Peter Paul Rubens, Tiger Hunt, c. 1616, courtesy of Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes, France; photo: Adélaïde Beaudouin
Parkers Box presents
Ten Years Hunting – [Part Three]:
The Trophy Room
The exhibition runs from MAY 28 – MAY 30, 2010
and through June 27, 2010 in the showroom
Triangle Arts is proud to have many of its alumni in this anniversary exhibition.
Bold marks Triangle Arts connection
Fayçal Baghriche, Mike Ballou, Jean Bellissen, Vincent Bizien, John
Bjerklie, Matt Blackwell, Willard Boepple, France Cadet, Denis Castellas,Roland Cognet,Lana Crooks, Gregory Curry, Rachel Denny,Jacques Flèchemuller, Gregory Forstner, Matt Freedman, Jeff Gabel, Ted Gahl, Carla Gannis, Charo Garaigorta, Clare Gasson, Jason Glasser, Barry Hylton, Tom Kotik, Agnieszka Kalinowska, Charles Krafft, David Kramer, Peter Krashes, Larry Krone, Fay Ku, Nickolas Lascot, Nevan Lahart, Gereon Lepper, Claire Lieberman, Patrick Martinez, Caroline McCarthy, David McQueen, Myriam Mechita, Kenn Munk, Kurt Novak, Graham Parker, William Powhida, Ravi Rajakumar, Tere Recarens, Sylvie Réno, John Roach, Béatrice Roué, Sergio Roger, Mike Rogers, Hervé di Rosa, David Rothenberg, Samuel Rousseau, Casey Ruble, Ward Shelley, Michael Sheridan Smith, Tim Spelios, Jacob Stein, Joshua Stern, Justin Storms, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Patricia Waller, Susan Wanklyn+, Emily Warren, Gerard Williams
Celebrating their tenth anniversary, Parker’s Box is delighted to
announce the final exhibition of the three part series Ten Years
Hunting.
Even before passing through the highly unpredictable mill of
transformation that is the contemporary artist’s mind, the hunting
trophy is one of the most eccentric of artifacts. In its simplest and
most traditional incarnation, the head of a wild animal killed by a
hunter, is stuffed and mounted on a shield as a celebration of the
hunter’s prowess. On the one hand this age-old tradition, recording an
activity with an “aesthetically” presented fragment of itself, could
be seen to be close to certain conceptual art practices. On the other
hand, preserving bits of dead animals, generally with their eyes fixed
wide open in a parody of life, might seem to many to be quite a
gruesome, even twisted activity that has little place in today’s
supposedly eco-friendly context. This dichotomy made it seem to be of
particular interest as a theme to throw out for artists to gnaw on. At
the same time, it somehow also seemed to correspond to the attempts
made by Parker’s Box since opening in the late Spring of 2000, to hunt
down and exhibit challenging and inventive art-work that would
hopefully surprise, delight and stimulate the spectator.
With work by over sixty artists included, there is inevitably a wide
and exciting array of propositions. Only one actual taxidermy
deer-head managed to slip in through the back door, in a work by David
McQueen who has lovingly closed the animal’s eyes, finally giving it
an air of peaceful sleep. Several artists have of course represented
animal heads in various materials, from wonderful knitted deer (Rachel
Denny, Patricia Waller), to a porcelain smoking rabbit (Charles
Krafft), an interactive leopard (France Cadet), a pearly wild boar
(Myriam Mechita), a surveillance camera pig (Ward Shelley), paper
skulls (Kenn Munk), an almost abstract fabric ram (Sergio Roger) and a
papier maché deer (Emily Warren) to name just a few.
One of the starting points of the whole project was the fabric head of
a hard to identify animal by Béatrice Roué, with buttons for its eyes
and nostrils, and twigs for antlers/horns, discovered overlooking
chicken sales in rural Brittany! A number of artists such as Ted Gahl
and Gregory Curry, have used the wall-mounted trophy shield, often in
varnished wood, as the common denominator for less obvious
interpretations, other examples being Michael Sheridan Smith’s
portrait of his father, Maarten Vanden Eynde’s gnarled pieces of
branch, Samuel Rousseau’s half bicycle, Caroline McCarthy’s “Anytime
Breakfast” packaging, or Nevan Lahart’s gloved hand begging with a
paper coffee cup.
Other artists have opted for the subtler evocation of a more formal,
sculptural approach (Denis Castellas, Roland Cognet, Willard Boepple,
Jason Glasser, Agnieszka Kalinowska, Claire Lieberman), or a mythical/
sci-fi atmosphere (Vincent Bizien, Charo Garaigorta) while yet others
have opted for more conceptual criteria, like Fayçal Bagriche who
asked his picture framer to keep and frame any rare pieces of flawed
glass he found, or Gerard Williams who asked a National Shooting
Champion to shoot at postage stamps depicting animal heads using the
appropriate weapon for the animal shown…
Other interpretations recur also, like the works dealing with notions
of the Trophy Wife, particularly in a number of two-dimensional works
(David Kramer, Carla Gannis, Gereon Lepper, Gregory Forstner).
With close to seventy works in the show, only half of the
participants’ work has been mentioned here. All of the works exhibited
seem necessarily to operate on multiple levels, both as a response to
a theme (whether the work was made specifically for the show or not)
and to the similar and contrasting questions each work poses to those
around it.
Since its launch in 2000, Parker’s Box has always sought to act as a
catalyst, offering a platform for innovative and inventive practices,
and at the same time attempting to engage with the wider public and
art world community. The rich dialogue between the works presented in
“Trophy Room” together constitute an installation piece that
encapsulates the continuing desire of Parker’s Box to engage with
exciting contemporary art practices both as a facilitator and as a
participant in the process of art making and presentation, with as
deep an involvement as the artists themselves.
GALLERY HOURS THURSDAY THRU SUNDAY 1PM TO 7PM
PARKER’S BOX . 193 GRAND STREET . BROOKLYN NEW YORK 11211 .
1 718 388 2882
WWW.PARKERSBOX.COM
