Fresh Out Of Storage
Arte Institute suggests “Fresh Out Of Storage” a group show.
Manhattan Mini Storage
645 W 44th Street and the West Side Highway
October 13 – October 22
Reception: Thursday, October 13, 5.30 pm
After visiting over ten Manhattan Mini Storage facilities, interviewing 19 artists at their storage units and reviewing their stored artwork, ten artists have been selected for Fresh Out of Storage:
Barbara Burger
Mike Jacobs
Calvin Lom
Rita Barros
Elaine Defibaugh
Ralph Toporoff
Eliot LeBow
Steve Danielson
Gabriel J. Shuldiner
Susan Natale
Included in this group are: two self-taught artists; an old-school photographer with thousands of negatives documenting a changing New York; a large-scale mixed media painter who collapses personal and environmental concerns; an abstract painter who began his practice at six years old; a Punk-Minimalist working with materials that made and make the city; a photo-journalist and film maker reinterpreting his archives through contemporary technology; an artist coping with eviction by creating memories of place and possessions; a portraitist of emotions and a mixed media artist creating socially conscious narratives by re-purposing personal archives. What do these ten artists have in common? They are all New York based artists dealing with the chronic shortage of affordable space in the city for both living and creating their work. As Blake Malouf said during her interview, “I moved to New York in 2011, and since then, not only has my art been in storage but my artistic life has been in storage as well.” Storage therefore, becomes a way of coping but, whether it be the storage of these individual artists’ works or the storage of collections of art patrons or museums, storage, nevertheless, removes work from public view and circulation. Fresh Out of Storage, allows some of that work to be seen again.
This show is presented by No Longer Empty and Manhattan Mini Storage.