Ida Applebroog: Early Works, 1975-1977 at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York

Ida Applebroog: Early Works, 1975 - 1977

Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York

April 28 - June 2, 2001

Ida Applebroog will be exhibiting "Early Works: 1975-1977" at the Feldman Gallery. The current show will be her eleventh exhibition at the Feldman Gallery and will feature works from the years 1975-1977. Included will be Ida Applebroog's early black books, "Galileo Works", as well as the videotapes relating to that work. A part of the exhibition will be devoted to a wall-mounted chronology and illuminated stagings, retelling episodes from the life of Galileo and his daughter Virginia, whose letters Applebroog used as a springboard for these works. A headless, androgynous character acts structurally and functionally as both male and female. Ida Applebroog's work hovers between fact and fiction, between reality and fantasy, so that the viewer is drawn into the exploration of the boundaries of narrative through the interplay of images, words, and silences. Throughout, Ida Applebroog's humor and social commentary hit their mark: e.g., was Galileo really offered a virgin at the age of twenty, and did he perform satisfactorily?

In 1998, Ida Applebroog was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Recent exhibitions include the Whitney Museum's "The American Century" exhibition, a one-person exhibition at Galerie Nathalie Pariente in Paris, France, and as one of five painters in the "Humor and Rage" exhibition at the Fundació Caixa Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. The Corcoran Gallery of Art, in conjunction with a one-person exhibition of Ida Applebroog's work, has recently published a major catalogue of her work, "Ida Applebroog: Nothing Personal, Paintings 1987-97", with essays by Terrie Sultan, Arthur Danto, and Dorothy Allison.

RONALD FELDMAN FINE ARTS

31 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10013

www.feldmangallery.com

Cameron Hayes, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York

Cameron Hayes

Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York

February 23 – March 31, 2001

The Feldman Gallery will exhibit paintings by Cameron Hayes, a young Australian artist whose work presents bizarre, allegorical fictions. His sumptuously chaotic compositions display a multitude of hyper-realistic details that cover a vast field. The ribald subject matter -- perversions, grotesqueries, and cartoonish characters -- evokes the diverse phantasmagoric worlds of Bosch, Bruegel, and Daumier. Referencing Pop culture, he addresses historical and current issues with a visual satire that is laced with black humor and infused with a "Down Under" brashness.

Maintaining that art should excite the imagination, since "only imagination can free you from being pushed around by the nature inside you," Cameron Hayes renounces emotional painting. "People who paint about their emotional inner self paint boring paintings. They are usually thickly painted and are brown and red. They look like burnt lasagna. A good work of art is less about the ideas of the artist than the ideas it can create in the people who look at it."

Each painting is accompanied by a short text, written by the artist in a faux simplistic style. Some of the paintings included in the exhibition are:

"Blind and deaf school the day talkie films" were invented presupposes the integration of the deaf population into mainstream culture during the silent film era, and their replacement by the blind with the advent of the talkies. On that day, the two groups exchange possessions, symbolic of their changing status.

"Bonnie and Clyde during a petrol strike" celebrates "people who know they are unique but can't do anything about it," and depicts bank robbers using public transportation, the digging up of graves, and a parrot plague.

"From the air we all felt sorry for the sick and starving" contrasts feelings of empathy from afar with antipathy in proximity, an insight inspired by a plane flying over Africa and its subsequent crash.

"In 1977 Cameron Hooker picked up a hitchhiker", 19 year-old Colleen Stan tells a story of female enslavement and unspeakable acts, in order to understand the victimizer.

"Today hardly anyone could forget yesterday" refers to the Australian national character – Whites who bring testimonials from England stating that they have been charming, funny, and desirable company in the past, sparing them the energy of actually trying to be so in the present.

Cameron Hayes' work was included in the group exhibition, Sampling, at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in 1999. A recipient of numerous prizes, Cameron Hayes has exhibited in Australia, including the prestigious Moët and Chandon Touring Exhibition. He was born in Sydney in 1969 and received his Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) from the R.M.I.T., Melbourne, in 1992. He currently lives and works in Melbourne.

RONALD FELDMAN FINE ARTS

31 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10013

www.feldmangallery.com