How Soon Is Now ?

June 1st - August 18th, 2008

By Milagros Bello

The show is part of the Artist in the Market Program (AIM) for emerging artists that the Bronx Museum presents in its North Wing Building. The Program includes round-table discussions, weekly seminars and access to digital technology. The museum offers AIM artists an expanded networking opportunity and a group of peers who can be relied upon as they navigate the art world.  “How Soon is Now?”  is an AIM 28 show that was curated by Erin Riley-Lopez, Assistant Curator of the museum.

Noteworthy: “Wet Spot” 2008 by Bill Lohre, a huge wall assemblage in the form of a maquette referring to the tragic Katrina disaster, points out the fragility and the abandonment of the poor and the marginal in extreme catastrophes. Outstanding is the work “Armored Cars: Protect Yourself From Ballistic Attacks” 2007, a video installation by Angie Waller alluding to urban violence and upscale armored cars for the powerful and the rich.  The video “Untitled (Jump)” 2007-2008 by John Richey, through outstanding simplicity and minimal approach, presents a commanding and repetitive drawing-like image revealing the obsessive and mechanical human condition. Notable are the Dulce Pinzon’s photographs: outsiders and pariahs, such as “Cecilia” 2007, showing their strangeness and marginality in a potent “Caravaggian” light. Remarkable is the work “Mobilize” 2008 by Emcee C.M., Master of One, a complex  and delirious assemblage of materials such as: a tricycle, tools, hardware, pantry dishes, found food, popcorn, blankets,  16mm  film, etc., that creates  a powerful visual impact and reflects on a deregulated world. In rupture with tradition, Blanka Amezkua shows hand-embroidered and crocheted drawings with politically-charged feminine images in strong allusion to difference and alterity. The artist shows angered women from Mexican comic books. Cosme Herrera’s “Frost” 2007, through a minimal approach of pictorial elements over wood, presents a multilayered narrative of humans in potential clashes.  Jeanne Verdoux, in “Living Room” 2008, recreates the everyday and the private using a satirical approach. Through drawing, loop animation, French paper, lighting, and wire figures, she stages a living room scene with a half-naked woman in intimate acts. The delicate and laborious drawings of Christy Powers are the ultimate representation of pure subjectivity. They propose an ontological exploration of human environments, a survey of existential ordeals, a journey into contemporary society.

Other promising participants are Michelle Frick, Laura Napier, Mark Stafford, Catherine Kunkemueller, Daniel Bejar, Rebecca Loyche, Keliy Anderson-Staley, Vidal Centeno, Jason Falchook, Brenda Carroll, Ra di Marino, Charles Beronio, Rony Quevedo, Si Jae Byun, Irys Schenker, Sujin Lee, Giuseppe Luciani, Margarita Correia, David Gilbert, Matthew Burcaw, Kyun Woo Han. This generation of artists creates a new wave of expression and stand as a new voice in contemporary art.