FINALLY! Mark your calendars! A date has been set!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, thank you, 303 Gallery. I've been ridiculously anxious for what seems like a lifetime of waiting for Ms. Inka Essenhigh's return to the NY stage. Unfortunately, it's taken FOUR YEARS +++ to get her back with a solo show, but I'll forgive you this once. As they say, good things come to those who wait. I'm not going to post any images because she's a represented artist of 303, which has a well-noted Nazi copyright policy, but I can send you to this here link.

Below are the show details!

Inka Essenhigh
January 23 - February 20, 2010
547 W 21 Street
 
Inka Essenhigh has had one person exhibitions at Salamanca Cuidad de Cultura Fundación Municipal, in Salamanca, Spain, 2005, at Sint- Luks Galerie, Brussels, Belgium 2004, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL and the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland both in 2003. Essenhigh has been included in exhibitions internationally including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, ZKM / Museum Für Neue kunst, Karlsruhe, Germany, the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington Gardens, London, The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, Kunstmuseum Wolfsberg. This will be Essenhigh's third exhibition at 303 Gallery.
 

Armory 2008-- the Anti-Whitney Biennial

As much as the Whitney Biennial has been promoted as being devoid of all reference to narrative painting and certainly color, the Armory Show was anything but. Pigments from across the color spectrum devoured the viewer at every turn. Take Assume Vivid Astro Focus at Deitch Projects. This wall must have registered at 180 decibels. Sure, it gave me a splitting headache, (even without audio) but at the same time, holy hell, THANK GOD FOR HIM. No, really. Bless his little soul for a little bit of, "Wow! Lookie there! Pretty!" thrown my way. As of late, I've been feeling that various dealers and curators have been conspiring to lock my loins into a chastity belt and throw away the key, denying my fix for pleasure of any sort. Sure, the economy is in the shitter, and we're in a 100 year war with no end, but, "Hell no," A.V.A.F. screams! "Time to party!" But this isn't really a celebratory reference of the hippie era. This is more like the end of days party. Might as well go out with a bang.


A.V.A.F.'s piece takes elements of design and digital pscyhedelia and spits it back in the viewer's face with contemptuous laughter. We either shall continue to dwell on the darkness and despair, or try to liven it up every so often for sanity's sake. The viewer is sucked into this world of madness, spinning out of control. It will use you up and leave you a shell of your former self. This was visual candy at its finest, on the strongest of illegal substances.

Next up, the majestic return of one, Ms. Inka Essenhigh. It's been a while since I've seen her work-- 2002 to be precise. My last forray to 303 Gallery was to see her eponymous exhibit. That was supposedly the "return of painting." How so much has changed in the past few years, I'd like for someone to explain to me. The only paint I'm seeing as of late is on PVC pipe. Essenhigh's loops and continued exploration into the surreal really intrigued me. I loved seeing the sensuous anemonae-like tree forms swaying in and out in their underwater jungle. At any moment, I fully expected Nemo's father to arrive with his search party.



In yet another example of color saturation, Glenn Rubsamen had a wall devoted to his cell phone towers that appear to be on first glance palm trees. Again, it's Southern California at its most decadent candy coated shallowness. The gradient skies seem to float amongst the bird nests attached to these manmade structures that are so foreign to the natural make up of the land. These are great references to Pop art at its finest. Seeing how corporate America continues to market to us an ever greater need for 24-7 communication, we are forced to disguise these very technologies in our communities. Sticking out like a sore thumb amidst an arrid landscape, the works are interesting in how they capture the nature of communication now. Regretably, it all comes down to 0's and 1's, but a sunset, dusk, or sunrise will always capture a moment that cannot be quanitified in a digital readout.