Steve Gianakos
Old Flames
October 16 through November 20, 2004
Fredericks Freiser Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by Steve Gianakos. The works in Old Flames date from 1989 to 1991. The artist has exhibited extensively since 1969 including solo exhibitions at The Clocktower and the Institute for Art and Urban Resources, NY, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX and Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC. He has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, NY, Whitney Museum of Art, NY and the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH.
The series of paintings in Old Flames encompass the high-low duality of elegance and crudeness in the juxtaposition of black- and-white cartoon nudes and the sophisticated form-making in which they are constructed. These women are stereotypically sexual, with vacant expressions and provocative poses. However the confrontation is always diffused with humorous intent.
In the September 2004 issue of Artnews, Robert Rosenblum writes:
“(Gianakos)…is, as the fancy word goes, “transgressive” (his paintings and drawings are nonstop assaults on family values of every kind). For three decades, he has, like Mel Brooks, pushed the envelope of bad taste, crossing one boundary after another, from Hitler to feeble old ladies. Moreover, he works in an equally bad-taste style that, to be art historical for a moment is a big branch off the tree planted by Roy Lichtenstein, a great admirer of Gianakos’s work. Most of the time, Gianakos tells his outrageous stories with gross, comic-book contours minus Lichtenstein’s Benday dots, leaving us with the graphic punch of the lowest grade cartoonist.”
Fredericks Freiser Gallery is located at 504 West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm. For further information and/or photographs please contact the gallery by telephone at (212) 633-6555, fax at (212) 367-9502, or email fredericksfreiser@nyc.rr.com. Find more information on Steve Gianakos or any of our artists at www.fredericksfreisergallery.com