Opening Reception: Saturday, July 27th from 6-10pm
Parlor Gallery
717 Cookman Avenue
Asbury Park, New Jersey 07712
Daniel Johnston, Attention Sir All is Ready, 2005, Ink on Paper, 11 x 8.5 inches
Parlor Gallery proudly presents Story of an Artist, an exhibition celebrating the life and work of Daniel Johnston, running from July 27 to August 27, 2024. Located in the vibrant “Arts Bloc” of Asbury Park, this exhibition pays homage to the prolific, enigmatic American singer-songwriter and artist, who would have turned 63 this year.
Johnston, renowned for his self-released music cassettes and comic-book drawings, gained cult popularity and was endorsed by numerous music celebrities, including Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, who famously wore Johnston’s “Hi, How Are You” T-shirt, featuring his iconic artwork “Jeremiah the Innocent.” Johnston also performed with David Bowie and received support from Tom Waits, Sonic Youth, and Sparklehorse, among others.
His artworks have been highly respected, selected for inclusion in the 2006 Whitney Biennial, exhibited in museums, and collected worldwide. The exhibition will feature a combination of the best drawings from two recent national exhibitions of Johnston’s works, I Am A Baby in My Universe and Duck Wars, showcasing his unique characters, dialogue bubbles, and insightful philosophy.
Opening Weekend Activities:
– Special T-shirts, posters, CDs, and books will be available throughout the exhibition.
– The exhibition is in conjunction with OUTPOST NYC DCG, a virtual arts initiative that collaborates with the art estate of Daniel Johnston through his sister, Marjory Johnston.
– Marjory Johnston will attend activities during the opening weekend, available for questions and to provide information about her brother.
– Deborah Colton, Co-Founder of OUTPOST NYC DCG, will also attend.
Johnston’s characters, especially his ever-present ducks, embody his fun-loving, adventurous spirit and his desire to help the world by challenging the forces of evil. These ducks appear in various forms, from cowboys and ancient warriors to superheroes and space travelers. Notably, the ducks as military personnel reflect Johnston’s admiration for his father, William Johnston, a Flying Tiger pilot in World War II.
The Duck Wars exhibition highlights the military adventures of Johnston’s ducks and resonates with current world events. With quirky humor and thought-provoking insights into the nature of war, Johnston’s drawings address its horrors, origins in greed, and its damage to humanity.
Johnston’s work continues to captivate with its childlike wisdom, winning fans and followers globally. His influence extended to popular culture, featuring in The Cutting Edge MTV special about the Austin music scene and attracting the attention of Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, who invited Johnston to perform at his parties in California.
Join us at Parlor Gallery for a heartfelt celebration of Daniel Johnston’s extraordinary artistry and enduring legacy.
Parlor Gallery, located in the heart of Asbury Park’s vibrant “Arts Bloc,” is dedicated to showcasing contemporary art from emerging and established artists. Since its inception, Parlor Gallery has become a cornerstone of the local art scene, providing a platform for artists to present innovative and thought-provoking works. The gallery’s commitment to fostering creativity and artistic expression has made it a beloved destination for art enthusiasts and collectors alike. With a diverse roster of exhibitions and events, Parlor Gallery continues to push the boundaries of contemporary art, inviting visitors to explore new perspectives and engage with the art community.
Artist and songwriter Daniel Johnston created his own imaginary cartoon universe in drawings, which were complete with dialog bubbles and his own uniquely honest and insightful philosophy. Among his cast of created characters are the ever-present ducks. They are the fun-loving good guys who are on the look-out for adventure and ways to help the world. They are always ready to help humanity by challenging the forces of evil and thus protecting love, peace, and especially hope.
The ducks in Johnston’s earliest drawings had wings and webbed feet. As he created more adventures for the ducks they evolved human-like arms and legs. The ducks found their way into Johnston’s drawings as cowboys, ancient warriors, superheroes and even space travelers. The role that was Johnston’s favorite (by far) was ducks as military personnel, complete with uniforms, weapons, and war vehicles of all types. Johnston’s love of all things related to World War II reflects his admiration for his father, William Johnston, who was a Flying Tiger pilot in the war.
