Open­ing next week at Show & Tell Gallery, Toronto’s pre­mier con­tem­po­rary art space, “Atrophic Exis­tence” is a group show bring­ing together North Amer­i­can artists who’s work tack­les issues of urban decay. As Show & Tell explains it, “In an attempt to explore this theme, all artists of Atrophic Exis­tence delve into con­cepts and imagery that invite us to ques­tion and con­tem­plate human (dis)connection with nature.” In 2008 the world’s pop­u­la­tion hit a mile­stone. For the first time in recorded his­tory more peo­ple are liv­ing in cities than in rural areas. Cities, and our inter­ac­tion with them, have become an inte­gral part of the cre­ation of geo­graphic and per­sonal iden­tity in the 21^st cen­tury. With their con­stant growth and restruc­tur­ing –and the fre­netic, vora­cious energy required to facil­i­tate such rapid change– waste is the city’s nat­ural byprod­uct. In the quest for relent­less new­ness city dwellers inevitably con­tribute to the detri­tus of con­sump­tion that has become such an ubiq­ui­tous part of the urban landscape.

Show & Tell –which has been churn­ing out the hits this year with shows from big tal­ents like Know Hope, Dan Berg­eron, Anthony Lis­ter and Tes­sar Lo– has brought together a great line up of artists for this show, per­fectly suited to nav­i­gate the theme. Kevin Cyr, is a Brooklyn-​based-​Canadian-​born painter who’s work focuses on aban­doned, graf­fi­tied vehi­cles. Kevin uses the car as a sym­bol of con­tem­po­rary cul­ture, and his depic­tion of these icons in var­i­ous states of dis­use is a provoca­tive com­men­tary on dis­pos­able cul­ture. Joshua Barndt, a Toronto based instal­la­tion artist and painter, focuses on con­sumer cul­ture as well. For “Atrophic Exis­tence” Barndt is mov­ing all of his per­sonal pos­ses­sions into the gallery to for a moun­tain of objects enti­tled “The World Is A Moun­tain and Every­thing Gets Buried.” By uti­liz­ing his own pos­ses­sions Barndt makes a com­pelling state­ment with­out extri­cat­ing him­self from the impli­ca­tions. LA’s Jeff Gillette will be exhibit­ing some of his “Slum­scapes,” influ­enced by his trav­els and expo­sure to the apoc­a­lyp­tic liv­ing con­di­tions of the unde­vel­oped world.

Mike Shankman is a San Fran­cisco based painter who’s work seeks to remind us of our impact on the nat­ural world. Of his recent work Mike says that as view­ers we are “pas­sively observ­ing the after­math of some cat­a­clysm, its evi­dence scat­tered, its causal­ity no longer impor­tant.” Philadel­phia based Alex Lukas’s draw­ings and paint­ings are like lovely film stills from dis­as­ter movies devoid of human fig­ures. His bright, haunt­ing cityscapes speak to dis­as­ter, but also to the hope of renewal. Though all of these artists pro­duce work that is per­fumed with calamity, the cre­ation of the work itself is an act of renewal and change. To this end 10% of all sales from the show ill be donated to Ever­green, a non-​profit ded­i­cated to mak­ing cities more liv­able “by deep­en­ing the con­nec­tion between peo­ple and nature.” Open­ing recep­tion will be held Sat­ur­day Decem­ber 11^th, from 7-​11pm.

Atrophic Exis­tence
Kevin Cyr, Joshua Barndt, Jeff Gillette, Mike Shankman, Alex Lukas
Decem­ber 11^th 2010 — Jan­u­ary 10^th 2011

Show & Tell Gallery
1161 Dun­das St. West
Toronto, ON
M6J 1X3
Canada
www​.showandtell​gallery​.com

To learn more about Ever­green visit: www​.ever​green​.ca

To read more about Kevin Cyr’s work you can read my inter­view with him here.

Images cour­tesy of Show & Tell and MV Decou­vertes.

Tags: Alex Lukas, Jeff Gillette, Joshua Barndt, Kevin Cyr, Mike Shankman, Show & Tell Gallery, Toronto

« UR NEWYORK x Art Basel Miami

Brett Amory Takeover »

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Art, Event, installation, Painting.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.