P.P.O.W
Frieze New York 2019

Frieze New York
May 1 – 5, 2019
Booth C33

PˑPˑOˑW is pleased to present historical and contemporary works by Prunella Clough, Ben Gocker, Judith Linhares, Katharine Kuharic, Erin M. Riley, and David Wojnarowicz, alongside a performative installation by Steve Keene.

Working in situ from a custom-designed platform, Steve Keene (b. 1957) will present the latest iteration of his ongoing series of performative installations. Over the course of the week, Keene will produce hundreds of paintings on plywood that appropriate iconic album and magazine covers, as well as postcards of cityscapes and landscapes. Inspired by musicians he met during his time as a DJ in the early 90s, Keene has adopted an artistic practice based on hustle and accessibility. He frequently compares selling his art, which ranges from $15 - $50, to selling tour merchandise. Keene received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA from Yale University. He has exhibited at the Brooklyn Public Library, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, and Marlborough Contemporary, among others. In a 2014 Wall Street Journal profile, Keene estimated that he has sold 250,000 paintings.

Prunella Clough (1919-1999) is widely regarded as one of the most significant British artists of the post-war period. Though Clough rebelled against her aristocratic family, she found mentorship in her aunt, the pioneering architect and designer Eileen Gray. Inspired by the industrial imperative of post-war reconstruction, Clough’s canvases morph shipping yards, tube terminals and factory floors into laboriously worked, atmospheric abstractions. Following her touring retrospective at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1960, Clough received frequent invitations to exhibit, though most were denied due to her deeply private nature. She has been the subject of numerous posthumous exhibits, most notably a major retrospective at the Tate Gallery, London in 2007. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Gallery, London; The Scottish National Gallery of Art, Edinburgh; The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. PˑPˑOˑW is delighted to present Blast (May 31 – June 28, 2019), Clough’s first solo exhibition in New York.

Ben Gocker (b. 1979) fashions his “arrangements” from intricately cut and painted wood scraps that interlock to form dense fields of abstract patterning. Melding Jasper John’s use of crosshatching with the aesthetics of children’s books and word searches, his large-scale Things That Don’t Last, 2019, proposes a new approach to expressionism, narrative and poetic space. Employing a kind of rough and ready marquetry, Gocker’s process of precisely assembling minute elements with wire, rather than glue, hypothetically allows for endless rearrangement and play. Gocker received an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In addition to participating in numerous group exhibitions nationwide, Gocker has given readings at Simone Subal Gallery, James Fuentes Gallery, and the New Museum. His works are in private and public collections nationally and have been reviewed in Artforum, Art in America, and The New Yorker. His third solo exhibition with PˑPˑOˑW will open in September, 2019.
Judith Linhares (b.1940) combines modes of abstract expressionism with Bay Area figuration to create uniquely irradiant paintings and works on paper. PˑPˑOˑW will present a lush series of still lives undertaken while Linhares was recovering from a serious injury. These charming and keenly observed works on paper factually yet fancifully record the floral bouquets she unfailing keeps in her studio. Psychologically charged and formally complex, each still life represents a moment of recovery and play. Linhares earned a BFA and an MFA from California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA. In 1978, Linhares was included in Marcia Tucker’s influential Bad Painting exhibition at the New Museum. Her work is held in many permanent collections, including the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. Her recent exhibition Hearts on Fire, her first with P.P.O.W, was met with critical acclaim, with reviews published in The New Yorker, Hyperallergic and artcritical. A simultaneous presentation of historical works at ADAA: The Art Show 2019 was reviewed in the New York Times as presenting “a muscular and unapologetic femininity that feels not only welcome right now but necessary.”

Katharine Kuharic (b. 1962) uses a highly keyed pallet and meticulous, multi-layered compositions to create sensual and alluring scenes. Well known for images depicting American life and culture, her newest series takes a more contemplative note. In Tabernacle of Tears, 2019 Kuharic paints each leaf and feather with a tenderness that is at once manic and meditative. Contrasting deep reds and greens with stark blues and whites, this work grapples with the passage of time and contrasts nature’s abundant beauty with its piercing brutality. Kuharic completed her BFA in Painting and Drawing at Carnegie Mellon University in 1984. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad including exhibits in Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Stockholm, London, and Amsterdam. Kuharic has had museum exhibitions at the St. Louis Art Museum, The Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, the South Bend Regional Art Museum, the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, and the Portsmouth Museum of Art.

Erin M. Riley (b. 1985) is a fiber artist who renders erotic and psychologically raw imagery in hand-dyed wool tapestries. Origin, 2019 continues Riley’s exploration into the innate complexities of womanhood and self-representation. A response to Gustave Courbet’s voyeuristic The Origin of the World, 1866, Riley grapples with celebrated and influential depictions of the female body, while also positing self-imaging as a pathway to self-actualization. Riley received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions throughout the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Australia. Riley has lectured extensively throughout the country and has had residencies at The MacDowell Colony, NH and the Museum of Art and Design, NY. Used Tape, Riley’s debut exhibition at PˑPˑOˑW took place in May 2018. In her review for the New York Times, Jillian Steinhauer writes, “Ms. Riley successfully intertwines two strands of second-wave feminist art: the reclamation of so-called craft mediums and women’s use of their bodies. Into this she braids the distanced gaze of the still life. If the show has a thesis statement, it might be that for women, pain and pleasure remain perilously intertwined — a lesson that bears repeating in the time of #MeToo.”

David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) was among the most incisive and prolific American artists of the 1980s and 90s. David Wojnarowicz’s work has been exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The American Center, Paris, France; The Busan Museum of Modern Art, Korea; Centro Galego de Art Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; The Barbican Art Gallery, London; and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. His work is in permanent collections of major museums nationally and internationally and his life and work have been the subject of significant scholarly studies. Wojnarowicz has had retrospectives at the galleries of the Illinois State University, curated by Barry Blinderman (1990) and at the New Museum, curated by Dan Cameron (1999). A third retrospective, David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night, co-curated by David Kiehl and David Breslin, opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in July 2018. The widely acclaimed exhibition has been reviewed in Artforum, The Guardian, The New York Times and The New Yorker, among others. The retrospective will travel to the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid in May 2019 and the Musee d/Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg City in November 2019. A concurrent exhibition of Wojnarowicz’s films and photographs opened at the KW Berlin in February 2019.