The ” Ducks Wars” exhibit is a celebration of the military adventures of the ducks, but it also rings with uncanny relevance considering current world events. Daniel infuses the drawings with quirky humor, but also with thought provoking insights into the nature of war…. its horror, its origins in greed, and its sad results.
February 17, 2024 to March 16, 2024 Deborah Colton Gallery
Houston, Texas
Daniel Johnston, at a very young age, decided that he wanted to be a comic book artist like Jack Kirby, whose work he admired. He drew constantly, which often caused his teachers to reprimand him for not paying attention. By the time he reached Junior High, his drawing skills were quite advanced… but during those years mental illness appeared in the form of depression.
While he still dreamed of becoming a cartoonist for Marvel Comics, his drawing time became something more. It was a form of self-therapy to help him cope with his depression. It was an escape. In his early twenties his mental illness blossomed into schizophrenia. In spite of this, he continued his daily drawing, producing pieces that give the viewer a glimpse into his journey with mental illness. He created an entire universe of his own, complete with a cast of characters caught up in the eternal battle of good and evil. Some characters were original creations. Others were borrowed from pop culture.
This art exhibit, “I am a Baby in my Universe” is an introduction to the major characters (and some of the minor ones) that inhabit his imagined world. It will display nearly 200 works of art in groupings that will introduce 45 characters showing examples of art pieces in which they are featured. Daniel’s drawings have an undeniable appeal, saturated in a childlike wisdom that has won him fans and followers around the world. The show will also feature a screening room playing the documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005) as well as a display about the effects of mental illness in Dan’s art.
In Support of The Jonas Mekas Centennial Program – Mekas 100!
“Jonas Mekas – Images are Real” November 9, 2022 to February 26, 2023 Mattatoio Museum Rome, Italy
Jonas Mekas 100! – the international program of exhibitions and events celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Lithuanian-born filmmaker’s birth – comes to Italy with “Images are Real”, an exhibition and series of events curated by the duo Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, who have accompanied Mekas on a number of art projects from Venice to New York, Seoul and Reykjavik.
Promoted by Roma Culture and the Azienda Speciale Palaexpo in partnership with the Lithuanian Cultural Institute, “Images are Real” is on display in Pavilion 9b at the Mattatoio di Roma. The exhibition takes a retrospective look at the sixty year artistic career of Jonas Mekas (born 1922 – 2019) within a beyond the history of avant-garde cinema. Presenting a broad selection of works ranging from the 1960’s to the late 2010’s, the project sets out to explore the Lithuanian filmmaker’s work as a form of resistance to human brutality, a quest of happiness through which to cope with the uncertainty of the present.
The title of the exhibition is a quote from the film “Out-takes from the Life of a Happy Man” in which the artist’s off-screen voice reflects: “Memory is gone, but the images are here, and the images are real!”. Celebrating Jonas Mekas’s centenary, therefore, does not just mean celebrating the memory of a figure who has inspired three generations of artists and filmmakers, it means also, indeed above all, keeping alive the perpetual present of a filmmaking practice that is at once both individual and political.
Mary Beth Edelson: Humor is the Best Game in Town Kathleen Wentrack, Ph.D.
New York-based artist, Mary Beth Edelson, is recognized internationally for her break-through art works in far ranging mediums and her contributions to the feminist revolution. Since the 1960s Edelson has been impacting art making and activism while challenging the entrenched cultural dogmas of the day.
On view at the MAC in Dallas from November 6th until December 11th is a select group of 24 painted drawings from 1981–97. Curated by Liutauras Psibilskis, Deborah Colton, and Liliana Bloch, this series is titled There is Never Only One Game in Town. Equally strong, the historically significant large-scale wall collages will be on view as well as the premiere of the video ” Making Eye Contact” conceptualized by Edelson with video production by Gregory Wendt.
Thematically, the exhibited body of work celebrates a variety of characters such as the femme fatale, the trickster, movie stars, and the mythological folk figures of Baubo and Sheela-na-gig. Diverse as these female types appear, they are connected through the trope of humor as Edelson states:
Humor is a mode of speech that is indirect and ambiguous and, therefore, can have multiple interpretations. It can potentially disrupt dominant meanings and the social order while protecting the joker from consequences that might occur if the same message were delivered in a serious mode. Humor sabotages critics, for unlike spoken language, laughter does not belong to a linguistic code and, therefore, has the possibility of creatively breaking that mold while taking advantage of humor’s natural attraction.
Humor is a political devise in the series There is Never Only One Game in Town. Many of the drawings use a variety of materials including silkscreen, ink, acrylic, and fabric on jute tag to form pictures based on Edelson’s desire to “re-script Hollywood” as it relates to the construction of women in their films. Edelson’s research of movies from the 1920s until the present day inspired her to be especially curious about films that place a gun in a woman’s hand—the ultimate symbol of male power—and how that representation changed over time according to women’s status and the circumstances of that time span.
She appropriated images of women played by movie stars including Marilyn Monroe, Gena Rowlands, Marlene Dietrich, Lynda Carter, Angelica Houston, Judy Garland, and Mae West whose sultry quote “there is never only one game in town” was borrowed for the title of this series. The artist then gave the characters a new identity as she describes:
My intention was to isolate these images from their original context in the film to project my own story on these subjects as self-defining agents that defy the production of Hollywood stereotyping.
Bursting with irony and humor, these drawings engage the viewer by way of the unexpected text and titles that accompany their forthright images. Several works are based on a silk-screened photograph of a sassy, young Judy Garland who asks questions that speak directly to the viewer. Other images draw on cross-cultural traditions for alternative spiritual histories as in the multi-armed Marilyn Monroe as the Hindu Goddess Kali.
Accompanying the painted drawing series are a selection of Edelson’s wall collages installed on a large scale for the first time in the United States. The wall collages developed concurrent with the artist’s well-known collage posters of the 1970s in which reproductions of historical paintings by male artists are parodied by pasting photographs of female artists’ faces over the male actors’ images. For example, Some Living American Women Artists/Last Supper (1971-72) is the first of the five collage posters in which the artist insisted on an alternative vision of society that included women in positions of power. For this first poster Edelson collected photographs of women artists and collaged their faces over those of Jesus and his disciples on a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper (1498). All five posters in the series—recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York for their permanent collection —make use of appropriation in an effort to critique existing institutional structures and the history of western art. While these posters continue the social commentary of collage initiated by Dada artists almost a century ago, it is Edelson’s wall collages that make her contribution unique to the history of collage art and feminist art history.
The genesis of the wall collages, unlike the posters, was one of happenstance and playfulness, evolving from scraps leftover from the laborious pre-computer process of making the posters. These works celebrate women’s art collectives such as A.I.R. and Heresies, while others are cameos devoted to a specific artist and the women in her milieu. Each of the wall collages presents different subjects, stories, and themes while they all share a rambling unique vine or web-like structure. For example, Web Works/Heresies (1976) is built through a repetition of individual faces that creates the appearance of animation as in Good Meeting, (1976) sourced from the Death of the Patriarchy/A.I.R. Anatomy Lessons poster. At first glance Good Meeting appears to be a dragonfly but on closer inspection it is composed of a set of wings and the faces of several women. The dragonfly’s head begins with the image of Rachel bas-Cohain, then Ana Mendieta and Edelson, and concludes with ten prints of Nancy Spero’s face, diminishing in scale to form the tail. This collage provides an excellent example of how her repetitious progression creates a sense of movement influenced by the structural duplication of , in this case, Spero’s face.
Alongside, and often in conjunction with, the portrait-based wall collages, several themes reoccur in Edelson’s wall collages including Medusa, the Bird and the Snake Goddess of Egypt, Venus, Sheela-na-Gig, and Baubo. Laughing Medusa (1976) was made in a similar manner from remnants of poster pictures and other photographs of fellow A.I.R. members that the artist often took. The central face in this work is of Anne Healy with her head tilted back slightly holding a wide-mouthed laugh and framed by the smaller heads of A.I.R. members. Eight strands of wildly protruding hair—each strand repeating a separate individual’s head—moves with twists and turns like a snake, as if it were Medusa’s own hair.
