual universe.</p> <p>Unobstructed by the pivoting views and intense color is the pitch-perfect resonance of art history. Anchored in his expansive, artificial and digitized panoramas is a purely formalist abstraction. Diagonal, crisscrossing lines seem familiar, as perhaps, architectural blueprints, but ultimately serves as a structural framework. Giehler breaks the picture plane into contemplative sections of pure color yet the feeling of velocity arises from the skewed, multiple perspectives. For a moment it is easy to spot the faint trails of Mondrian, or Blinky Palermo, but in an instant we are light years away, twisting in a quasar that pulsates the beat of an Audioslave song. It is this speed of information, that Giehler has translated into color, intersected by line, and formatted for reflection.</p> <p>Torben Giehler is a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has been the recipient of the James William Paige Fund as well as a recipient of the Clarissa Bartlett Scholarship. He has exhibited extensively in Europe, including most recently a solo show at Arndt & Partner, Berlin. He has also had a solo exhibition at Centro de Arte, Salamanca. As well, Torben Giehler's work has appeared in museum shows such as "Treasure Islands" and "Painting Pictures" at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and "Metascape" at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Most recently he was included in the exhibition "The Eclectic Eye: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation", New Orleans Museum of Art, LA</p> <p>For more information or visuals, please contact <a href="mailto:%65%6C%69%7A%61%62%65%74%68%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Elizabeth Balogh</a> or <a href="mailto:%6E%69%63%6F%6C%65%40%6C%65%6F%6B%6F%65%6E%69%67%2E%63%6F%6D">Nicole Russo</a> at the gallery.</p></div> http://leokoenig.com/exhibition/view/685 Exhibition: Kristin Calabrese <div class="exhibition-subtitle">"Everlasting Gobstopper"</div> <div class="exhibition-dates">September 14 - October 16, 2004</div> <div class="exhibition-opening">Opens Wednesday, September 14, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM</div> <br/> <a href="/exhibition/view/686"><img border="0" src="http://leokoenig.com/static/dyn-images/4/4502.jpeg" alt="" height="459" width="500" /></a> <p>Kristin Calabrese, <em>There's No Telling WHat the Future WIll Hold</em>, 2003</p> <p> oil on canvas, </p> <br /> <div class="exhibition-description"><p>Leo Koenig Inc. is delighted to announce the opening of our fall season with a solo exhibition of new paintings by Los Angeles artist Kristin Calabrese entitled "Everlasting Gobstopper". The title is culled from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", the artist's favorite movie as a child, and is a fleeting insight into her thought process. In the movie, Gob refers to a mouth, and gobstopper could be thought of as either a specific candy or as something that would render someone permanently speechless. In this series of new paintings, the artist addresses head-on, issues that are traditionally left unspoken, while at the same time, in ef