ethan greenbaum - galerie pact...galeriepact.com - [email protected] tuesday - saturday from 11am...

galeriepact.com - [email protected] - Saturday from 11am to 7pm

70 rue des Gravilliers 75003 Paris

Ethan GreenbaumCold Frame

October 20th - December 1st

Galerie pact, Paris

pact with Aaron Siskind

pact@galerie_pact

pact is proud to present Ethan Greenbaum’s first solo exhibition in Europe.The exhibition will be on view October 20th to December 1st, with an opening reception on October 20th at 6pm (during FIAC Gallery night). Referring to the artist’s inspiration forphotography, «Cold frame» will include a vintage piece by the American photographer Aaron Siskind.

A process of intrusion marks Ethan Greenbaum’s practice. On his walks through the city, he encounters the leftovers of construction sites, fragmented building materials, and peeling ephemera—surfaces that once masked or lay beneath edifices and scaffolding alike. In these walks, Greenbaum is no flâneur but rather a transgressor into these specialized spaces. Taking photographs of these incursions, he then digitally manipulates them in the studio. He adjusts their contrast and saturation with an eye to preserving the readymade image. These photos are output via printing methodologies that confuse our presumptions about where they originate and where they could possibly reside now. This is visual language at street level—the horizontal city, which allows Greenbaum to accentuate the manner in which materials depict the tangibility of themselves. For instance, the image of a brick reprinted onto Plexiglass® still conveys the immanence of brick. We are clued into this from its pockmarked texture, the variations of the surface, and by the tactility of the mortar seeping out from between the seams. He heightens this optical depth by digitally-carving surfaces based on the value range inherent in the images. Areas like shadows that 3D software reads as depth may in fact be topographically raised, creating a dissonance between machine based perception and our own. In addition, he prints the original image atop these carved substrates, creating a tension between the zenith of surface and more deeply carved areas. The seemingly illogical procedures of the digital router are superimposed with the voluptuous color of his prints. This process creates a haptic tension accentuated by his use of reflective materials, scalar shifts, and hyperbolized pixelation—assuring us this is not merely documentation, but an interrogation and reframing of his source. In Greenbaum’s focus on the transitional, there is an entryway into the slippages of the contemporary city. The way in which we spend time with mutable structures or momentary postings—all of which become ruins of a time past—is very much akin to Aaron Siskind’s close-up photographs of remnants. The decision to include Siskind’s Alcoman, 1950 in the exhibition allows the viewer a contemplation on what Siskind called a redemption of the ruin. In his photography, Siskind is calling attention to the residual, but it begs the question: how do elements of the past construct our experiences of the now? Hovering over the desk in Greenbaum’s exhibition, Siskind’s black and white photograph elicits congruencies between his modern photography and Greenbaum’s contemporary practice. Alcoman proposes a point of contrast to much of the material changes in photography of the last 9 years. During this period, artists such as Greenbaum have taken the photographic image as a starting point to explore facets of painting, sculpture and installation. Siskind’s work, though radical in its time for featuring close-ups of unidentifiable subject-matter, remains traditional in its retention of an image pictured below the pictorial plane, reproduced on photo paper. Greenbaum jettisons the traditional bifurcation between what is beneath or above the pictorial plane. Whether on Plexiglass®, wood, or Corian©, he often prints his photographs on both sides of his substrate and utilizes misalignment as a means to intensify sculptural depth.

press release

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In other moments, Greenbaum seems unconcerned with physical depth and makes his intrusion into the image via illusion. At one end of the gallery, a large-scale photo installation occupies two walls. Greenbaum casually refers to these large vinyl wall wraps as a kind of wallpaper. However, he is not so much interested in the decorative qualities of traditional wallpaper. Instead he wants to bring our attention to the unstable qualities of images within the fabric of the city. We are accustomed to how building materials wrap and enclose urban space while remaining largely invisible. Greenbaum’s wallpaper features an image of a house in construction. It is a sly and absurdist play on our understanding of illusionism in all of its two-dimensional limitations. When he photographs blue and yellow foam insulation, we know it is a finished artwork of an unfinished structure. The photograph of a window, a completed segment in the construction, juxtaposed with the incomplete feel of the foam defies our desire to look within the artwork. In this installation, we are forced to reconcile the porosity of the image as it is—divorced from the mandates of either the immersive picture or inconsequential background. Greenbaum likes to gesture to how the image is almost an illusion of its source; is also itself; and is the obscuring material of the moment. These sort of elastic maneuvers are what allow these works to interact with the visual landscape of our present time rather than to depict it. It is what makes this less a process of redemption of the ruin and more a play with discomfort—whereby the weirdness of translation catches us unaware.

Andrianna Campbell, About Ethan Greenbaum, 2016

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Ethan Greenbaum lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Graduated of Yale’s Master of Fine Art, USASelected exhibition venues of his work include KANSAS, New York Derek Eller Gallery, New York; Hauser and Wirth, New York; Marlborough Chelsea, New York, Higher Pictures, New York; Ma-rianne Boesky, New York, Circus Gallery, Los Angeles; Steve Turner, Los Angeles; The Suburban, Chicago; Michael Jon & Alan, Miami, The Aldrich Museum, Connecticut; and So-crates Sculpture Park in Long Island City. His work has been discussed in The New York Times, Modern Painters, Artforum, BOMB Magazine, ArtReview and Interview Magazine, among others.

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Ethan GreenbaumCold Frame, Galerie pact, 2016

Exhibition view© Justin Meekel

Courtesy Pact gallery

Cover page:Ethan GreenbaumReservations, 2016

Direct to substrate print, acrylic on carved corian138,43 x 75,7 x 1,27 cm. - 54,5 x 29,75 x 0,5 in.

Courtesy Pact gallery and the artist

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Ethan GreenbaumThe System, 2016

Acrylic and double sided direct to substrate print on carved acrylic122 x 122 cm. - 48 x 48 in.

Courtesy Pact gallery and the artist

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Courtesy Pact gallery7




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CV // ethan greenbaum Born in Tom’s River, New Jersey, New York, United States Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, United States

2015 Flats, Kansas, New York, USAChambers, Halsey Mckay, East Hampton, New York, USALEAVE, 55 Gansevoort, New York, USA

solo shows

2014 Ethan Greenbaum : Solo Booth with KANSAS, Untitled Art Fair, Miami, Florida, USA

2013 Prospect, KANSAS, New York, USA

2012 Cultured Stone, Thierry Goldberg, New York, USA

2010 The Suburban, The Suburban, Chicago, Illinois, USA

collective exhibitions and projects

2016 Swip, Scroll, Stems Gallery, Brussels, BelgiumLow, Lyles & King, New York, USA 9 Sculptures, BravinLee Programs, New York, USAFACE TO FACE: Works from Ernesto Esposito Collection, Palazzo Fruscione, Salerno, Italy

2015 Flats, Kansas, New York, USA Just Another, Luce Gallery, Turin, ItalyMixed Double, organized by Ryan Steadman, Sometimes, New York, USABeyond the surface: Image as Object, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia, USACrunchy, organized by Gregory Linn and Clayton Press, Marianne Boesky, New York, USA

2014 Wigner’s Friends, curated by Nate Hitchcock, Vogt Gallery, New York, USA Broken Surface, Artificial Matter, Halsey Mckay, East Hampton, New York, USAPure Product, curated by Isaac Lyles, 247365, Brooklyn, New York, USA Fixed Variable, Hauser and Wirth, New York, USAAin’tings, curated by Ryan Steadman, Robert Blumenthal Gallery, New York, USASoup du Jour, curated by Keith Varadi, Sadie Halie Projects, Brooklyn, New York, USAThe New Beauty of Our Modern Life, curated by Kate Steciw, Higher Pictures, New York, USA

2016 Cold frame, pact, Paris, France

2013 Gattaca, curated by Hunter Braithwaite, Michael Jon Gallery, Miami, Florida, USAInside Order, KANSAS, New York, USADecenter DC, The George Washington University , Washigton, DC, USADynasty, Hotel Particulier, New York, USAThe Order of Things, NURTUREart Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, USA

