Ciao! Don’t forget: BAMart’s Silent Auction has been open for two days now with both a live exhibition and in-person + online bidding. You can view and bid on works at BAM, 24/7 until on May 11th, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.

Save the date for the Silent Auction Cocktail Reception with special guests Andrew Andrew on Saturday, May 9, from 5-7 PM at BAM.

The following Jen Bekman Gallery and 20×200 star artists are up for grabs:
Untitled #8, 2008 by Kent Rogowski

2nd Class Girls, “St. Petersburg, Russia”, 2007 by Rachel Papo

Red Hook Revere Sugar Refinery Ruins (Ikea Flattening and Flatpacking Construction, Our Biggest Idea is the Smallest Price), 2009 by Greg Lindquist

Optical, 2008 by Carrie Marill

TIME 2009 by Mickey Smith

Jen Bekman Gallery is exhibiting at the NEXT Art Fair, Thursday, April 30 – Monday, May 4, 2009. Please join us!

NEXT Chicago — Booth 7-8033
The Merchandise Mart

We have a sneak preview for you! The official first day of NEXT 2009 is tomorrow, May 1st, but we have a glimpse of our booth at the fair especially for you. You will probably notice how wonderfully crisp, clean and swanky our booth looks which is very much a result of the beautiful furniture donated by the folks at Design Within Reach. The table and chairs they sent our way add something extra special to our booth. Even better, they are having a sale that ends today that includes free standard shiping! Of course, our booth would be nothing if Sarah Mckenzie’s paintings were not gracing the wall! We have included two brand new paintings, Interior 4 and Interior 5 in this showing of her work.

In addition to paintings by Sarah Mckenzie, additional featured artists are: Ian Baguskas, Mara Bodis Wollner, Christine Callahan, Christian Chaize, Beth Dow, Joseph Holmes, Gregory Krum, Holly Lynton, Carrie Marill, Mike Monteiro, Brad Moore, Hosang Park, Jason Polan, Kent Rogowski, and Carlo Van de Roer

Ian Baguskas, Mike Monteiro, Brad Moore, Hosang Park

Opening Night Tickets
We have a limited number of tickets to the opening night of NEXT TONIGHT from 7-10pm. Email info@jenbekman.com to RSVP.

NEXT Talk Shop Panel with Jen Bekman
Jen will be speaking as part of the panel Alternative Spaces and the Creative Current on Sunday May 3 @ 2:30.

Allison Peters, Hyde Park Art Center; Independent Curator, Britton Bertran; gallerist Jen Bekman and Heather Hubbs, Director NADA, as they discuss alternative spaces and today’s market place. Addressing curatorial practices, innovative programming, creative funding models and inventive marketing this panel offers insight to moving forward in this economic climate.

Sunday May 3, 2009 | 2:30 – 3:30 pm
Location: NEXT Talk Shop, 7th floor
The Merchandise Mart

On Tuesday, April 28th, the Village Voice wrote an online feature of Lower East Side art spaces in an article called, “Canvasing the Neighborhood at Sunday, Jen Bekman, Janos Gat, and Beyond’. The fine folks at the Voice mention stopping by JBG to see Beth Dow’s show Ruins during their tour of the neighborhood galleries. If you find yourself with a free day, especially during this beautiful bout of sunshine we’ve been enjoying, take their advice and go on your own gallery-hop. Come by Jen Bekman Gallery and pick up a Lower East Side Gallery Guide map – you won’t believe how many art spaces there are to see around here!

As was mentioned last week, Beth received a lovely review by William Meyers in the Leisure & Arts section of the April 25-26 weekend issue of the Wall Street Journal. If you missed the printed version, you can read the article, “Veterans, Youngsters and ‘Ruins’“ online.

Ruins is up at Jen Bekman Gallery through May 16th, 2009. Make sure you don’t miss it!

20×200 has been nominated for the 13th Annual Webby Awards in the Art category!

Vote for us to win the Webby People’s Voice Award! Voting runs from April 14th to April 30th (that’s this week!), so please take a second to show us some love. We’ve come this far because of an inspired equation of (limited editions × low prices) + the internet, which includes, of course, YOU. So please cast your ballot for us, so we can win this Webby together! Vote now!

Robert Frost once wrote, “No surprise in the poet, no surprise in the reader.”  Sitting behind the desk here at JBG, I have the wonderfully unique experience of seeing the reactions of the people who visit the gallery.  Just now, I watched a woman react to the image above with disbelief and amusement.  It is a sure testament to Beth Dow’s current work “Ruins” when visitors to the Gallery question what they see.  This is one of the many magical instances where art photography is uniqely engaging.  In her artist statement, Dow admits to us that she “[approaches] these pictures as a tourist.”  This sort of honesty speaks to that engaging element of surprise from both the artist’s perspective and, subsequently, the viewer’s.

