Wild Feature II

Wild Feature, a true showstopper, packs a wallop of grandiose proportions ! Greater than an ear full of Coolwhip or getting frisked at Newark Airport, It’s a quagmire of Necco wafers ! As we pull back the curtain on this “Wild Feature”, we fade up on an otherworldly landscape, where we meet Wordbot and Quodlibet. Embarking on this strange surface, one is reminded of multicolored Play Doh baked in the sun. Above a gradient purple sky, a second horizon cuts open the hemisphere to reveal sparkling outer space. Quodlibet’s nose is a kazoo and honks in succession. As the planet’s shrubs wiggle at us like fingers, each fingertip shoots out a different colored liquid. The color is quickly reabsorbed into the planets spongey surface. Wordbot calculates words and also signs of life. Wordbot is also anxious because he has to make it back to his shrink in midtown by 3. At this point a massive jukebox hovers above us like a 70’s airbrushed album cover. A shower of digital hamburgers rains down and stacks perfectly like bricks when they hit the planet’s surface. Wordbot, annoyed that they are all overcooked, is interrupted by Quodlibet’s discovery of something red glittering in the shadow of the jukebox, a copy of Sarusaphone Weekly. They are so excited that they start doing cartwheels backwards. As they do so, the planet does a backwards cartwheel itself, and suddenly we are emitted from the cold, metal mouth of a Woolworth’s gumball machine. Pudgy and sweating, Ralph McNellie, 4th grade, is wedged between a large green doormat and a large green bench, reaching through infinity at us. A high-pitched siren is sounded and a fleet of mice skate by. An iridescent number 4 flashes. Angered, a tall, slim statue with piercing eyes slowly glides over to Ralphy. Strangely enough, once the statue reaches the child it returns back to its starting point and now just its arm stretches to the crouched boy. As this mechanical demon’s fingertips reach the boy’s shoulder, Ralphy turns into the parallel parking part of a driver’s test. So you see folks !- Prepare to be subdued, because after you catch a glimpse of Wild Feature’s summer show line-up poppin’ off, yull be pulling your hair out ! Wordbot from Sneeze Weekly says “titillating cohesion of opposing opposites !” So buckle your seat belts and be prepared for the ride of a lifetime ! Wild feature’s a broken geode of the yummysphere, a porcupine of the retina reversed. Brian Belott, May 26, 2009 Melissa Brown (b. 1974) Education : 1996 Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island, BFA Printmaking /1999 Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, MFA Painting and Printmaking / 2000 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Selected exhibitions 2009 Melissa Brown, Canada gallery, NY / / Badlands, curated by Denise Markonish, Mass MOCA, North Adams, Massachusetts / I’m on Top of Things, Galleri Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden / $HIT = MONEY = LOVE = ART, curated by Paul Nudd, Chicago Version Fest 2007 In Full Cry, curated by Taylor McKimens and Matt Leines, New Image Art, LA / Rearview, curated by Eric Shiner, Freight and Volume, NY. Brendan Cass (b. 1974) Education : Milton Avery School of the Arts, Bard College, Annandale / School of Visual Arts, NY / SUNY Purchase, NY Selected exhibitions 2009 New Nature, Stellan Holm Gallery, NY 2008 I Won’t Grow Up, Cheim & Read, NY 2007 Galeria Leyendecker, Tenerife, Spain / European Spree, Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm, Sweden / Five Painters, Galleri Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden 2006 Europa, Freight and Volume, NY / Frisky Flaming Hot, Galleri Christina Wilson, Copenhagen, Denmark. James Benjamin Franklin (b. 1972) Education : 1999 BFA art Center of Design, Pasadena, CA. Selected exhibitions 2008 SUB-TIPPY (North Gallery) Clementine, NY / Presents, curated by Milwaukee International, Rowley Kennerk Gallery, Chicago IL 2007 In Full Cry, Matt Leines and Taylor McKimens, curators, New Image Art Gallery, Los Angeles LA / New Paintings, Mogadishni International Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark / Googleplex, Darren Bader, curator, Gavin Brown’s Passerby, New York NY / Phantasmania, Elizabeth Dunbar, curator, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City MO / Poets on Painters Katie Geha, curator Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, KS / Crystal Crunch Taylor McKimens, curator Perugi Artecontemporanea Gallery, Padova, Italy. Jesse A. Greenberg (b. 1982) Education : 2004 BFA Sculpture, Rhode Island School of Design. Selected exhibitions 2008 Bobo’s on 27th, Foxy Productions, NY / We’ve Got Tissues, Okay Mountain Gallery, Austin 2007 New Works, And A MegaBinx, Bobo’s on 9th, Philadelphia / First Philadelphia Open, Pageant : Soloveev Gallery, Philadelphia / Seven, Fuel Gallery, Philadelphia 2006 Louisiana Biennial, Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans / Reality And Alteration, Brenda Taylor Gallery, New York / Metro Pictures, The Moore Space, Miami / I Smell Pregnant, produced by Ryan Trecartin, QED Gallery, LA John Hodany (b. 1974) Education : 2002 MFA, de Ateliers 63, Amsterdam, NL 1995 BFA, Cooper Union School of Art, New York. Selected exhibitions 2009 Holy Rollers, Lena Bruening Galerie, Berlin 2008 Precurse curated by John Hodany, Nationalmuseum, Berlin / Caetano de Almeida, John Hodany, Michael Lazarus, Eleven Rivington Gallery / 2007 Works on Paper, Galerie Loyal, Stockholm / David Castillo Gallery LA / 2006 Kreisis, Galerieigenschlafzimmer, Berlin. Misaki Kawai (b. 1978) Education : 1999 Kyoto College of Art in Kyoto, Japan. Selected exhibitions 2009 Take Ninagawa, Tokyo / Toyama Museum, Toyama / Frederic Magazine 3, Espace Beaurepaire, Paris / I can’t feel my face, ROYAL/T Art Space, LA / Flight of Fancy, Kenny Schachter/Rove, London / Outdoor Club, Paul Bright, Toronto / I won’t grow up, Cheim + Read / Wet n Wild, Kim Light, L.A. 2007 Red Hot, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston / Momemtum, ICA, Boston / Big Break, Perugi Arte Contemporeana, Padova 2006 Boro-Boro Doro-Doro, Watari Museum of Art, Tokyo / Art Parade, Deitch Projects, NY / The Thousand Things, MU Museum, Eindhoven, NL / Greater New York 2, P.S.1 MoMA, NY / Hanging by thread, The Moore Space, Miami. Taylor McKimens (b. 1976) Selected exhibitions 2008 Mail order monsters, curated by Kathy Grayson Andreas Melas Presents, Athens, Greece / Soft serve, Deitch Projects, NY / Circumstaces (or something like that), curated by Rich Jacobs, Nog Gallery, London / Sweet dreams of Phoenix, Galleri Loyal, Stockholm / Mail order monsters, curated by Kathy Grayson, Deitch Projects, NY / Tiger in a tropical storm, curated by Chloe Derderian at Riviera, Brooklyn, 2006 The drips, Clementine Gallery, NY / Collage Party, Zieher Smith, NY