Enjoy the #$%*! Slices is an art show featuring drawings by Calvin Anthony, paintings by Robert Harris and films by Leilani Schuman. Grounded in an iconography of the street, their works wryly explore themes of urban decay and gentrification, social isolation, and the frustrations and joys of merely getting by in the world. Anthony, Harris and Schuman are distinctly different artists in style and temperament, yet each in their way offers a modern personification of Baudelaire’s flâneur, the roving sidewalk connoisseur.
A sardonic attitude toward life further unites these artists. The sentiment echoes in excerpts from Calvin Anthony's unpublished subway diaries:
…For Rent, for Lease, Space Vacant, NO FLOOR. Your Ad Here! Prime Investment Opportunity. Luxury Living. Living the dream. GAS OFF. Looking for your next car? We appreciate your business. Buy or sell, rent-to-own. Upsold, down-market, "movin' on up," please hold...Uncertain Outlook. NO ENTRY. Don't give up your day job! Closing, Final Sale, Going Out of Business, Out of Service...another dollar slice, one more cup of coffee, have a nice day...
Or put another way, “enjoy the #$%*! slices.”
Calvin Anthony was active in the “New Bohemia” of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and witnessed firsthand the rapid transformation of that diverse and creative haven into a hub of upscale living. His collagist drawings depict neighborhoods in decay and renewal, and explore with wit and pictorial invention the psychological and visual complexities of an urban environment in upheaval. His disillusionment with the commercialization of the art world led Anthony to leave New York City in 2010. Much of his work in Slices is being exhibited for the first time.
Robert Harris is a prolific chronicler of urban grit. His acerbic eye is attuned to the emotional tenor of city living, with its attendant small daily triumphs and disappointments. The self-styled “painting machine” here exhibits a group of works from recent years alongside new paintings being shown for the first time. Harris’ profane take on the humble, comforting pizza slice in a recent painting lends this exhibition its name.
Leilani Schuman was a spectral presence in the lower Manhattan scene for nearly six decades, a polymathic creative who photographed, painted, designed clothing and wrote poetry. Her 1973 short film, Ozymandius Turok, or: the ephemeral quality of the World Trade Center, posits the modern metropolis as a lost ruin, evoking the visions foretold in Shelley’s sonnet, Ozymandias. Schuman was a fiercely private individual who eschewed the spotlight. Her films are not known to have been publicly screened before now.
Enjoy the #$%*! Slices opens Thursday, March 19, from 5 to 8 PM. Thereafter, the exhibition will be open every Saturday, noon to 4.
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