Into the Monochrome, No Empty Square

June 8 - July 14, 2013

Peninsula Art Space is pleased to present its second exhibition, Into the Monochrome, No Empty Square, curated by Rachel Valinsky. This is the second iteration of the show, which was first on view in Bushwick in April 2013. The exhibition includes works by Max Basch, Samuel Draxler, Myles Dunigan, Lindsey Filowitz, Rin Johnson, Sarah Lipman, Lynnette Miranda, Corwin Peck, Sara Grace Powell, Emma Quaytman, Alyssa Rapp, Lara Saget, and Sean Zhuraw. 

The group show features thirteen artists whose work explodes, explores, fills in, erases, embraces, rejects, and ambulates in and around the monochrome. As a paradoxical starting point for the exhibition, each work has been placed under the auspices of the monochrome. As argued in a recent essay by Monika Szweczyk published in the Vancouver-based fillip magazine, we should seek blankness where it is not, inject blankness into spaces that are otherwise over-determined, full, closed, already “all too circumscribed.” The works in this exhibition may not appear blank, monochromatic, empty, clean, cleared out, void, or even abstract (not that any of these terms should be considered synonymous). Rather, they carry lines, text, shapes, forms, sounds, light, pictorial representation, and more. Their grouping is the result of having seen in them a desire moving in toward the blankness from which they originate, or toward the monochromatic forms at which they’ve arrived, and the languages that have developed in this process.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue available for pre-order, which includes an essay by curator Rachel Valinsky, an introduction by Sean Zhuraw, and reproductions of works included in first and second exhibitions or elsewhere. It constitutes a third iteration of the exhibition.

MAX BASCH (b. 1986) is a Brooklyn-based artist working in film and photography. He obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Bard College in 2011. He is available for hire as a freelance Director/Photographer/Videographer. When he is not working he enjoys juicing and or balling / surfing and or studying cultural trends. He recently joined a production company known as Avenue D Cinema.

SAMUEL DRAXLER (b. 1990) is an artist and art historian based in New York. Most recently, Draxler curated the show “Cleaning Up” at Johannes Vogt Gallery (March 28 – April 27, 2013). A text by Draxler on RuPaul’s Drag Race and Mike Kelley’s craft works appears in the current issue of Texte zur Kunst. Draxler graduated from Columbia University magna cum laude and with honors in art history in 2012.

MYLES DUNIGAN (b. 1988) is a printmaker and visual artist from Spencer, Massachusetts. Much of his inspiration is drawn from the untamed wilderness of central Massachusetts as well as from the modern ruins of New England. He attended the Rhode Island School of design for his undergraduate degree, majoring in printmaking. He currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island and works in the art department at Wellesley College.

LINDSEY FILOWITZ (b. 1989) is a Brooklyn native and Bard graduate who now lives in Oakland, California.

RIN JOHNSON (b. 1990) is a photo conceptual artist. She makes photographs and abstract works based on photographs. She has exhibited in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Berlin. She is an alum of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and she is originally from San Francisco; she lives in Brooklyn. 

SARAH LIPMAN (b. 1988) is artist and jewelry designer living in New York. She has studied visual art at Oberlin and Barnard Colleges. Her current work investigates the structural and socially determined nature of language and images.

LYNNETTE MIRANDA (b. 1987) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and organizer from Miami, Florida, currently working in between Chicago and New York. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art with concentrations in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010. Lynnette is currently pursuing a Master of Arts degree in Visual Arts Administration at New York University.

CORWIN PECK (b. 1987) lives in Brooklyn, NY. He earned a BA from The Evergreen St. College. His work complicates the relationship between writing, art and the Internet.

After bubbling up twenty-two years ago from the desert of El Paso, SARA GRACE POWELL (b. 1991) now studies Art History and Visual Arts at Barnard College.  Currently, her work concentrates on durational sculpture, performance, measurement systems, elbow-licking, and decomposition.

EMMA QUAYTMAN (b. 1989) has studied Art History and Visual Arts at the Leroy Neiman Center for Print Studies, Bard College, and the Slade School of Fine Art at University College London. She is an artist and independent curator currently based in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Emma has worked at the Museum of Modern Art, the McKee Gallery, and the Avery Library of Art and Architecture and curated in conjunction with Barnard College and A.I.R. Gallery.

ALYSSA RAPP (b. 1988) is a Brooklyn-based artist and clothing designer. Recent group exhibitions include I am not a good enough feminist and From Our Perspectives. She has had several group and solo projects with Postcrypt Art Gallery, New York, NY and Shoestring Press, Brooklyn, NY and her work was included in the 2011 Affordable Art Fair. 

LARA SAGET (b. 1989) is a Brooklyn-based artist who graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in Art History focusing on Visual Arts. Her work has been displayed in fifteen New York exhibitions over the past two years and over eighteen exhibitions globally since 2008. Saget is originally from Los Angeles, where she first began exhibiting her work. Her artistic practice is largely inspired by her work as a yoga instructor. Her work speaks to the subtleties of human form, examining the body from the inside out with the intention of encouraging an ontological awareness.

SEAN ZHURAW’s (b. 1990) poems have appeared or are forthcoming in JERRY, The Columbia Review, and Boston Review. Originally from Philadelphia, he earned a BA from Columbia University. He is currently an MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he won the John Logan poetry prize and volunteers with the Iowa Youth Writing Workshop and the writing workshop at Oakdale Prison.

Photography by Alexandra Marvar