Are you always burning the midnight oil and keeping your nose to the grindstone to make ends meet? Before you put another nail in the coffin and take one for the team, know that the end doesn’t justify the means. This August 6th, 2014 Con Artist will celebrate 4 creatives who are démodé and seriously cliché.“Thinking Inside the Box” (#thinkinginsidethebox) is a new group show curated by Con Artist member Josef Pinlac.
The exhibition will showcase handcrafted works and handmade tchotchkes (a small object that is decorative rather than strictly functional; a trinket) for visitors to pick up and explore. Handmade by artists who aren’t afraid to be a little tacky and who enjoy a good old fashioned pun, many of the artworks are, in fact, inside of boxes. Pinlac invites the viewer to explore the necessary craftworks of various artists ranging from other members of the Con Artist Collective to a little surprise from Ai Wei Wei. Adding to the interactivity inspired by the handcrafted box works of Jasper Fields, together these artists summon gallery goers to experience a ‘pandora’ box effect which can only be experienced inside the gallery itself.
To tie in with these boxed works, Bushwick-based artists Katie Killary and Jessica Prusa will exhibit photographs inspired by their neighborhood, one with a hint of nostalgia, the other with some sensual drama.
Katie Killary’s “The Box Series” is a new collection of photographs that find a picture within a picture. The picture is being boxed in by its original setting in a positive attempt at capturing the nostalgia she has for different settings around her neighborhood. You will see the intent behind, “The Box Series — Vandervoort Place”.
Jessica Prusa’s “21st Century Box” series showcases a female nude in a dramatic rooftop setting with parts of her body covered only by an old Heineken box—is she free or enclosed?
Every cloud has a silver lining with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and plenty of fish in the sea. Leave your mark! A picture is worth a thousand words in a Kodak moment in a New York minute. You can’t stop it, you can only hope to contain it.
Con Artist is an art collective with a gallery and shared workspace, started in early 2010. All items available for sale are either made or curated by members of the collective. 70% of the sale price goes directly to the artist.
Con Artist Gallery is located at 119 Ludlow street between Rivington and Delancey.
For more information or to learn how to become a member of the collective go: HERE
