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3.08.2013

Jason Karolak at McKenzie Fine Art

 
View from Orchard Street into McKenzie Fine Art
 
 
Every week seems to bring a new gallery to the Lower East Side, but Orchard Street is my favorite for the sheer number of interesting galleries. McKenzie Fine Art is one of my enduring favorites, recently transplanted from 25th Street. This show is up through March 17.
 
In his large paintings displayed in the main gallery space, Karolak pulls you into his visual webs, cubicular orgies of analogous color that suggest the containments of architecture or conversely, mathematical depictions of cosmic phenomena in the vastness of the universe. 

Untitled (P-1206), 2012, and Untitled (P-1301), 2013, both oil on canvas, 85 x 75 inches

Here, a panorama of the opposite wall that stretches into the middle gallery. From right to left: Untitled (P-1205), the smaller Untitled (P-1302), and Untitled (P-1207) in the distance--the latter shown below from the opposite vantage point

 
 
In the middle and back galleries, there are smaller works depicting flatter space. Here, pattern with syncopated rhythm, if not actual repetition, evokes Mondrian's paintings and Gee's Bend quilts in equal measure.
 

View looking toward the back of the gallery
 

Untitled (P-1102), 2011, 16 x 14 inches
 
Untitled (P-1210), 2012, 15 x 13 inches
All are oil on linen
 
Below: Untitled (P-1101), 2011, 16 x 13 inches

 
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Friends,
 
If you have come here looking for information about Artifact Gallery, please know that I know nothing about the gallery--only that I saw, liked and wrote about one show there. But apparently the gallery is using my blog as a reference as it promotes an exhibition package that involves payment to show.

Given the number of artists who contact galleries each day with presentation packages, it is highly unusual for a serious New York City gallery to send out letters proposing solo exhibitions to artists it doesn't know. Please do not email me to ask about this gallery. I know nothing about it. Typically, however, the artist/gallery relationship is this: the artist shows; the gallery sells. Each party receives 50 percent of the sale. If the artist is requested or required to pay money up front, that arrangement is known as a pay-to-show gallery or a vanity gallery.)

As always I would urge artists to do their due diligence, which might include talking to the artists who have shown there--ask for a list of past exhibitions--rather than emailing an art blogger who walked in off the street to look at a show there.
 
Good luck!

4 comments:

annell4 said...

Thanks so much for a wonderful post!!!

Christine Sauer said...

Thank you for sharing. I appreciate getting a taste of the NY artscene since I can't be there. It's fun to discover new artists work thru your blog..love this work!

nola Zirin said...

Thanks for posting, your blog is very appreciated and inspiring to fellow painters.

Anonymous said...

Artifact is not a serious gallery. It's a vanity gallery operated by unfair people. Just run away!