ASHES/ASHES is pleased to present L’IM_MAGE_N, a group exhibition curated by Timothy Hull, featuring Graham Anderson, Gina Beavers, Mathew Cerletty, Gregory Edwards, Anya Kielar, and Chason Matthams. The exhibition will be on view June 28 – August 4, 2019, with an opening reception Friday, June 28th, from 6–8 PM.
The title of the exhibition is a play on the word image, folding it into different linguistic aspects yet allowing for the stability of decipherment. This wordplay opens the curtain into the shifting world of language and its limits while acknowledging the ability to maintain meaning through transformation. One could look at this through the rhetoric of the pop image, denoting a distillation or simplification into something symbolically new.
According to Wittgenstein, the world consists entirely of facts and human beings are cognizant of these facts by virtue of our mental representations of thoughts, which are most fruitfully understood as picturing the way things are. As the facts of an image are translated through the artist’s hands, a vestigial aspect of meaning remains.
An idea, transubstantiated and given meaning through the agency of the artist into a visual, formal reality is something of a kind of alchemy. The elusive prima materia with which the alchemist works assumes form in the image and, with a wave of the sorcerer’s wand, a transformation of spirit into matter is enacted. This is about a magical process, ineffable yet able to be seen. While elements become re-arranged, the image can still be read and understood—if not intellectually, then psychically. So, although image is passed through a sieve, its meaning contains vestiges of its origin.
But what of the object? Again, as interpretation and mutation occur, there is an alchemy to the transference of the pop image. As shape, form, and content rip through the fabric of the second dimension and transpose themselves through the glass darkly via the artist’s hands, a new, radical icon emerges. The sacredness of the object is retained and perhaps the MAGE, the image maker, the wizard, reveals a mystic truth.
_Timothy Hull
Graham Anderson (born 1981; Cliffside Park, NJ) lives and works in Queens, NY. He holds a BFA from The Cooper Union, New York, NY. Recent exhibitions include: Perverse Furniture, curated by Sarah Fritchey and Aude Jomini, Artspace, New Haven, CT; What Makes the Hunter Laugh?, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY; Graham Anderson, Downstairs Projects, Brooklyn, NY.
Gina Beavers (born 1974; Athens, GR) lives and works in New York, NY. She holds a BA from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA; an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; and an MS from Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY. Recent exhibitions include: The Life I Deserve, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY; Humble but hungry, GNYP Gallery, Berlin, DE; Van Goddess and the Masturbakers, Michael Benevento Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
Mathew Cerletty (born 1980; Milwaukee, WI) lives and works in New York, NY. He holds a BFA from Boston University, Boston, MA. Recent exhibitions include: Whiskers, STANDARD (OSLO), Oslo, NO; Pine Barrens, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, NY; Shelf Life, Karma, New York, NY.
Gregory Edwards (born 1981; Rocky Point, NY) lives and works in Queens, NY. He attended the Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt, DE; and holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. Recent exhibitions include: .com/.cn, co-presented by KAF and MoMA PS1, chi K11 art museum, Shanghai, CN; bathers, 47 Canal, New York, NY; Greater New York, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY.
Anya Kielar (born 1978; New York, NY) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She holds an MFA from Columbia University, New York, NY, and a BFA from The Cooper Union, New York, NY. Recent exhibitions include: Cursives, Marinaro Gallery, New York, NY; NADA House Governors Island, New York, NY; Ten Years, Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY.
Chason Matthams (born 1981; Pacific Grove, CA) lives and works in New York, NY. He holds an MFA from New York University, New York, NY, and a BFA from New York University, New York, NY. Recent exhibitions include: In the Summertime, Danese/Corey, New York, NY; A Hell for Rainbows, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York, NY; A Spectrum in Retrospect, Tyler Wood Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
Timothy Hull (born 1979; New York, NY) lives and works in Warwick, NY. He holds an MFA from Parsons School of Design, New York, NY and a BA from New York University, New York, NY. Recent exhibitions include: Locus, Logos, Legominism, Kristen Lorello Gallery, New York, NY; For Ammonis, Who Died at 29, in 610, ASHES/ASHES, Los Angeles, CA; Painting in the Imperfect Tense, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY.