Anthony Cudahy – NARSOLIPS
Cooler Gallery
22 Waverly Avenue, Brooklyn
Opening November 1st, 7-10 PM
through November 22, 2016
M-F 9-5 and by appointment
The initiator for this group of paintings was Caravaggio’s Narcissus, specifically that work’s space: a strange void, the emptiest black surrounding a single reflection, looping forever. Alberti called Narcissus the beginning of painting, “embracing by means of art the surface of a pool.” These paintings resist embrace, however, and reveal a fundamental distrust: of others, of subjective experience, of oneself.
Is the image I create for myself a flower or a sword? The reflection is muted, but someone(thing) squints back. Narrative collapses: the child leading his mother is her father and the grave is close enough to kick dirt onto your own crowning head.
Cooler Gallery is an art gallery within a repurposed industrial icebox outside the Brooklyn Navy Yard — the physical border of large art, design, and manufacturing communities. The curation aims to reflect the essence of this intersection. Cooler Gallery seeks to be a breeding ground for thought at the crossing of fine art, design and manufacturing.
The gallery is curated by architect and designer Michael Yarinsky and hosted by Madera.