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Jason Oddy "Dying Is Not Good For You" Jin Meyerson Through The Game in the Project Room July 10- August 9, 2002 Opening reception: Wednesday, July 10, 6-8pm |
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Frederieke Taylor gallery is pleased to present "Dying Is Not Good For You", an exhibition of new work by English artist Jason Oddy.
Jason Oddy's work is an investigation of architectural space. In this, his second New York solo show, Oddy revisits the theme of death in a series of large-scale colour photographs of the American cryonics industry. His survey of the facilities where deep-frozen 'patients' indefinitely await their moment of resurrection reveals a world of gleaming white interiors and idiosyncratic devices that is part expression of sci-fi fantasy and part manifestation of the irrepressible human dream of immortality. Like his previous portrayals of places such as Soviet sanatoria, the UN headquarters and homes of the recently deceased, these silent, monumental images eschew any direct representation of humanity. Instead their fragmentary depiction of empty interiors alludes to the histories, undeclared agendas and unconscious ideas that lie embedded in the design and structure of such spaces.  If followers of cryonics consider this speculative science to be a way of countering death, then these pictures suggest that the environments they have created are ritualised spaces whose underlying purpose is to deflect not so much death itself, but rather the cryonicists' very manifest fear of mortality. |
 In these images we also see the improvised and somewhat implausible nature of much of the paraphernalia of cryonics. And Oddy's clinical rendering of these elements invites us to consider the myriad contradictions that arise when such a primitively idealistic concept as this is put into practice. Jason Oddy is a London based photographer and critic. He is a regular contributor to Modern Painters and The Independent newspaper. His work has been exhibited widely including shows at The Photographers' Gallery, London, the Architectural Association, London, Paris Photo, Paris, Kanal 20, Brussels, Gallery 24, New York as well as in Gone Missing, a group exhibition curated by Severn Taylor at Frederieke Taylor Gallery, NY. His work is included in many significant collections including those of Deutsche Bank, Channel Four, Citibank and the Wellcome Foundation. On view in the project room of the gallery are paintings by emerging Brooklyn-based artist The series of recent paintings Through the Game express the artist's interest in exploring the gap between the experience of watching a sporting event unfold on television, its actual unfolding live in a parallel space, and the memory of the action, sights and sounds. His works' undulant rhythmic forms verge on the psychedelic patterns of Op-Art while maintaining their relationship to realism and the dynamism of abstract expressionism. |
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Please note summer hours starting July 1 through August 9, Mondays to Fridays 11- 6. |
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