Nordenhake

Owl Stretching Time

19 Mar - 24 Apr 2010

Eric Dietman
Oil painting, 1977, detail
OWL STRETCHING TIME

March 19 - April 24, 2010

Connecting different geographical and historical positions, 'Owl Stretching Time' brings together artists who share an irreverent attitude toward the boundaries of the mediums and genres in which they work. The exhibition is comprised of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, collages and ceramics.

These artists share a sensibility for extracting elements from their initial cultural context thus connecting sources that get culturally re-positioned through fantasy and desire. Their works tend to confound any clear identification or reduction to a single communicative meaning.

Installed side-by-side, these relatively disparate works lay bare the continuities and rich cross-connections within their practices. The breadth of back-and-forth in the exhibition makes evident the artists' translation of subject and sensibility across mediums, cultures, and artistic eras, all seemingly directed by a playful ambiguity and a subtle sense of humor.

The title of the exhibition refers to the 4th episode of the British TV series 'Monthy Python's Flying Circus, aired on BBC on October 26, 1969. The name was in origin a proposed name for the series itself. Starting with a gentle, guitar-strumming singer, the scene quickly changes to an art gallery, where the quality of masterpiece paintings is being judged by how they taste**. A witty and grotesque parody of how aesthetical values can be perceived and consumed.