Overview & Events

Gallery Talk — Mark Kelner:
New American Landscapes
September 21, 2:00-3:00 p.m.

How do we define what a landscape is in the digital age, an era of forever text enabled by our smartphones? What is “art” supposed to look like in the time of alternative facts? And who, in reality, is the audience for this socially impactful work that engages viewers conceptually, emotionally, and physically?

Imagine walking into Times Square, but instead of neon lights and videos being thrust upon you, a viewer is immersed by painterly recreations of strip mall signs with thick impasto, saturated colors, bold lettering, and unintentional graphic design which is then remade as purposeful and highly stylized. In the suburbs where Kelner grew up, these signs are the artist’s equivalent of trees, if not, markers of time. By isolating the raw material of this collective signage, Kelner suggests that what they really are about is a changing national identity — who we are by what we eat, how we consume, and how can that be expressed visually with multiple uses of text, typography, various languages, collage, and clip art logos. “In short,” says Kelner, this is “my own family’s immigrant experience as told through the lens of what I and the audience see on the street.” To a suburban kid on his Huffy, such signs or totems are the “New American Landscapes.”