WHITE BOX
329 Broome Street (bet. Bowery and Chrystie Street)
New York, NY 10002
212.714.2347 www.whiteboxny.org

 

WEDNESDAY, August 5th, 7:00pm-10:00pm

BADLANDS

White Box inaugurates White Box Projects (WBXProjects) with BADLANDS, an exhibition integral to the Theater of More (ToM), featuring lower east side artists Ray Kelly, founder emeritus of the Rivington School, and Erik Foss, manager of Lit Lounge & artistic director of Fuse Gallery.

The deconstruction of architecture and language finds its place as an important theme within Ray Kelly's work. Kelly manipulates rebar, a steel bar used to reinforce concrete and masonry structures, into different words that can be installed interchangeably. Cleverly, the end result, however random or purposeful these words are placed, is in essence a different concrete poem every installation.

Erik Foss has been called "An intrepid scavenger of visual artifacts," and he indeed stays true to this description. Using found objects and imagery in correlation with aesthetic decay, Foss presents opposing themes and raw visuals in order to express the nostalgia and "spectacle of patriotic glory" behind the memory and values of a steadily declining civilization. The

BADLANDS aims to compare two different generations of lower east side artists, both coming from different backgrounds, in their representations of and reactions to contemporary culture through its analysis and examination.

PRESS RELEASE 3/'09

(AP) Artist, Ray Kelly, best known as the founding father of the RIVINGTON SCHOOL on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is up to his old tricks again. Ray, best known for his welded Sculptures, is trying his hand at this new Venue: POETRY.

Many Artists in the 80's incorporated Words in their Paintings; Well known among them are SAMOS (John Michael Bisquate), E.F Higgins, Bill DeKooning, Jasper Johns & a slew of others.

"CONCRETE POETRY" flurished among Mail Artists during that time. The Romans Invented Concrete, & most of the Sky-Scrapers you see today, whether in NYC or Chicago use this time- tested material, but with a Wonderful Structural thing called "RE-BAR". Rebar, in case you didn't know is the ribbed Iron Long thing that they put in the Concrete to make it stronger, for such as TALL BUILDINGS. You can see some of this on Ludlow St. of a Project on it's way to getting done. OK?, now that you understand this, Ray is Bending RE-BAR (of the 1/2 inch Varity) to make words, & they sure look nice, at about 4 feet long, & will fit on the Wall above your couch.

The Opening, at the WHITE BOX Gallery on Broome St. was a smashing success. His young Girlfriend seemed Joyous, in her lovely Green Dress, as Ivan Karp consulted with what looked to be the ghost of Leo Castelli.

Tho maybe not appropriate for young children, or some MacMansions out on Long Island, it is a Wonderful Show, & I strongly reccommend it.

Ludlow Slim

All photos by Anja Koest except photo above by Kevin Bourgeois