Marianne Boesky Gallery is pleased to present paintings by Jesse Chapman and Mike Cloud, selected by Amy Greenspon for the project space, from March 30 – April 21, 2007.
Opening reception: Thursday, March 29, 6 – 8 pm
On Mike Cloud:
“MC’s supports are built, in a way, like the Pompidou Center. The paintings on them go on to show at work not just a user of but a believer in the readymade-the distinction being that a believer uses the readymade as a complete autonomous vocabulary-not merely as a device to reiterate endlessly the critique that birthed it. This is not to say that the critique disappears-MC is still a sort of neo-iconoclast on an inner valence level. Rather than burning an Icon, though, MC would place alongside it a toy or pair of underwear as a convincing equivalent.”
-Jesse Chapman
On Jesse Chapman:
“When Jesse paints, it makes me enjoy other painting more. His painting is so slight in a way. They don’t slather over or glom onto the other paintings that I carry around in my head. The way that salt doesn’t change the flavor of steak. I joke about people being ‘the salt of the earth’ as in they add to my experience of other people. Jesse is for me ‘the salt of paint.’
That sounds bad, I mean maybe a painter’s project should be bigger than that; to replace or disrupt what is already here. The transgressive part about Jesse is that he proposes the unthinkable; that we are all already too late. The meal, as it where, has already been made. The game now is to enjoy it, and to aid that enjoyment, and to reflect on it. I am not suggesting that this is the content or subtext of the work, the consumption and enjoyment and savoring of ‘painting’ is just a fact in his work, a context in which to see.”
-Mike Cloud
In cooperation with Max Protetch and SOUTHFIRST