nycartscene: open Jan 12, 6-8p:“DELUGE” Lionel MaunzBureau Gallery, 178 Norfolk St.
nycartscene: open Jan 12, 6-8p:“DELUGE” Lionel MaunzBureau Gallery, 178 Norfolk St., NYCthe exhibition takes its title directly from a specific work of art: ‘The Deluge’ by Paolo Uccello, a scene of destruction and chaos around the Ark showing drowning and foreshortened bodies looking for salvation from Noah. “I’ve been obsessed with this Uccello painting since I first saw it in reproduction, and got a chance to see it in person in 1999. What excites me about it is the conversion of fear to violence: a coalescing of terror into this desperate spasm of ruin. I look at the fresco and want to agitate, to exacerbate it, to ensure that nothing is spared… I had a lot of reservations in using such a direct, classical reference, for fear that I was giving myself and the viewer too firm a footing. That said, I like referencing the forced perspective of the Ark… The horse plays a prominent role in Uccello’s Deluge in which a drowning horse and rider is being attacked by a man with a club. One of the larger pieces in my show is a concrete plinth with cast iron elements including a large, mutilated horse head struck through the center with a geometric form. The piece also contains a series of rotting hooves, farrier’s pliers and a stack of crude architectural models of the apartments and trailers where I grew up… My interest in horses came from an accumulation of references which I guess I’m trying to interrogate with this show.” - Lionel Maunz -- source link