Down And Dirty
Bonnie Rychlak and Jeanne Silverthorne
Open to the public:
Friday January 13 - Saturday March 11, 2023
Opening reception:
Saturday January 14, 4-6 pm
Conversation with the artists and Marc Straus Gallery Directors Aniko Erdosi and Florence Lynch:
Friday February 24, 6-8pm
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Project: ARTspace is pleased to present Down And Dirty, an exhibition of sculptural works by artists Bonnie Rychlak and Jeanne Silverthorne, both based in New York.
The artists manipulate materials such as rubber and wax to suggest the "dark side" of ordinary functional objects that are generally overlooked as traditional subjects for sculpture. In their hands, ventilation grilles, drains, grates, bunkers, crates, dynamite, weeds and insects are players in inscrutable narratives. Their rigorously crafted works embrace the forlorn, the abject, mining their potential for psychic tension. The works engage both humor and horror, nature and artifice, the living and the decaying.
This shared project between the artists began in 2018, with the creation of a collaborative work titled "Grate of Unintentional Consequences," which combined Rychlak's interest in drains with Silverthorne's involvement with studio infrastructure. That work was exhibited in “A Radical Voice: 23 Women” at Southampton Arts Center on Long Island and sparked an enduring partnership that resulted in Down and Dirty. This work, which has subsequently split in two parts, fulfilling the "unintentional consequences," will be exhibited at Project: ARTspace. Both artists delight in the bluntness and honesty of their materials, while the works themselves court mystery and intensity.
Both have also expressed that their careers surged at a moment when much artistic activity in NYC was artist-driven. Silverthorne relates, "There were all these wonderful shows organized by artists or young curators in tremendous spaces that had very low rent such as Thread Waxing Space and White Columns. The Guerrilla Girls were calling out galleries and counting numbers, and a few women began to have representation."
This is the third iteration of Down And Dirty by the artists. First presented by the Dodd Galleries at Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, Athens curated by Katie Geha in 2021, it was presented in summer of 2021 by the Arts Center at Duck Creek in East Hampton, NY. In this latest installation of Down And Dirty for Project: ARTspace, there are new works, and many have shifted from the floor to the wall, accommodating the scale and architecture of the gallery's interior.
A conversation in the gallery with the artists and Aniko Erdosi and Florence Lynch, Directors at Marc Straus Gallery, is scheduled for Friday, February 24, 6-8pm.
A brochure with an essay by Michelle Weinberg is available.
A catalog produced by the Dodd Galleries with essays by Katie Geha and Terrie Sultan is also available.
Both are designed by Eileen Boxer.
High resolution images available upon request.
Contact: Leslie Kerby or Michelle Weinberg info@projectartspace.com
Images below: (L to R)
Jeanne Silverthorne Frozen Dandelions, 2012 platinum silicone rubber, phosphorescent pigment 12" x 10" x 10", Edition 1 of 2
Bonnie Rychlak Pressure Melt, 2022 Cast Wax, Gellie Wax, felt and metal pressure device, 18" x 3 3/4"
Jeanne Silverthorne Venus Flytrap, Xeres Blue (Extinct), with Two Crates, 2009-2019 platinum silicone rubber, 53 x 25 1/4 x 48" overall.
Photo credit: Paul Kennedy
Bonnie Rychlak For Randye, 2019-2022 Hand-carved cast wax, rubber tube and metal drain, 10 1/2" x 7 " x 7 1/2"
Artist Bios
Bonnie Rychlak is an artist, curator and museum consultant. She has presented her work in solo and group exhibitions in museums and private collections in the United States and Japan. Rychlak graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973 from the University of California at Los Angeles and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1976. She has also received numerous grants and residencies, including Surnadal Billag A/S Artist Residency in Norway; the American Academy in Rome; The Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio Residency; and the National Endowment for the Arts in Sculpture. She twice attended the residency at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. Rychlak’s solo exhibitions include Memory and Oblivion at The Viewing Room, NYC, Cutting Holes in Water at ASK? Art Space Kimura, Tokyo, Screen Memories at Gallery Three Zero, NYC, Role Models/Disparate Narratives at The Sculpture Center, NYC, Shoshanna Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, Rastovsky Gallery, NYC, and St. Peter’s Church, NYC. In her position as the former curator and studio assistant for Isamu Noguchi, the Noguchi Museum and Foundation, Rychlak has curated numerous exhibitions in New York and at international venues.
Jeanne Silverthorne is a New York artist whose sculptures have been the subject of solo exhibitions in the US and abroad for over forty years. Her works are included in major museum collections, including MOMA, SFMOMa, and the Whitney, among others. Solo exhibitions include the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., Whitney Museum of Art, Rocca Paolinea, Perugia, P.S.1, New York, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, a mid-career survey at the Wright Museum, Beloit, University of Kenucky Museum, a collaboration with Elaine Reichek at the Addison Museum in Andover, Massachussettes, as well as many one-person shows at galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Verona, Seoul, and Ireland. She has been featured in numerous museum exhibitions, including those at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Contemporary Art, the Houston Museum, the Albright-Knox Museum, the ICA Boston, Museum Landesgalerie am Oberosterrreichischen, Landesmuseum Linz, and Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, Austria, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Deste Foundation, Athens, Boras Konstmuseum, Umea, and Edsvik Konstock Kultur, Sollentuna, Sweden, Denver Museum, Denver, Colorado, Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, New York, Weatherspoon Museum, Greensboro, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island, Boca Raton Museum, LEEUM, Samsung Museum, Korea, Sheldon Museum, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, Addison Musem of American Art, Whitney Museum of Art, New York. Silverthorne is the recipient of awards from Guggenheim Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, Penny McCall Foundation, Anonymous was a Woman, Civitelli Ranieri Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. From 1982 to 1992 she was a regular contributor to Artforum and Parkett magazines. From 2000 to 2008 she taught in the MFA program at Columbia University. Since 1993, she has been an instructor at the School of Visual Arts, NYC.