What surprises me about these pictures is the way in which they offer the uncanny reality of an unknown American landscape. Visitors to the gallery often ask if the images are enhanced suspecting that the artist may have digitally inserted these ‘ruins’ onto the scene. No, we say, these places actually exist!  William Meyers, photography critic for the Wall Street Journal, seems to suggest that Dow’s work contains a kind of layered irony in the fact of the existence of the ‘ruins’  and in the way that they are then found, photographed, and printed.  In his review of the show, he writes that “Ms. Dow’s platinum-palladium prints have the look of 19th century photographs of actual antiquities, a final jest.”

Joke or not, the work contains multitudes.  On certain days, the images read as unusually depressing indications of cultural decline; other days, they become humorous depictions of surreality.  This transformation that the photographs undergo, describing something different in the eye of the beholder, creates space for the possibility of continual surprise with every viewing. And that the pictures ultimately ask us to reflect on our own humanity is, in my opinion, Dow’s greatest success. “While genuine ruins remind us of our own mortality,” Dow says. “[T]hey also suggest the opposite by showing it’s possible to endure, even if only in a reduced and degraded form.”

To be surrounded by such poetry is a rare treat.

“Ruins” will be on display until May 16, 2009. Click here to read the review from the Wall Street Journal.

In case you cannot make it in to the gallery here are a trio if shots from Beth Dow’s Ruins exhibition. The show will be on view through May 16, 2009.

Sarah McKenzie | Interior 5| 30” x 30” | Acrylic on Canvas

We are pleased to be showing work from Sarah McKenzie’s Building Code exhibition, as well two NEW works at the upcoming NEXT fair in Chicago.

Sarah has been working non stop in her studio to get Interior 4 and Interior 5 finished in time for the fair, where they will make their big debut.

If you are in Chicago please join us:
Booth 7-8033
NEXT Art Fair
April 30 – May 4, 2009 (Thurs – Monday)
The Merchandise Mart

Sarah McKenzie | Interior 4 | 24” x 36” | Acrylic on Canvas

The 24th Hyères International Fashion and Photography Festival will see Ms. Jen Bekman as a juror. In fact, the talented eyes of the lady galeriste are en route as I type this.

The festival is held at the Villa Noailles in the South of France each spring. Hyères proposes diverse exhibitions, professional panel discussions and two competitions showcasing the best new talents from the fields of fashion and photography.

In 2008, the Jury Grand Prize for Photography was awarded to French photographer Audrey Corregan, and the Jury gave its Special Prize to German photographer Amira Fritz.

If a jaunt to the French Riviera isn’t in the cards, view the 2009 contenders and follow along with their vlog (and dig the sexy narrator!).

Oh la la la la!

Graffiti FAIL from Michael Mandiberg on Vimeo.

In reaction to street art style advertising on Eyebeam’s graffiti wall, artist and Eyebeam fellow Michael Mandiberg created a pro graffiti psa. Having watched 11 Spring Street go from ground zero for street art to shiny condo building, I think it is swell that Eyebeam encourages street artists to use their facade. We need graffiti and not advertising!

Back in 2003 the gallery started its love affair with work taken to the street with our Made In New York exhibition and later with the Darius + Downey show, We’re On It. Check out the links to see great work from the JBG archives.

Beth Dow Artist Talk from jenbekman on Vimeo.

More from Beth Dow’s artist talk. In this clip Beth and Jen continue their discussion of Aqueduct and link together this image with Beth’s earlier body of work, In the Garden. Beth makes the great statement, “it could be so ordinary, but it’s not quite right.”

Early morning cheers were in order when Beth Dow came back to chat with us on Saturday morning after her successful opening on Thursday. Friends, collectors and art enthusiasts came to hear Jen and Beth talk about her current show “Ruins”. For those of you that missed out (or couldn’t fathom getting out of bed by noon) We were able to video a few parts to let you in on what goes on in the very wonderful mind of Beth Dow. Check it out below as Jen and Beth get started talking about the nostalgic qualities of her work.

Beth Dow discusses her current show “Ruins” from jenbekman on Vimeo.

Jen and Beth continued the conversation by discussing the stumble upon nature of her work using “Coaster” as an example and how Beth came to discover these interesting landscapes

Beth Dow Artist Talk, Part Two from jenbekman on Vimeo.

The “surprise sleeper hit” Jen is refering to at the end of this clip is is the work “Aqueduct”, seen below and also on Beth’s artist page

If you have not visited the gallery yet to see the show you really need to see this work in person. As Beth herself says, “[photographs] should be tactile three dimensional objects” which is definitely true of her work and the presence it commands.

JBG is very excited to announce that gallery artists Kent Rogowski and Carrie Marill are part of the 5th Annual BAMart Silent Auction.  Even more exciting, Ms. Marrill’s piece ‘Optical’ is one of the auction’s featured items! This year’s auction features “over 150 local, emerging, and established artists and designers in many mediums, at great prices, and with all proceeds to benefit Brooklyn Academy of Music.” Bidding begins Wednesday, April 29 at 5PM. You can visit the auction’s website to track your bids but also view the live exhibition and bid in person, 7 days a week beginning April 29 at BAM. Check BAM.org for hours. Bidding ends Monday, May 11 at 8PM.

If you are at all confused about the bidding process, interdisciplinary creativity team Andrew Andrew made a special instructional video for the auction. Enjoy!

