PHOTO:Summertime Salon
When one thinks of summertime, different smells, sights, sounds and memories manifest. Each year, Rice curates a “Summertime Salon” that captures this multiplicity, displaying a diversity of styles, themes, nuances, and artist techniques. For 2017, Rice has brought together the works of 51 artists mosaicking the walls of the gallery walls from floor to ceiling, their various sizes, color schemes and subject matter expertly laid out to fit together like the pieces of an puzzle.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Robin Rice Gallery Archive
For the 2017 “Summertime Salon” at Robin Rice Gallery in New York, the works of 51 gallery artists, all of whom have an individually distinctive style, come together to form a cohesive end product. Robert Rice has a close relationship with the works of her photographers, and strategically curates and layouts out the show in a way that enhances each individual work. The two, long walls of the gallery are mosaicked, top to bottom, and from side to side, and photographs, are stacked to cover the gallery walls. Details from one image compliment the one that follows, until the works become one unit. This year’s invitational image, “Gralfex” (2012) by Luciana Pampalone, features a woman dressed in all white, shielding herself from the blinding sun with a sunhat, secured to her head with a polka-dot harness, while preparing a vintage Graflex camera to take a picture. The image is generationally amorphous, it could be capturing a moment from just yesterday or we could be peeking at an era from the past. The relationship between the viewer and the subject is incredibly intimate, as if she is preparing to capture a moment beyond our boundaries of vision, but one that we are immersed in. Kristen Hatgi Sink is an visual artist, photographer working in digital, film photography, and sculpture as well as in collaboration with her husband Mark Sink utilizing the 19th Century collodion wetplate process. Mindaugas Gabrėnas is experimenting with photo rolls, various methods and trying to extract natural effects that are caused by processes of nature (for example, molds). He often shoots with his own self-made hybrid medium format camera. Farah Marie Velten is a New York City based artist who practices photography focusing on analogue and alternative printmaking processes, including but not limited to cyanotype, van dyke brown, platinum palladium, chemigram, photogram, silver, color, encaustic, tintype, pinhole, and marbling. Participating Artists: Ted Adams, Thomas Alleman, Nenad Amodaj, Dorothee Brand, Todd Burris, Roger Camp, Lynda Churilla, Lance W. Clayton, Paul Dagys, Richie Fahey, Stewart Ferebee, Mindaugas Gabrenas, Barbara Gentile, Isabella Ginanneschi, Gladys, Victoria Goldman, Sarah Hadley, Ron Hamad, Kristen Hatgi, Patricia, Heal, Benjamin Heller, Melissa Incampo, H. Nazan Isik, Pete Kelly, Haik Kocharian, Tanya Arianne Malott, Everett McCourt, Patricia McDonough, Micheal McLaughlin, RJ Muna, Rosanne Olson, Luciana Pampalone, Brian Pearson, Bill Phelps, Jose Picayo, Lauren Pisano, Dalton Portella, Amy Postle, Leonardo Pucci, Kim Reierson, Robin Rice, Kevin Ryan, David Saxe, Gesi Schilling, Keith Sharp, Mark Sink, Gordon Stettinius, Robert Stivers, Kathryn Szoka, Ron Tarver, Silvia Lareo-Vazquez, Farah Marie Velten and Tina West.
Info: Robin Rice Gallery, 325 West 11th Street (btwn Washington and Greenwich Streets), New York, Duration: 19/7-10/9/17, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 12:00-19:00, http://robinricegallery.com
