Exhibit of Abstract Art
May 7 –
June 21, 2014
243 Bowery
New York, NY
Salon 94
Bowery presents Exhibit of Abstract Art, a new body of work from
Jayson Musson. In his second solo show with the gallery, Musson was inspired by
Modern Art set-pieces from the comic strip Nancy, created by the
popular American comic illustrator Ernie Bushmiller who worked on the strip
from the 1930ʼs- 80ʼs. Nancy was
titled for the star of the comic strip, an inventive and rambunctious 8 year
old girl whose iconic face is almost synonymous with the phrase ʻcartoon stripʼ itself.
Throughout Nancyʼs long run,
Bushmiller would intermittently poke fun at the then fresh works of modern art
as well as modern architecture. The former depicted as works comparable to the
dawdling of children, and the latter as simply nonsensical. According to Musson,
“Iʼm drawn to Ernie
Bushmillerʼs antagonistic response
to modernism and mainly his vitriolic caricature of it. Heʼs turned off by
Modernismʼs seeming uselessness,
itʼs sophistry, itʼs ʻshamʼ quality, and its ʻeasinessʼ. Buried in his response
to the ʻfadʼ of the modern lays a
particular kind of fear, the fear of someone witnessing the world change and
not having a place in the new order of cultural value. In some ways Bushmiller
spoke for a generation watching familiar systems of meaning expire. However, in
Bushmillerʼs caricature of art, he
drafted some perfect paintings. Where one would see a reductionist punchline, I
see a perfection of form in Bushmillerʼs art gags. In his pejorative depictions of
abstraction lay a symmetry, balance, and economy of form that is simply
exceptional.”
Similar to
Mussonʼs use of scraps of
sweaters to create paintings in his last body of work, employing Bushmillerʼs work explores the
notion of value in art, how it is derived, and who connotes value. The project
also skirts that age-old question of ʻwhat is artʼ when artʼs antagonisms can be absorbed into the cannon.
Musson continues, “To recreate some of these works, 40-50 years later, and set
them into the context of exhibiting them as verifiable works of art is perverse
in a way, and perhaps confirms Bushmillerʼs point of view about the whole operation of
art. In the end, and despite all the meaning that can be excavated from
deconstructing the caricature and parody, Iʼm drawn to Bushmillerʼs brilliant humor.
Myself a ‘gag man’, explorative play and humor have been
the primary motivating force behind much of my artwork.”
Jayson
Musson works in a variety of mediums: painting, photography, video and more. A
self-proclaimed “dual citizen” of Philadelphia and New York, Musson received
his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the University of Arts,
Philadelphia and his MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia. Jayson Musson lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
No comments:
Post a Comment