GROUP EXHIBITION

Gene Beery (b. 1937, Racine, WI) lives and works in California. Since the 1960s, Beery has created idiosyncratic text-based paintings and photographs, which maintain the traces of the artist’s hand, as well as the process of revision and correction. In direct opposition to simultaneously emerging conceptual practice, his canvases are characterised by a homespun feel, and consistently humourous irreverence. Beery’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, and The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, among others.

Over his six-decade career, Robert Colescott (b. 1925, Oakland, CA; d. 2009, Tucson, AZ) created a singular body of work, characterised by a distinctive style of figuration. Throughout his work, Colescott highlighted issues of systemic racism and the omission of Black subjects within the history of art—offering up a disturbing and often humourous critique of male chauvinism, sexual misconduct, and interracial relationships. A traveling retrospective of Colescott’s work, curated by Lowery Stokes Sims will open at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati in late 2019. Robert Colescott’s work is included in the public collections of such notable institutions as the Brooklyn Museum of Art;, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.

Roe Ethridge (b. 1969, Miami) takes equally from his work as a commercial photographer, and artist. Blurring the lines that separate the two, Ethridge creates images that are simultaneously generic and intimate, often treading between humour and cynicism. Functioning in tandem, these motivations coalesce into an ongoing investigation into the mechanics of photographs, and their ability to both retreat into the personal, and expand to relay collective experiences. In 2016, the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati mounted the first comprehensive survey of Ethridge’s work in an American Museum, titled Nearest Neighbor. Other solo exhibitions include Shelter Island, FOAM, Amsterdam (2016) and Le Consortium, Dijon (2012), traveled to Museum Leuven, Leuven (2012). Ethridge has additionally participated in numerous group exhibitions including The Poetics of Place: Contemporary Photographs from the Met Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2016), Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016), Perfect Likeness: Photography and Composition, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2015), The 2013 Lyon Biennale, Lyon, The Anxiety of Photography, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2012), New Photography 2010, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the 2008 Whitney Biennial, among others.

Douglas Huebler’s (b. 1924, Ann Arbor, MI, d. 1997, Truro, MA) series Crocodile Tears draws on a screenplay written by the artist between 1979 and 1981, which tells the story of a fictional performance artist, touching on themes such as the merging of art and entertainment, as well as art and commodity. Combining photographs, conceptual comic strips, and reproductions of other artist’s work, Huebler invites a reading across material, that freely combines fine art and popular culture. Huebler’s work has been exhibited extensively in the United States and Europe, and has recently been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2018), Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. 2017, HDK, Berlin (2016), Museum Stedelijk, Amsterdam (2015), and Centre Pompidou (2015), among others.

Frances Stark’s (b. 1967, Newport Beach) interdisciplinary practice employs drawing, video, and writing to explore the genesis of the creative act. Often incorporating found and appropriated text alongside stylised figures, Stark explores themes central to the reality of artistic production, such as writer’s block, frustration, procrastination, failure, and success. Frances Stark lives and works in Los Angeles. Stark’s work was recently the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2017, which traveled from the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles in 2015/2016. Other solo exhibitions include the Art Institute of Chicago (2015), Hayward Gallery, London (2014), Kunsthalle Zurich (2014), MoMA PS1, New York.