Enrique Chagoya
During the summer months, George Adams Gallery will present Road Show a group invitational exhibition featuring work by 26 artists. Highlighting the American phenomenon of the road trip, Road Show includes paintings by Chester Arnold, Jim Barsness, Jose Bedia, David Sandlin, Andrew Lenaghan, James McGarrell, and Elizabeth Saveri; drawings by William Beckman, George Boorujy, Enrique Chagoya, Dimitri Kozyrev, Lordy Rodriguez, Peter Saul, Richard Shaw, HC Westermann, and Joseph Yoakum; a ceramic sculpture by Margaret Dodd; videos by Guy Hundere and Paul Ramirez Jonas; and photographs by Rudy Burckhardt, Robert Frank, Arthur Leipzig, Mary Ellen Mark, Ramon Muxter, Joel Sternfeld, and Thomas Tulis.
The idea of the road trip has reached a near mythological status in American culture. From Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road to the film Easy Rider, the road trip has often been portrayed as an adventure-filled journey unfolding on the endless highways that crisscross America. Road Show includes artwork that appropriates or subverts the road trip myth. A Longer Day, a 22-minute video by Paul Ramirez Jonas, for example, follows a westward highway towards the setting sun in an attempt to add one more minute to the day. Similarly, in his video Impasse, Guy Hundere uses animated still photographs to simulate a passing landscape in which everything but the farmhouse in the distance moves swiftly by.
Other works record specific places, such as Rudy Burckhardt's documentary-style photograph of a gas-station in Astoria, New York taken in 1940 and Andrew Lenaghan's detailed landscape Off Route 52, Irvine, Kentucky (1998) painted on site during the artist's travels across the South.
Photography has played a central role in constructing a visual identity associated with being "on the road." The exhibition includes Mary Ellen Mark's social-documentary photograph, The Damm Family, which depicts a homeless family in their car, and an untitled photograph by Ramon Muxter which captures the roadside aftermath of a fallen mattress from the top of a van - evidence of the travails of highway travel. Arthur Leipzig's black and white photograph Chalk Games, Brooklyn, NY shows children at play in the streets in 1950 New York.
Dimitri Kosyrev and Elizabeth Saveri depict views from inside a moving car to draw attention to passing sites alongside the highway. Kosyrev's minutely detailed pencil drawings show landscapes as they might be seen simultaneously in the left and right sideview mirrors. Similarly, I-5, Saveri's installation of 34 small-scale paintings is a record of "sites" along Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The banal highway landscapes are interspersed with visual detours including a trip to McDonalds.
In other work, George Boorujy's ink drawings, for example, offer slightly surreal renditions of roadside attractions--one image depicts two life size plastic deer atop an Amoco gas station. David Sandlin uses humor and a comic-book aesthetic in his paintings to create a story line about two towns Pure Town and Sinland; and Lordy Rodriguez reconfigures road maps, cross-pollinating states and cities where Maryland is redrawn as a new state bordered by Wyoming and Nebraska and includes the cities of Newport and Charlotte.
Exhibition Checklist
1. Dimitri Kozyrev
Untitled, 2001
pencil on paper
22 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches
DiKd 1
Untitled, 2002
pencil on paper
22 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches
DiKd 2
Untitled, 2002
pencil on paper
22 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches
DiKd 3
2. Lordy Rodriguez
Maryland, 2002
ink on paper
38 x 34 inches
LoRd 1
3. Arthur Leipzig
Chalk Games, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1950
gelatin silver print
15 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches
ARLh 49
4. Mary Ellen Mark
The Homeless Damm Family in their Car,
Los Angeles, CA, 1987
selenium toned gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches
MEMh 1
5. Robert Frank
Chicago, 1954
gelatin silver print
printed 1974
20 x 16 inches
RFh 1
6. Rudy Burkhardt
Astoria, NY, 1940
gelatin silver print
printed 1980
10 x 7 inches
7. Ramon Muxter
Wille, 1969
gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches
RMuxh 1
8. William Beckman
Landscape (Wassaic, NY), 1974
pastel on paper
15 3/4 x 19 1/2 inches
WBd 07
9. Andrew Lenaghan
Interior of Caprice on Coney Island Avenue
with Self-Portrait, 2003
oil on panel
16 x 32 inches
AnLp 353
10. Guy Hundere
Impasse, 2001
video, light box
21 x 15 x 3 3/4 inches
GuHuh 1
11. George Boorujy
Nowhere in Particular, 2003
ink on paper
39 3/4 x 85 inches
Gbod 1
12. Thomas Tulis
Untitled (See Rock City), 1991
cibachrome print
16 x 20 inches
TTh 02.01
Thomas Tulis
Untitled (House and Car), 1993
cibachrome print
17 x 22 inches
TTh 04.02
13. Joel Sternfeld
Exhausted Renegade Elephant, Woodland, WA, 1979
from the series American Prospects
cibachrome print
16 x 20 inches
14. James McGarrell
Ozark, Valley Fog, 1991
oil on canvas
80 x 62 inches
JMp 15
15. Enrique Chagoya
Friendly Cannibals on the Run, 2003
alkyd, collage, ink transfers
8 x 117 1/2 inches
ECd 19
16. Margaret Dodd
Foreshortened Cadillac, 1967
glazed ceramic
8 x 12 x 11 1/2 inches
MDs 1
17. Andrew Lenaghan
Looking North from Hunters Point Bridge, LI City, 2002
oil on panel
24 x 49 inches
AnLp 339
18. Chester Arnold
Going Nowhere, 2003
oil on linen
18 x 22 inches
CAp 32
19. Chester Arnold
Interchange: Nocturne #3, 2003
oil on linen
18 x 22 inches
CAp 31
20. Elizabeth Saveri
Driving on the I-5, 2003
oil on wood
34 individual paintings, overall 6 x 3 feet
ESp 1
21. Paul Ramirez Jonas
A Longer Day, 1997
VHS, exhibition copy
18 minutes
available as DVD, edition of 3
PRJh 1
22. Peter Saul
Cash, 1967-68
crayon, collage, ink on cardboard
30 x 40 inches
PSd 129
23. David Sandlin
Welcome to Pure Town U.S.A., 1997
acrylic on canvas
36 x 24 inches
DSp 2
24. David Sandlin
Iretown, U.S.A., 1997
acrylic on canvas
36 x 24 inches
DSp 3
25. HC Westermann
See America First # 15, 1968
ink, watercolor on paper
22 x 30 inches
HCWd 13
26. Joseph Yoakum
Trinity and Begas Valley, 1964
ink and colored pencil on paper
12 x 19 inches
JYd 1
27. Joseph Yoakum
Choco Valley of San Luis Obispo County, 1969
ink and colored pencil on paper
12 x 19 inches
JYd 2