Kevin Bruk Gallery would like to extend to you and your guests an invitation for an intimate private viewing of artist Jason Middlebrook’s new solo exhibition, One Man’s Treasure is Another Man’s Trash. The gallery will be open to invitees for two hours prior to the show being opened to the public. If planning to attend, kindly RSVP by Saturday, December 1st.
JASON MIDDLEBROOK
One Man’s Treasure is Another Man’s Trash
Private View: Friday, December 7, 5 – 7 pm
Kevin Bruk Gallery is pleased to present the gallery’s first solo exhibition of work by New York artist Jason Middlebrook. The opening reception will be held on Friday, December 7th, 2007 from 7-10 pm. The exhibition will be on display from December 1st until January 8th.
Originally a native of California, Jason Middlebrook moved to New York City to participate in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program for studio practice. Following the program, Middlebrook then resided in Brooklyn for enough time to realize that the open air and wilderness of upstate New York would be more suitable to his individual needs.
This terse biographical segment is essential in gaining an understanding of what Jason Middlebrook is communicating artistically. There are several concerns that permeate the work through out which were brought on by the contrast of city versus country life, such as ecology, the environment, and time. In addition to these concerns however, none seem to be more apparent than the theory of entropy. Within an isolated system (which in Middlebrook’s instance is art history or urban development) the natural tendency of the universe is to move towards total disorder from a state of order. Given this, energy is the only way mankind can subvert entropy.
The building blocks of Jason Middlebrook’s work in One Man’s Treasure is Another Man’s Trash are literally replicas of Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes, which he crafted himself. Stemming from an anecdote that he recounts during an early job as a gallery assistant when a plumber unknowingly hung his coat on a stack of original Warhol Brillo boxes, Middlebrook became intrigued by how a box could have different implications based on social class. In decimating the Brillo Boxes’ art historical context, Middlebrook’s varied sculptures gain a newfound significance.
As much as this art historical reference serves as an honorarium, the geometric properties of a box itself prompts an equal amount of investigative preoccupation within this new body of work. The artist states, “My interests lie in the box as a shelter that man needs in order to survive. The box is how we live our lives.” Middlebrook goes on to display various roles the box plays in shelter, from the stacking of found boxes used in impoverished shantytowns to the stacked quadrilateral floors that make up the Empire State Building. In his painting “Empire of Dirt,” he is again referencing Warhol and his obsession with this building as an American icon.
One will find a dirty, foamy substance running down the front of Empire of Dirt, suggesting dirt or decay. A weed sprouts from the top of the piece. Returning to the idea of entropy, this represents the natural progression towards decay and disorder if not perpetuated. Each piece in the show contains an element or relic of nature, for example a piece of natural wood, soil, or artificial plants. These plants and weeds are the symbolic initiators in the inevitable forward march towards the dilapidation, decomposition, and deterioration of all we have built, whether it is a city, building, museum, gallery, or the fine art we protect within our walls.
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