"Multiple Partners: Curated and Organized by Carla Gannis"
2005-09-17 until 2005-10-26
Pablo's Birthday
New York, NY, USA United States of America

Pablo's Birthday is pleased to announce Multiple Partners, a group show curated and organized by Carla Gannis, with selected co-curators Kristin Anderson, Sandra Bermudez, Elizabeth Huey, Anna Pedersen, and Gae Savannah. Artists include: Kristin Anderson, Jeff Feld, Mike Rogers, Sandra Bermudez, David Baskin, Jason Hackenwerth, Sean Mellyn, Carla Gannis, Michael Anderson, Graham Guerra, Alexander Reyna, Elizabeth Huey, Joseph Hart, Wes Lang, Eric White, Barnaby Whitfield, Anna Pedersen, Guillermo Creus, Dan Zeller, Gae Savannah, Doug Morris, and Christopher Tanner

 "Women can't add," he said jokingly.
When I asked him what he meant, he said,
"For them, one and one and one and one don't make four."
"What do they make?" I said, expecting five or three.
"Just one and one and one and one," he said. 
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Multiple Partners is an exhibition that explores the range of connections a female artist can find with one and one and one and one of her male artist contemporaries. Sociological or biological factors may influence women to express themselves differently from men, but other far-ranging factors, from our shared humanity to similar tastes in literature, music, and science, produce commonalities and linkages in our creative output. Without expectations for a conclusive sum total, this show explores the possibility that artists of both genders can look to the same influences and belong to the same history.

Starting with this premise, Multiple Partners comprises six female artists–Kristin Anderson, Sandra Bermudez, Carla Gannis, Elizabeth Huey, Anna Pedersen, and Gae Savannah–each of whom, from material to concept, represent a distinct facet of contemporary art. Each woman has invited two or more male artists with whom she feels her work shares a dialogue to participate with her in the show. The criteria for selecting male "partners" ranges from shared conceptual methods to analagous explorations of content, imagery and form. The works of the selector and the selected are grouped together in the exhibition so that these linkages are made visually evident via their proximity.

Groupings include Kristin Anderson, who has paired her intelligent and thoughtful video and installation work with the like-minded, conceptual work of Mike Rogers and Jeff Feld. The elegant and playful work of Sandra Bermudez shares a dialogue with the similarly whimsical works of David Baskin, Jason Hackenwerth and Sean Mellyn. Carla Gannis has partnered her provocative digital prints with equally charged work by Michael Anderson, a street-poster collage artist, and the irreverent digital prints of Graham Guerra and Alexander Reyna. The emotive painter Elizabeth Huey has selected drawings by Wes Lang and Joseph Hart, as well as paintings by Eric White and Barnaby Whitfield, that share her dark and wistful magic realism. Anna Pedersen's pop-organic, sculptural installation is flanked by the mesmerizing biomorphic drawings and paintings by, respectively, Dan Zeller and Guillermo Creus. Gae Savannah's bejeweled and accessorized sculptures link to lush and extravagant mixed-media wall works by Doug Morris and Christopher Tanner. Additionally, the relationships between the works in Multiple Partners extend outside their initial groupings to create a larger dialogue and context. For instance, the sculptures of Savannah and Hackenwerth resonate with a colorful vibrancy and material decadence. The swirling undulations that appear in Reyna's and Pedersen's works suggest motion and connectivity. Both Bermudez and M. Anderson use collage to decontextualize their source material.

Women selecting male artists is not new, as female gallerists, curators and collectors have gained influence throughout the last century. However the gender of the selector(s) is often an unacknowledged, invisible factor in the final presentation of the works. Multiple Partner, in its very premise, exposes the nature and gender breakdown of its curatorial process and presents a view of shared artistic lineage.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of New York

Other Important Exhibitions in New York