JULIE LANGSAM, Of Other Spaces 2 December 2008 - 10 January 2009 Reception: Thursday, December 11, 6-8pm Frederieke Taylor Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by Julie Langsam, entitled Of Other Spaces. Julie Langsam's paintings address issues of style, beauty and idealization by combining images that reference the Romantic sublime of the 19th century with 20th century's Utopian ideals of high modernism. Featuring modernist buildings isolated within the landscape of vast skies, the newest paintings are now grounded by abstract minimalism. Julie Langsam's juxtaposition of iconographic structures such as Le Corbusier's Chapel at Ronchamp, Richard Meier's Atheneum and Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal, with backgrounds of broad, big sky landscapes associated with Hudson River School painters, alludes to the relationship of the sensuous body with the rational mind. Langsam adds another layer of Utopian idealism by adding abstract elements to the base of the painting which refer to Ad Reinhardt's paintings from the 1950's "Blue" and "Red" series. "Her iconographic opposition of modernist artifice and romantic nature also serves as a prelude to the conflicted condition of a postmodernism that strives to construct a subjectivity that can accept that the desire for an objective reality can never be realized but still must be sought." Saul Ostrow, Bomb magazine, Spring 2003. Julie Langsam's work has been exhibited at various locations throughout the Unites States, including The Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art/MOCA Cleveland, The Drawing Center NY, and Smack Mellon, NY. Her works have been reviewed in publications including The New York Times, Bomb Magazine, Dwell, and The Plain Dealer. She is the current Endowed Chair & Head of Painting at The Cleveland Institute of Art. The Project Room will feature new sculpture by Don Porcaro. Porcaro creates whimsical and humorous sculptures using concrete, metal and paint. These abstracted forms become characters which take on lives of their own. The sculptures, each one with its own distinct personality, refuse to be wholly defined and allow us to experience them as enigmas with undiscovered possibilities. Porcaro has shown in galleries and participated in group shows and public installations nationwide. During the Whitney Biennial of 2006 he participated in the Whitney Museum's "Peace Tower". He is the recipient of several awards including grants from the NYFA Grant (2002) and Development grants and Teaching Excellence Awards from Parsons in 1994 and 1991. In the Viewing Room, The Figure in the Carpet, curated by Colleen Asper, features work by Sophia Dixon, Benjamin Kress, and Ted Mineo. The show's title is borrowed from a Henry James short story that follows a critic obsessed with uncovering the true meaning of a novelist's work after the tease of hearing from the author's own mouth that none have yet discovered his secret subject. The critic's pursuit comes to rule his life and doubly ensnare the lives of those around him, but like many of James's tales, revelation never comes. This parable of problematic interpretation serves as a metaphor for the artists in the show, whose seductive and enigmatic works invite decoding only to elude fixed meaning. For further information and visuals, please contact the gallery. Home | Exhibitions | Artists | Contacts