
Lévy Gorvy Dayan is excited to announce the opening of Joel Mesler: Kitchens are good rooms to cry in on June 6, 2024. This major presentation marks the artist’s fourth exhibition with the gallery and the first in New York, and will comprise new paintings, sculptures, and installation across two floors of the Beaux-Arts townhouse at 19 East 64th Street. With Kitchens are good rooms to cry in, Mesler examines and shares his personal journey from his youth in Los Angeles to the present day—achieved through an installation in three vignettes, each relating to childhood, adulthood, and midlife. Through a dazzling display of work across media, Mesler expounds on the insights of his earned experience, as well as the questions yet to be answered, in a presentation that is at once intimate and exuberant, reflective and bold.
On July 2, 2024, Mesler’s solo exhibition at the gallery will be joined by his public installation, Pool Party, at the Rink at Rockefeller Center, presented by Rockefeller Center and Art Production Fund. Pool Party will activate multiple locations throughout Rockefeller Center, centring at the Rink with the creation of a patterned pool as well as the artist’s sculptural floats, inflatables, and beach balls.
Deploying words and images, Joel Mesler draws from childhood memories and life experiences to create paintings that meld his private impressions with cultural touchstones, illuminating elements of universal human consciousness. Often evoking the artist’s youth in 1980s Los Angeles, Mesler’s signature style encompasses bold colours, stylised patterns, bright figuration, and the artist’s unique calligraphic scripts—bearing artfully rendered phrases such as YOU DESERVE GREAT THINGS, PLAY THE HITS, HOPES & DREAMS. Calling to mind diverse influences from the imagined jungles of Henri Rousseau to forms found in 20th-century decorative arts, Mesler’s canvases offer a wry, vulnerable examination of where personal and popular iconography convene.
Helmed by Dominique Lévy, Brett Gorvy, and Amalia Dayan, Lévy Gorvy Dayan collaborates with artists, estates, non-profit organizations, foundations, museums, and private collections to increase the visibility of twentieth- and twenty-first century works and artists—realizing seminal projects and furthering legacies. In forming Lévy Gorvy Dayan, the partners merge their respective specialties across twentieth- and twenty-first century art, their reputations as leaders and tastemakers, and their respective backgrounds in the primary and secondary markets. Lévy Gorvy Dayan provides opportunities for education, exposure, and access to acquiring exceptional art through its museum-quality exhibition program and thoughtful participation in international art fairs. Expanding, refining, and enhancing world-class modern and contemporary art collections, the gallery emphasizes connoisseurship and curation in its collection development, estate planning, and art appraisal services. Both international and local in practice and perspective, Lévy Gorvy Dayan has unique spaces and unmatched market knowledge in New York, London, and Hong Kong, in addition to representation in Geneva, Milan, Paris, Shanghai, Singapore, and Taiwan.

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