EXHIBITIONS
You Tell Me
Co-curated by Scott Hunt and Michael Foley
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. — Hannah Arendt
As a fine artist who makes narrative drawings, I frequently find myself being asked the same question about my work, “What’s the story behind this drawing; Tell me what’s going on here?” And to that I inevitably answer, “I’m not sure. Why don’t you tell me?” Usually what follows is a moment of readjustment as this person begins to shift from simply wanting a facile answer to spinning their own narrative tale for me. This turning of the tables is the jumping off point for You Tell Me, an exhibition of contemporary narrative art.
Really?
Curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody
November 8 – December 23, 2017
Wilding Cran Gallery is pleased to present Really? a group exhibition curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody featuring works in various media by both well-known and emerging artists who work in the field of contemporary realism to visually or conceptually challenge the viewer.
“I have always been fascinated with photo-realistic drawings and paintings, and trompe l’oeil sculptures—from artists such as Bronzino and Jean-Étienne Liotard, to the Flemish painters and today’s contemporary artists. The ability to create art that reflects reality in this way is a skill I admire so much, especially when the artist goes beyond the merely technical to incorporate more conceptual themes and their unique style of art-making.”
Beth Rudin DeWoody
Scott Hunt – God Is An American
New Art Projects, London
Fri 20 May 2016 – Sat 09 Jul 2016
Scott Hunt’s finely-wrought figurative charcoal drawings mix the monumental with the prosaic, the dramatic with the quotidian. By combining imagery from discarded snapshots, Hunt creates mysterious, funny, and often unsettling narrative works that resist conclusive interpretation.
American cultural identity is the general theme of this new exhibition of drawings, God is an American. Pivoting somewhat from the narrative aspect of much of his previous work, this group of drawings takes a more allegorical approach and often incorporates iconography of the American “Wild West,” using that mythology to consider current social and political trends in the U.S.
VOLTA 12 Basel Art Fair
New Art Projects, London
Mon 13 Jun 2016 – Sat 18 Jun 2016
Scott Hunt creates figurative charcoal and pastel works on paper that are narrative and allegorical. The drawings are meticulously crafted and intensely enigmatic and mysterious. The viewer encounters traditional visions of American life while uncovering a darker narrative.
COCTEAU CONTEMPORAIN
Curated by Dominique Païni
Coullaud & Koulinsky Galerie
12 rue de Picardie
75003 Paris
January 15—February 28, 2015
This group show takes a current look at the lasting legacy of the great French artist, Jean Cocteau, through the work of contemporary artists.
The exhibition has been curated by the esteemed film director and critic, Dominique Païni, whose long scholarship on the great poet, director, playwright, and visual artist includes the 2004 exhibition “Cocteau, Sur le Fin de Siecle” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
In keeping with Cocteau’s proficiency in the full spectrum of artistic endeavors, the works in this show are drawn from a broad range of artistic disciplines. But they are all, without fail, indebted to Cocteau’s sensational genius.
New Drawings by Scott Hunt
Coullaud & Koulinsky Galerie
12 rue de Picardie
75003 Paris
January 30—March 29, 2014
A new exhibition of charcoal drawings,Entre Chien et Loup, is being shown presently at Coullaud & Koulinsky Galerie in Paris, France.
The gallery sees a parallel in this series of drawings with the work of the playwright, dramatist, and director Robert Wilson. They cite a connection between Wilson’s repressed Texas upbringing and my own small-town childhood. An excerpt of the press release begins below:
“This ‘American way of life’ stigmatized by Wilson is reminiscent of that denounced by the New York draftsman Scott Hunt, whose first monographic exhibition at Coullaud & Koulinsky, entitled Entre Chien et Loup, runs from January 30th till March 29th, 2014. A graduate of the prestigious Parsons School of Design, Hunt possesses a robust technique and is steeped in the tradition of illustration. Hunt creates drawings in charcoal that are, meticulous, obsessive, absurd, heartening, moving, hyper-realistic and surrealist all at the same time. The work of Scott Hunt is fantastic for the hesitation which it produces between the supernatural and the natural, the possible and the impossible, and sometimes between logic and the illogical. Just like Robert Wilson, Hunt is an illusionist.”
Translated from the original French.
Ladies & Gents
March 14 – April 27, 2013
Salomon Contemporary presents Ladies & Gentlemen, a group exhibition that highlights a selection of artists who portray their own gender. The exhibition fuses a wide range of styles and tones, with some more serious and critical, and some lighthearted and humorous. Various works depict the figures in a more traditional sense as “ladies” and “gentlemen,” while others challenge just the opposite.
Kiki Smith’s biological work Daisy Chainwill morph during the course of the exhibition, like the evolution of a caterpillar. in Spidey/Striptease, E.V. Day strings together a gender-bending work that unexpectedly pairs the recognizable superhero costume with bright red heels and fishnets. Judith Hudson’s Bribe is a humorous comment on women’s love and sacrifice—jewelry. Hilary Harkness’s drawing Pearl Trader narrates an all-out fest amongst Rockettes while auctioning their DNA at Christie’s. With genetics that can’t be auctioned, Amy Cutler’s Edna is anything but a lady.
As for the gents, Michael Halsband’s iconic photograph of Klaus Nomi portrays the diva in his futuristic, neo-dandy attire. Dennis Oppenheim’s motorized marionette tap dances to a soundtrack composed by the artist in Theme For a Major Hit. In Nir Hod’s Genius a prodigal gent-in-training dressed in 18th century fashion smokes a cigarette during the sitting. Kurt Kauper, John Sonsini, and Scott Hunt’s works demonstrate a more contemporary vision of a gentleman—a suited businessman balancing work and pleasure, a Latino musician posing with his guitar, and two men resting casually in a wintry landscape. Whether fantastical or realistic, the works in the exhibition are an eclectic grouping of men and women of all ages and types with faces both strange and familiar.