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2012 NeoNatural, Steve Turner Contemporay, Los Angeles, California, USATake Shelter in the World, Boston University Art Gallery, Bosto, Massachusetts, USAOne Year Later, Blackburn 20/20, New York, USAFound Outside, Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA

2011 Die Spur, Gartnehaus der Kunst, Munich, GermanySo Different, So Appealing, Grammercy Hotel Penthouse, New York, USAWhy Did the Chicken Cross the Road, Yale University Art Gallery, New Heaven, Connecticut, USAWork hard, Wildlife, Brooklyn, New York, USANorfolk, Thierry Goldberg, New York, USATroutspots, Deniston Hill, Woodridge, New York, USAPerflectly Damaged, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, USAAnalogue, Le Luminary Center of the Arts, Saint Louis, Missouri, USABecoming Animal, curated by Fette Sans, The Glendale College Art Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USACommunity Colleagues, Maurice Flecker Memorial Gallery, Selden, New York, USAPowders, a Phial, and a Paper Book, Marlborough Gallery, New York, USAFrom the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Jon Lutz, curated by Jon Lutz, Wildlife, Brooklyn, New York, USA

2010 Run and Tell That, curated by Eric Gleason, Syracuse University Art Gallery, Syracuse, New York, USAS(l)umm(er)ing on Madison Avenue, curated by Jo-ey Tang, The Notary Public, New York, USAOne Acre Plot, Curated by Andrea Hill, Majestic Farm, Mountaindale, New York, USAHeed The Machine, Illustrious, curated by Allie Tsypin, St. Cecilia’s Convent, Brooklyn, New York, USA

2009 No Objective, curated by Jenny Jaskey, TSA, Philadelphia, USAThe Decentered Practice, Circus Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USAIRL, Capricious, Brooklyn, New York, USA

2008 7 x 7, Why + Wherefore, curated by Lumi Tan, Summer Guthery and Nicholas WeistSomething for the Commute, Brooklyn Fire Proof Brooklyn, New York, USA

2007 Let’s Bolt, curated by Lumi Tan, Julie Fishkin and Matt Lucas, CSV Center, New York, USAThe Beginnings, Why + Wherefore, curated by Lumi Tan, Summer Guthery and Nicholas Weist

2006 Tact-Traction, Anna Kustera Gallery, New York, USADistance, curated by Jaia Chen, Shenghua Art Center, Nanjing, China

2005 In The Ring, Buia Gallery, New York, NY

projects and curatorial

2016 Low, Lyles and King, New York, USA

2010 Out of Hand, online curatorial project, Culturehall, culturehall.com

2009 The Highlights: 2 years, CVS Center, New York, USA

2008 Highlights Film Screening: Doa Aly and Juan William Chavez, Harris Liebeman Gallery, NYC, USA

2007 The Highlights, online arts journal, co-founder and editor

2011 The Finishers, Co-curated with Eric Gleason, The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, New York, USATwo Fold, Co-curated with Colleen Asper, The Suburban, Chicago, Illinois, USA

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publications

2013 Greenbaum, Ethan, «Letha Wilson: Notes on Nature», Wax Magazine, DecemberGreenbaum, Ethan, «&&&», Collaboration with Sara Greenberger Rafferty and David Kennedy Cutler, Paper Cuts, December

2012 Greenbaum, Ethan, «The Cave of Allegory: The Wall», Calatogue Essay to accompany the exhibition «Take Shelter in the World», Boston University, Boston, August

2010 Greenbaum, Ethan «The Pedagogical Sculptures of the Tristate Area, Part One», papermonument.com Greenbaum, Ethan «The Education of Eric Amsterdam» Skyler Brickley Exhibition Calatogue, Marvelli Gallery, January

2009 Greenbaum, Ethan « I like your work: art and etiquette», papermonument.com

2008 Greenbaum, Ethan « I made it Out of Clay: Erin Shirreff », Heeb Magazine, Issue 77Greenbaum, Ethan « Inside Lights: Magnus Von Plessun and Lisa Sigal » www.thehighlights.org, March

