Jason Polan: Living and Working
Jason Polan’s (BFA 2005) solo exhibition, Living and Working, was recently featured in the New York Times. The exhibition is open through July 30 at Nicholas Robinson Gallery, 535 West 20th Street, Chelsea, New York City. For a taste of the work that’s featured, check out Things I Saw Today — the daily drawings featured on this tumblr blog are part of the exhibition.
Jason Polan is an incessant draftsman and enterprising artist interested in making both his art and himself more available. Through his Web site he can be commissioned to make an hour’s worth of drawings for $125 and will consider requests. One of his several projects is to draw every person in New York. His self-published books include “Every Piece of Art in the Museum of Modern Art Book.” Averaging around 40 items per page, this volume includes works in the permanent collection galleries, the sculpture garden and several temporary exhibitions, drawn briskly in sturdy black lines and shapes in a style reminiscent of Matt Groening’s “Life in Hell” comic strip.
Mr. Polan’s New York solo debut includes “One Month,” a series of 31 drawings, each depicting objects encountered during a single day and drawn from life. The exhibition also includes a Ping-Pong table, available for use, that is drawn all over with four-legged animals (polar bears?) evoking Keith Haring; an imposing life-size rendering of the head of King Kong; and, my favorite, a wall covered with drawings in several sizes of dense, smudgy black circles. A large gray ball of self-hardening clay and a black medicine ball are also on hand as three-dimensional equivalents.
Also in the show, until the end of June, is Mr. Polan himself, working at a big table stacked with books and magazines that provide source material – existing images being another subject. He is adding drawings – and also small clay sculptures – to the show as they are made and is available for Ping-Pong or conversation. Relational aesthetics, if you want to call it that, has rarely seemed more charming, direct and user friendly.
JASON POLAN: ‘Living and Working’. Roberta Smith for the New York Times, June 23, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/arts/design/jason-polan-living-and-working.html
From the Nicholas Robinson Gallery’s press release:
Polan has lived in New York since 2004, making the life of the city and its inhabitants one of his principal subjects. His drawings and projects have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and ARTnews. He has made over 76 books, including ‘The Every Piece of Art in The Museum of Modern Art Book’. Polan is currently drawing every person in New York. The principal theme of the exhibition is availability; namely how art is usually made available to the gallery audience, and how the artist’s availability is in turn limited within (or by) this context.
The exhibition will consist of three parts. Part 1 is the work made in between the confirmation of the exhibition and its commencement (which will be visible at the opening). Part 2 is the month the artist will spend in the space working, and Part 3 is the final month when Polan will produce work both within and outside the gallery premises, adding and editing as he sees fit in the refinement of the exhibition’s content.
Find out more about Jason’s recent projects:
EVERY PERSON IN NEW YORK
The Every Piece Of Art in The Museum Of Modern Art Book
132 Birds at The American Museum of Natural History
The 53rd Street Biological Society
Jason Polan and Every Person in New York, 2008