Richard Aldrich
Bortolami Gallery
520 W 20th Street
New York, New York 10011
November 8 – December 21
Bortolami Gallery is presenting Richard Aldrich’s paintings. The structure for Aldrich’s upcoming show is that of two distinct parts. The first, opening November 8th, will be on view for a week and a half, after which a second show will open on November 19th and run through the end of the month, and then back to the first show for the remainder of the exhibition, closing December 21st.
A Day in the Life
The 2nd show, entitled “A Day in the Life”, obliquely refers to the structure of the Beatles song of the same name that features, and is perhaps most known for, its format of being two separate songs in one– a McCartney song plunked down in the middle of a Lennon song. The title also refers to a text written by Aldrich in 2004 in which he describes art installations as a collection of fragments (artworks) that when combined describe/ encompass a day in one’s life. Aldrich’s work is ostensibly about what happens when we see two different paintings hung next to each other, and how this forces us to reconstruct our idea of what each one would have meant seen singularly. In the exhibition, that process is expanded from two separate paintings into two separate exhibitions. The medium of meaning is in the modulation between the works– in the time and interstitial space that separates this and that.
The works in each exhibition make sometimes subtle and sometimes overt reference to works in the other show, works from previous shows, and to notions of evolution and comparative learning. While this is generally true of Aldrich’s work, in this double show context the effects are more pointed and crystallized.