2007 Greenbaum, Ethan « Daniel Gordon Interview »,The Highlights, July Greenbaum, Ethan « Kristin Baket at Dietch Project», The Highlights, May Greenbaum, Ethan « THe Cement Garden at Marvelli Gallery », The Highlight, March

2014 Russeth, Andrew. “A Look Around the Untitled Art Fair in Miami Beach,” ArtNews, December 8th

Indrisek, Scott. “Afros, Abstraction, and Photographic Experimentation at Untitled,” ArtInfo, December Laster, Paul. “A Bigger Tent on the Sand Sets South Beach’s UNTITLED. Art Fair Apart,” New York Observer, December 2nd

Knoblauch, Loring. “Fixed Variable at Hauser and Wirth,” Collector Daily, July 16th

“Fixed Variable Group Show at Hauser and Wirth,” ArtObserved, July 9th

Indrisek, Scott. “10 Must-See Summer Group Shows,” ArtInfo, July 7th

Indrisek, Scott. “Hauser & Wirth Has Your Multi-Generational Photography Weekend,” ArtInfo,June 27th

“Fixed Variable,” Time Out New York, June 24th

Dorland, Chris. “System/Service/Processor,” Frische, MayDawson, Sage. “Lost and Found,” Temporary Art Review, March 5th

Daunais, Paul. “The New Beauty of Our Modern Life,” Dis Magazine, February 27th

2015 Indrisek, Scott. “Doing the Job Halfway: Ethan Greenbaum Keeps Building,” ArtInfo, November 16th

Knoblauch, Loring. “Ethan Greenbaum: Flats at KANSAS,” Collector Daily, November 24th

Small, Rachel. “How Ethan Greenbaum Sees the City,” Interview Magazine, July 28th

Segal, Mark. “The Art Scene,” The East Hampton Star, July 23th

“Artist of the Week: Ethan Greenbaum,” LVL3 Media, July 13th

Indrisek, Scott. “Ethan Greenbaum Shows You the Door,” ArtInfo, January 28th

Leers, Dan. “Beyond The Surface: Image as Object,” Exhibition Catalogue, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, March

2016 Steadman, Ryan. “Do Artists Make the Best Curators?,” Observer, March 11th

Campbell, Andrianna. “Interview: Ethan Greenbaum,” BOMB Magazine, January 8th

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awards and residencies

2015 Dieu Donne Workspace Program, New York, USA Residency and The Barry Schactman Painting Prize

education MFA, Painting/Printmaking, Yale University School of Art, New Heaven, Connecticut, USA

BFA, Studio Art, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

The Robert Blackburn SIP Fellowship, New York, USA

The Socrates EAF Fellowship, Long Island City, New York, USA

The Edward Albee Foundation, New York, USA

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Ethan GreenbaumHook, 2014

Direct to substrate print acrylic on vacuum formed PETG91,5 x 70 cm. - 36 x 27,5 in.

Courtesy Pact gallery and the artist 14

about aaron siskind

Artist and educator, Aaron Siskind holds a preeminent place in the history of American photography. He was the only photographic member of the American Abstract-Expressionist movement, drawing inspiration and inspiring notable modern painters such as Willem DeKooning Barnett Newman and Franz Kline. During the 1930s, Siskind was interested in documenting the pressing social conditions of his time. It was not until after an exploration of the external world had been exhausted, that he began using the outside world as a means of internal self-exploration –harnessing the associative powers of his vernacular objects. Siskind focused on the formal relationship between light, structure and texture, exploring ideas of decay and regeneration. His practice was an overtly straightforward technique of isolating and enlarging everyday subject matter, creating conceptual metaphors with new purpose and meaning. The artist ultimately radicalized the medium by pinpointing photography’s potential as an abstract form of expression and an aesthetic end in itself. Aaron Siskind was born in New York in 1903. He taught high school English for over two decades before began his photography career as a documentarian in the New York Photo League. In 1951, Siskind went on to teach at the Institute of Design in Chicago and later on the Rhode Island School of Design. He was also involved in the founding of the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester with Nathan Lyons. He died in Providence in 1991 at the age of 87. The artist received many distinguished awards including a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Gold Star Merit Award from Philadelphia College of Art, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and Rhode Island’s Governer Prize for the Arts. Bruce Silverstein has organized three major shows of his work since 2001, and is the exclusive representative of the Aaron Siskind Foundation, which maintains Siskind’s legacy by providing annual grants encouraging and celebrating artistic achievement in contemporary photography.

