NEW YORK: Wardell Milan

Wardell Milan, Sunday. Sitting on the bank of Butterfly Meadow, 2013, digital c-print, 40 x 60 inches. Image via louisbjames.com. 

Show (Untitled) Parisian Landscapes

Curated by Isolde Brielmaier

March 6 – April 11, 2014

Special Reception: Thursday, March 13, 2014, 6:00-8:00PM

Exhibit is open to the public Tuesday - Friday 11:00AM - 5:00PM and by appointment

OSMOS Address

50 East 1^st Street

New York, NY

Show (Untitled) Parisian Landscapes, presents a series of four separate but related bodies or "chapters" of work by artist Wardell Milan. Using OSMOS Address as a space to "workshop" ideas still in development, Milan's project consists of large-scale sculptures, photographs, and drawings. The exhibition is curated by Isolde Brielmaier.

Parisian Landscapes is the first chapter in a series entitled The Kingdom or Exile dealing with topics such as the unconscious, voyeurism, love, the supremacy of nature, and melancholy. Milan has structured his visual narrative engagement around themes related to absurdism, the writings of Albert Camus, Eugene Ionesco, and Baudelaire as well as body modification, sexual aberrations, and social manias.

"The goal for this show is to exhibit both resolved and unresolved work. We want to abandon the idea that an exhibition should show fully realized ideas and images, so that Show (Untitled) Parisian Landscapes, will really function more as an exploratory exercise," explains Brielmaier. Within this exhibition at OSMOS, the essaying of themes and images of Parisian Landscapes will happen not in the safe space of a studio, publicly to allow the audience to witness the creative developmental process, also perhaps encouraging them to interact with the work in a direct and tangible way.

"Giving the viewer access and control over how a specified part of the show could be staged, interpreted and viewed is critical," says Milan. "For me the practice of cultivating ideas and projects happens primarily in solitude in a studio space, with the exchanging of ideas and conversations about the work happening during studio visits and in interactions with people."

ABOUT OSMOS

OSMOS is a fully integrated international program of curatorial and editorial activities, with OSMOS Books, OSMOS Magazine, OSMOS Preserves and OSMOS Address, a project space for art gatherings, publications, and exhibitions in the same East Village Manhattan storefront that was once a saloon frequented by Emma Goldman and other radicals.

For more information, please contact: 

Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, osmos.address@gmail.com 

NEW YORK: Titus Kaphar, Wardell Milan, and Demetrius Oliver

Demetrius Oliver, Sphera, 2012, C-print, 25 x 21 inches. Image via demetriusoliver.blogspot.com.

11 Dimensions

June 7 – July 26, 2013

LOUIS B. JAMES

143B Orchard Street

New York, NY

Louis B. James presents 11 Dimensions, a collaborative exhibition featuring works by Titus Kaphar, Wardell Milan, and Demetrius Oliver. The installation will mark the third time that the artists have juxtaposed their work beginning with their 2006 residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

In this age where quantum physics plays an increasingly prominent role and theoretical mathematicians posit seemingly incomprehensible proofs of alternate dimensions, the three artists use the simple tools of their respective trades to create images and objects that feel paradoxically justified by the logic of some unknown dimension. The eleven recent works by Kaphar, Milan, and Oliver seek to explore the complexity and pliability of time in ways that upend our understanding of history and speak to the implausible through the poetic use of diverse materials.

In Kaphar's work, historical paintings are overturned through the lexicon of modern painting gestures. Through cutting, crushing and stitching, Kaphar's work reconstructs narratives of the past in order to present alternate endings to familiar and unfamiliar historical events.

Time seems to collapse in Milan’s photo based collages, creating visually and thematically dense images that expose the fluidity between moments. Representations of the body are fragmented, displaced, and ornamented in ways that enact the drama of human frailty and mutability.

In Oliver’s prints and sculptures, the terrestrial becomes cosmic, forcing us to reckon with the inability to depict the infinite through finite means. Relying on the prosaic and quotidian, materials are transformed in unexpected ways to describe distant

phenomena.

Using photography, painting and sculpture, all three artists collectively imagine a complex world where time and space are malleable.

During their year-long residency at the Studio Museum, the artists developed a strong friendship as a result of an unexpected synergy between their artistic pursuits. After their residency, they relocated to a shared studio in Chelsea, where they continued their exchange, resulting in a 2007 exhibition entitled Blur at Arndt & Partner, Berlin. While they currently maintain separate studios in the New York metropolitan area, Kaphar, Milan, and Oliver continue to be creatively influenced, inspired and challenged by each other.

Exhibit Link