We are very excited to be apart of Artlog’s Collect LES again, a private one-night art open house devoted to introducing new collectors  to the LES’s burgeoning art community. From the website: “From the Bowery to East Broadway, over a thousand art enthusiasts toured the neighborhood galleries during last year’s event. This year will be no less spectacular! Enjoy free wine, beer and liquor and special offers at local businesses as you tour the Lower East Side’s galleries and Phillips Art Expert’s selected urban art locations.” Join us along with over 25 other galleries and the New Museum next Saturday, April 18th. For more information, visit the Collect LES 2009 website. Tickets are $15 in advance and can be purchased here.

We can’t wait to see you!

Beth Dow | Trojan Horse | 20” x 24” | Platinum-Palladium Print

Please join us at the gallery for the second Munchkins + Mimosas THIS Saturday, April 11 from 12pm-2pm. Artist Beth Dow will be on hand to talk about her new series Ruins as well as the platinum-palladium process.

Space is limited so please RSVP to info@jenbekman.com.

Artist Talk with Beth Dow
Saturday, April 11, 2009 | 12pm-2pm
Jen Bekman Gallery
e: info@jenbekman.com | w: www.jenbekman.com | p: +1.212.219.0166
6 Spring Street
(between Elizabeth + Bowery)
New York City 10012

 

Beth Dow | Facade | 20” x 24” | Platinum-Palladium Print

Ruins
images | statement | press release

An exhibition of twelve platinum-palladium prints by Beth Dow on view @ Jen Bekman Gallery from April 9 — May 16, 2009.

Opening Reception : Thursday, April 9, 2009 | 6pm-8pm
Please join us at the gallery this Thursday, April 9th, from 6pm-8pm, at a reception for the artist.

Jen Bekman Gallery
e: info@jenbekman.com | w: www.jenbekman.com | p: +1.212.219.0166
6 Spring Street
(between Elizabeth + Bowery)
New York City 10012
The gallery is open Wednesday — Saturday from noon-6pm or by private appointment.

Hello San Francisco collectors! Tonight is the night! Jen Bekman and the 20×200 team are looking forward to meeting Bay Area collectors tonight, Monday April 6th, from 6-8pm. We’ll be serving up some wine along with a few surprises! We’re looking forward to seeing you soon!

Space is limited, so please be sure to RSVP — rsvp AT 20×200 DOT com.

Who: Bay Area Collectors & Team 20×200
What: Collectors Confab
When: Monday, April 6th, from 6-8 p.m
Where: Chronicle Books | 680 Second Street, San Francisco, CA

Image via Design*Sponge

20×200 and JBG artist Kate Bingaman-Burt’s cozy home was featured on the blog Design*Sponge yesterday, April 3. Only 600 square feet, Kate and her husband Clifton live comfortably in their LEED certified home designed by Portland architect Kevin Cavenaugh. Visit Design*Sponge to see images and short video showing off their amazing live/work space. You can tell how much they “love the space that Cavenaugh created[, which they] quickly managed to fill … with their stuff (those are Kate’s words). But it’s the stuff that continues to inspire and act as wonderful reminders of their friends and the supportive community they are a part of.”

Kate’s illustrations can be seen at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts this weekend at the North West premiere of Handmade Nation. From director Faythe Levine, Handmade Nation is a new film “documenting the indie craft movement—a new wave of craft marrying historical technique, punk culture, and the do-it-yourself ethos.” The screenings in Portland are all sold-out but check out the movie’s website to see when it will be showing near you.

Hosang Park, one of our Hot Shots from 2008 has just had his work profiled in Landscape Architecture: The Magazine of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

In the article Nicola Twilley remarks that Park’s images provide an interesting social commentary of Korean landscape. She writes, “Its cornucopia of amenities—climbing frames, fountains, seesaws and swing sets, pagodas, grass, ornamental rocks, meandering paths, trees and flower beds, benches, ponds, basketball courts…even public art—are crammed together as a visual shorthand for endless leisure. They are landscape as sinage, a placeholder for the possibilities of a park”. An idea that Park himself would agree with as he describes the work as, “[revealing] fabricated Korean-style space and the stark realities of democracy in a more comic way”, suggesting the parks are more of an unsuccessful social experiment rather than a place of casual interaction with your neighbors.

The original article was printed from the authors blog, bldgblog.blogspot.com and you can find it here.
Also, lucky for you, Hosang Park’s prints are still available on 20×200.com. Buy them now here and here while also reading more about Hosang

20×200 darling, Thrilla in Manila fighter, and JBG artist Jason Polan has collaborated with Australian based Third Drawer Down. The Museum of Art Souveniers as they are called, is offering a decal of Polan’s Curated Version of every drawing at MoMA as part of their decalcomania renaissance.

Their online store is also a great resource for towels, salt and pepper shakers, patches, and a whole range of other projects that can cause you to spend your whole paycheck and devote too much of the day to browsing (much like 20×200).

Check out original Jason Polan work and 20×200 pieces.

Dinosaurs at The American Museum of Natural History | Jason Polan
17” x 14” | Ink on Paper