Between 1947 and 1951, Siskind exhibited regularly at the prestigious Charles Egan Gallery alongside many well-known painters of the period. Numerous posthumous exhibitions have been organized worldwide. Such institutions are amongst others, the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.; Cleveland Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Whitney Museum of Art, New York; and the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson.

Work by Aaron Siskind is held in museum collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Center for Creative Photography, Tucson; Getty Center, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.

Siskind published several important books and catalogues, and seven major monographs such as Places: Aaron Siskind Photographs (1976), Harlem Document, Photographs 1932-1940: Aaron Siskind (1981), Aaron Siskind: Pleasures and Terrors (1982), and Song of The Open Road (1990).

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2015- 2016 Aaron Siskind: Pleasures and Terrors, California Museum of Photography, Riverside, CaliforniaFrom Modern to Contemporary, ICA Boston, Massachussets, USAPure Products of American GO Crazy, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, USA

2014- 2015 Aaron Siskind - L’autre Réalité Photographique, Pavillon PopulaireMontpellier, France, November 28, 2014 - February 23, 2015

2009 At the Crossroads of American Photography : Callahan, Siskind, Sommer, Scottsdale, Arizona,USA

2005 LISBOAPHOTO 2005, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, Portugal

2004

2003 Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona, USAMuseum of Contemporary Photography Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois, USAMadison Art Center, Madison , Winsconsin, USAThe Art Museum at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USACleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USAWHanmi Museum of Photography, Southern Seoul, Bengi-dong, Korea

Whitney Museum of Art, New York, USAStudio Museum, Harlem, New York, USA Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, USAThe Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, USA

2016 Abstract Expresionism, Royal Academy of Art, London, United-Kingdom Songs and the Sky, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York, USAPULP, Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio, USAAbstractions, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA Leap Before you Look, ICA Boston, Boston, Masachussets, USA

2017 Abstract Expresionism, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain (Forthcoming)

1947-1951 Charles Egan Gallery, New York, USA

CV // aaron siskind

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Ethan Greenbaum45, 75, 120, 2016 (tryptich)

Carved birch 91,5 x 28,2 cm. - 36 x 11,0,75 in.

152,4 x 42,7 x 2,54 cm. - 60 x 18 x 1 in. 243,8 x 76,2 x 3,2 cm. - 96 x 30 x 1,25 in.

© Justin MeekelCourtesy Pact gallery

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Aaron SiskindAcolman, 1955

Vintage gelatin silver print44,5 x 56,8 cm. - 17,5 x 22,4 in.

© Justin MeekelCourtesy SAGE Gallery

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’s etymology & philosophy

is the acronym from our initials: Pierre-Arnaud (Doucède) and Charlotte Trivini.

reflects our commitment to display the talent of emerging artists, with none or very little visibility in France, whether or not they are recognised abroad.

also refers to the way we design each exhibition as an artistic pact. Thus, each show will be subject to an enriching conversation:

Either with the work of another artist who influenced the exhibited works (this historical work, from the second market or loaned by a gallery or a collector, and presented within the same exhibition, may be a contemporary art work, a modern one, Art Brut, Tribal Art, etc.)

Or through the intervention of someone outside the contemporary art world, whose work or reflection correlates to the theme of the exhibition (a mathematician, dancer, surgeon, film director, etc.)

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useful information

70 rue des Gravilliers75003 Paris

galeriepact.com

pact

@galerie_pact#galeriepact

Charlotte [email protected]+33 (0)6 27 01 08 66

Pierre-Arnaud Doucè[email protected]+33 (0)7 61 01 83 83

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ethan greenbaum - galerie pact...galeriepact.com - [email protected] tuesday - saturday from 11am...

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