Photography by Julie Keyes.
Slowly climbing the stairs at 551 West 21st Street to the Viewing Room on Thursday, I realized I was going to see some impressive art. It wasn’t because I was familiar with the work I was there to see—by artists Wyatt Neumann and Bonnie Rychlak as curated by James Kennedy—but because the stairs I was on were packed. People milled about on each of the floors, taking in everything from a painting of a cross-eyed girl on a cheetah to a performance piece featuring someone “preparing for a dinner party” (Regarding the latter, I may have simply walked through someone’s apartment. They may have actually been having a dinner party).
Finally, I heard the din of a gathered crowd, and knew I had arrived at the first exhibition. It was Neumann’s “Moments Like This Never Last”, and it included a string of photos—only about four inches square—bisecting one wall of the room. The photos were in a perfect line, with no discernable theme apart from muted tones and fuzzy Polaroid-like warmth. Pictures of people in costume with funny faces, toilets, roadside motels, kids at play, motorcycle odometers. Landmarks and laughter, absurdity and beauty: this was seemingly a parade of Americana snaking across the fourth floor of a Chelsea art studio. Nothing seemed linear but their placement on the wall. And of course, the only way to see them was to join the slow-moving, single-file line of admirers. It didn’t allow for a stolen moment with your favorite picture. Traffic would back up.
Memory and Oblivion, by Bonnie Rychlak
The next exhibition, Memory and Oblivion, offered not only intriguing art—but a built-in guessing game. Each of artist Bonnie Rychlak’s works were hand-tinted photographs hidden behind textured glass. The result were vague shapes and colors that were recognizable enough to grab your attention, but nebulous enough to keep you guessing at their true form and meaning. The largest of the pieces (at 27” x 34”) was The Lesson Redo: what at first I thought was cooking demonstration, I later surmised was a meeting of Mafioso. Perhaps it was both—the culinary Cosa Nostra. I stood in front of it for minutes, trying to figure out exactly what it was…until I felt the urge to pull off the glass that made it unknowable. Through a lack of clarity, Rychlak had clearly made an impact on me.
The evening left me with two hopes: the hope that I get to see more work by these artists, and the hope that I hadn’t unwittingly ruined someone’s dinner party.
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