Nicola Verlato and Evol Roundup and Photos

by baad lamb

Go here first if you have not already read about Nicola Verlato and Evol at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery  April 7th to May 5th.

Loved the show! But I also had 8PM ticket to Dance Brazil at the Joyce, so I was unable to spend as much time as I'd have liked (gallery opened at 7). One thing I forgot to do was consult the price sheet so I would know how much each of these artists currently command for their work. I will go back, since the show is up till May 5th, and I strongly encourage everyone to check it out. Like the best movies, Verlato should be seen "on the big screen," and Evol's meticulous precision is best appreciated very close up.

The stark contrasts between these two artists may be the point of showing them together. Verlato's compositions are all about Renaissance realism, with so much color and motion that people are literally flying through the air, while Evol's people-less architectural waste-scapes are so still and silent and cardboard-beige they feel totally airless. But they share the stage in at least one important aspect: the painstaking, time consuming process of bringing their visions to fruition. Whether Evol's smallest piece of found cardboard or Verlato's epic canvases, the sketching, refining, painting, cutting, masking, spraying, masking and spraying again, touch-ups and tiny finishing details all track a similar hands-on style of slow and deliberate craftsmanship that is increasingly rare in our instantaneous internet twitterverse. If they were to meet up, I'll bet they'd spend a lot of time sharing frisket tips and techniques.

Tons of pics after the jump...

Jorge Pardo at Friedrich Petzel Gallery

Computer routed, vaguely art-nouveau stylized butterfly shapes are mechanically fastened into long, high, wall-like constructions. These walls are in turn arranged to divide the large gallery into a disorienting maze. Random voids are plugged with diverse images - people, landscapes, historical events - all culled from the internet. To navigate these narrow passages one gets the sensation of walking through corridors of memory, a déjà vu mixed up mash-up view through multiple windows on multiple worlds; a digitally fabricated analog manifestation of computer memory bank ones and zeros. The surprising effectiveness of these very porous "memory walls" to almost totally obscure others in the room was oddly enhanced by the continuous unintelligible soundtrack provided by a relatively large crowd of talkative gallery-goers.

Meanwhile, across the street, the empty old Dia waits patiently silent, where Mr. Pardo's cheerfully colorful tile floor remains hopeful, and occasionally manages to catch the eye of West Chelsea wanderers, even through darkened windows and the dust of indecisive neglect.

Jorge Pardo continues at Friedrich Petzel Gallery, 537 West 22nd Street, until June 19th.

Love for Evol at Scope New York Art Show

by baad lamb

Not all the art at mega art shows is gimmicky, flashy, retro, shiny, LED backlit, or video.


Or a combination of all the above.

Sometimes the most moving pieces startle with their simplicity.

Evol, born in Heilbronn, Germany and living and working in Berlin, paints architectural details and scenes on found cardboard. Like musicians who claim it’s the spaces between the notes that separate capable musicianship from true artistry, Evol’s deft use of the unpainted cardboard areas are what makes his four Scope show contributions so stunning. These restrained architectural compositions are executed with slow and careful precision using a mask-and-spray process, yielding an extremely convincing photo-realist result.
More photos after the jump...