TORINO: Nate Young

Installation view of Nate Young: Stations at Luce Gallery, Torino, Italy. Image via lucegallery.com.

Stations

April 1 - May 16, 2016

LUCE GALLERY TORINO

Corso San Maurizio, 25  

Torino, Italy

From lucegallery.com:

In Stations Young continues his investigation into a series of diagrammatic marks originally abstracted from two sources; his father’s theological notations and explanations of the sign in Ferdinand de Sasussure’s semiotic theory. The potential that the forms could have meaning rests in the aesthetic of the diagram as an authoritative mark.  Operating as frame-works for latent ideas, the works invite the viewer to project meaning onto them but rather than provide the significance the work leaves to viewer to question why it is that implication may have been possible in the first place.  In this way the works operate as empty containers or possibilities as opposed to articulations filled with dogma or truth.

In this installation Young uses the 14 stations of the cross as a starting point to push the work further toward its religious reference while at the same time disrupting the ability to land on a particular doctrine. The stations serve not as an animation of the original story line, the trail and death of Christ, but as a method to move the audience through space.  Although no actual narrative occurs, the serial nature and linear structure produces an implication of logic suggesting an ideology that remains hidden.

Nate Young, born in 1981, lives and works in Minneapolis, MN. Selected solo shows: The Unseen Evidence of Things Substantiated, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA; But not yet: in the spirit of linguistics, Monique Meloche, Chicago, IL; Rehearsals, Bethel University, Arden Hills, MN; Tony Lewis and Nate Young, Room East, New York, NY; Joy, The Suburban, Oak Park, IL.  Selected group shows: Retreat (curated by Theaster Gates), Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL; Jerome Fellowship Exhibition, Minneapolis. College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN; Fore, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Go Tell it on the Mountain, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Body Word and Image, Drake University, Des Moines, IA; Clifford Owens: Anthology (as participant), PS1 MOMA, New York, NY.

Exhibit Link

CHICAGO: RETREAT

Organized by Theaster Gates

August 22 – October 4, 2014

Opening reception: Friday, August 22, 2014, 5-7pm

VALERIE CARBERRY GALLERY

RICHARD GRAY GALLERY

875 North Michigan Avenue, 38th Floor

Chicago, IL

From press release:

Valerie Carberry Gallery and Richard Gray Gallery in collaboration with Black Artists Retreat, are pleased to announce RETREAT, an exhibition conceived and organized by Theaster Gates.

Artists were invited by Gates to consider how the concept of retreat, either in theory or practice, contributes to a position of strength and perspective in themaking of visual art. Works selected for exhibition communicate both active interpretations of retreat characterized by pressure or force and pssive expressions of retreat that invoke contemplation or meditation. Participating artists – Derrick Adams, Erika Allen, Elizabeth Axtman, Bethany Collins, Tony Lewis , Kelly Lloyd, Valerie Piraino, Mitchell Squire, Wilmer Wilson IV and Nate Young – represent the full range of contemporary art practice in all media, including painting, drawing, photography, installation, body art and video.

A fully illustrated publication with essay contributions by Hamza Walker (Associate Curator and Director of Education at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago) and Romi Crawford (Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago) will debut at EXPO Chicago, being held September 18 -21, 2014.

Exhibit Link (Valerie Carberry Gallery)

Exhibit Link (Richard Gray Gallery)

NEW YORK: Tony Lewis and Nate Young

Image via roomeast.com.

March 16 – April 13, 2014

Opening reception: Sunday, March 16, 2014, 6 – 8PM

ROOM EAST

41 Orchard Street

New York, NY

From roomeast.com:

This two-person exhibition of work by Tony Lewis and Nate Young mines the language of installation-based drawing.

1. Three people leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.

2. Have rational judgments.

3. Watch irrational judgments at least once a year.

4. Remember formal art is essentially other people’s birthdays.

5. Over tip irrational thoughts.

6. If the artist changes his handshake he compromises the result and repeats past results.

7. The artist’s will is secondary to the process of looking people in the eye.

8. Say “painting and sculpture” a lot.

9. Say “The concept and idea are different. The former implies a general direction while the latter is the component. Ideas implement the concept” a lot.

10. Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually learn to play a musical instrument.

11. Ideas do not necessarily proceed in logical order. They may set one off in unexpected directions, but an idea must necessarily sing in the shower before the next one is formed.

12. Use the good silver for each work of art that becomes physical.

13. Learn to make great chili. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist’s mind.

14. Plant the words of one artist to another every spring, if they share the same concept.

15. Own a great stereo system, since no form is intrinsically superior to another.

16. If words are used, be the first to say, “numbers are not mathematics.”

17. Live beneath your means if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art.

18. One usually understands the art of the past by applying the convention of the present, thus own the best house you can afford.

19. The conventions of art are altered by great books, even if you never read them.

20. Be forgiving to yourself and others. Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions.

21. Perception of ideas leads to clean jokes.

22. The artist cannot imagine his shoes, and cannot perceive them until they are polished.

23. Mis-perceive (understand it differently from the artist) a work of art, but still floss your teeth.

24. Drink champagne for no reason at all. Perception is subjective.

25.  Ask for a raise when you feel you’ve earned it. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others.

26. In a fight, an artist may perceive the art of others better than his own and hit hard.

27. The concept of a work of art may involve all things you borrow.

28. Teach side effects the artist cannot imagine. These may be used as ideas for some kind of class.

29. The process is in some kind of class and should not be tampered with. It should be a mechanical student and run its course.

30. There are many elements involved in a fireplace. The most important and most obvious is never buy a house without a work of art.

31. If an artist uses the same form in a group of works, and changes the material, one would assume the artist’s concept involved buying whatever kids are selling on card tables in their front yards.

32. Banal ideas cannot be rescued by a convertible.

33. It is difficult to treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.

34. When an artist learns his craft too well, he learns to identify the music of Chopin, Mozart, and Beethoven as slick art.

35. These sentences comment on art, but are not planting a tree on your birthday.

Exhibit Link