The artist has frequently employed the figures of the Sheela-na-gig and Baubo in diverse mediums since the early 1970s, a moment when feminists sought out sources of power and spirituality that reflected not only an alternative to western religious structures but also spiritual histories in which women held significant positions and power. Found on the British Isles, especially in Ireland, the Sheela-na-gig is a female figure, crouching with legs splayed open exposing her genitalia. Dating back at least to the Middles Ages, these crudely shaped Sheela’s have been found near churches, bridges, and castles, and are generally regarded as folk deities imbued with powers of renewal, birth, and death according to the scholar Barbara Freitag in Sheela-Na-Gigs: Unraveling an Enigma (2004). Edelson combines the Sheela imagery with faces of women she wishes to acknowledge ultimately imbuing the figures with life-giving power as in Buffy Sheela (1976) that is composed of the heads of fellow artists Buffy Johnson, Michele Stewart, Betye Saer and Yoko Ono.
The web-like structure was expanded for the cameo series that focuses on and celebrates individual women. The format for each cameo is to collage the artists image on a reproduction of a bold self-assured nude, and it is from this central body that the web expands and unfolds to include the images of artists who may have mutually influenced each other, engaged in dialogue and thus created a circuit of people and ideas all active and supportive within this web. In the center of Cameo: Nancy (1979), a web presents the many faces of women associated with Nancy Spero with a special emphasis on her long alliance with the women of A.I.R. Gallery.
Many of the wall collages record women active in feminist art groups, but they also function as historical documents that describe the organizational and the working processes of a community in the process of implementing a revolution. The web-like shapes in the wall collages break from the confines of framing to visualize the collective and collaborative structures of these groups who are not represented in rows but are connected to each woman through the next. In Edelson’s hands, the portrait then becomes a living document in stark contrast to the western tradition of portraiture or historical painting.
MAC’s exhibition of Mary Beth Edelson’s art, presents a rich selection rarely seen together in the U.S. that delves into the artist’s deep oeuvre. Edelson remains one of the key feminist artists active and influential today, and the work in this exhibition gives testimony to its expansive relevancy.
Suzanne Anker: While Darkness Sleeps McKinney Avenue Contemporary (the MAC) 3120 McKinney Avenue Dallas, Texas 75204
January 11 – March 1, 2014 Opening Reception: Saturday, January 11, 2014, 6 – 8 PM Artist’s Talk: Saturday, January 11, 2014, 4:30 – 5:30 PM The MAC is open Wednesday through Saturday, 11 AM – 9 PM
Jonas Mekas LIFE GOES ON… I KEEP SINGING November 9 – December 28, 2013
Deborah Colton Gallery is pleased to present selected works and video installations by Jonas Mekas in an exhibition entitled “LIFE GOES ON… I KEEP SINGING,” which includes still frame photographs from several bodies of works Mekas has created through his films. The exhibition opens November 9th and continues through December 28th, 2013. The Gallery will host an Artist Reception on Sunday, November 10th at 2:00 pm, which will include a Q+A with Jonas Mekas and Deborah M. Colton.
Jonas Mekas is the Founder of Anthology Films in New York, the Film maker, poet, writer, and artist. Jonas Mekas captured moments that we all cherish in art history, in American history, in life… from filmmakers, Salvador Dali, Kennedy’s, Warhol, Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Elvis Presley, the World Trade Center… to the more personal special moments of nature, his family, being human and celebrating life, cherishing each experience to the fullest.
In addition to the video created for this exhibition, FRAGMENTS OF PARADISE that is cohesive with the main gallery room exhibition, Deborah Colton Gallery will be featuring the video WTC HAIKUS. 2010. As Mekas describes this:
“‘Looking through my finished and unfinished films, I was surprised how many glimpses of the World Trade Center I caught during my life in SoHo. I had a feeling I was Hokusai glimpsing Mount Fuji. Only that it was the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center was an inseparable part of my and my family’s life during my SoHo period from 1975-1995. This installation is my love poem to it. My method in constructing this piece was simply to pull out images of the WTC from my original footage, while including some of the surrounding scenes. The result I felt came close, albeit indirectly, to what in poetry is known as the Haiku.”
Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in Semeniskiai, Lithuania. In 1949 he emigrated to the U.S. together with his brother, settling in New York. He has been one of the leading figures of American avant-garde filmmaking playing various roles: in 1954 he founded Film Culture magazine; in 1958 began writing his “Movie Journal” column for the Village Voice; in 1962 co-founded the Film-Makers’ Cooperative (FMC) and in 1964 the Film-makers’ Cinematheque, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives. His own output varies from narrative films (Guns of the Frees, 1961) to documentaries (The Brig, 1963) and to “diaries” such as Walden (1969), Lost, Lost, Lost (1975) and As I was Moving Ahead, and Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2001). Known as an artist, filmmaker, art critic, curator and icon of contemporary American Culture, Mekas documented the era that promoted peace through his acclaimed independent film and still frame photography, which features Yoko and John in Happy Birthday to John and Bed-In. His films have been screened extensively at festivals and museums around the world. In 2005 he represented Lithuania at the Venice Biennale, the exhibition was noted with Special Mention price for extraordinary presentation of contemporary classic art.
Through his accomplished career as a filmmaker, visual artist, writer and organizer, Jonas Mekas has received awards from New York State Council on the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Golden Medal from Philadelphia College of Art, “For the devotion, passion and selfless dedication to the rediscovery of the newest art,” Guggenheim Fellowship in 1966, Creative Arts Award in 1977, Brandeis University in 1989; Mel Novikoff Award at San Francisco Film Festival, 1992; Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from Ministry of Culture, France in 1992 and 2000; Lithuanian National Award, 1995; Doctor of Fine Arts, Honoris Causa from Kansas City Art Institute in 1996; Special Tribute, New York Film Critics Circle Awards in 1996; Pier Paolo Pasolini Award, Paris in 1997; International Documentary Film Association Award, Los Angeles, 1997; Governors Award, Skohegan School of Painting and Sculpture, 1997; Artium Doctoris Honoris Causa, Universitatis Vytauti Magni, Lithuania in 1997.
In 2011 Jonas Mekas was honored at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s award ceremony for his significant contribution to American film culture and had a solo exhibition at Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany. Last December Mekas participated in an extensive presentation at Serpentine Gallery, London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Most recently there opened an exhibitions of his works at the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, at the Cinémathèque Royale and the Bozar Center for Fine Arts, both in Brussels, Belgium.
Jonas Mekas is a featured artist and special guest of the 2013 Houston Cinema Arts Festival, which will present his film Sleepless Night Stories as part of the festival’s “Cinema on the Verge” programming that highlights the most adventurous film and installation work by experimental media artists. Sleepless Night Stories debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2011 and continues to enthrall audiences with Mekas’s recording the seemingly mundane happenings in his life.
Deborah Colton Gallery first debuted Jonas Mekas in Houston in the solo exhibition Film Framed at 2500 Summer Street in 2005. In 2007,Jonas Mekas was also included in the Group Exhibition at Deborah Colton Gallery, Chemical City. Since then Deborah Colton Gallery continues to represent Jonas Mekas, including a one-man solo exhibtion at Paris Photo Los Angeles in April of 2013, and through projects via the Gallery’s OUTPOST NYC DCG.
Deborah Colton Gallery is founded on being an innovative showcase for ongoing presentation and promotion of strong historical and visionary contemporary artists world-wide, whose diverse practices include painting, works on paper, sculpture, video, photography, performance, conceptual future media and public space installations. The Gallery aspires to provide a forum through connecting Texas, national and international artists to make positive change.
Frank Rodick: Selections from Labyrinth of Desire McKinney Avenue Contemporary (the MAC) 3120 McKinney Avenue Dallas, Texas 75204
March 23 – May 11, 2013 Opening Reception: Saturday, March 23, 2013 6 – 8 PM Artist Talk with Katherine Ware: Sunday, March 24, 2013, 1 – 2 PM The MAC is open Wednesday through Saturday, 11 AM – 9 PM
The MAC is proud to exhibit selections from Labyrinth of Desire, an exhibition of photographs that debuted at Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston in 2010 by Canadian artist Frank Rodick, curated by Katherine Ware. Labyrinth of Desire consists of a series of photographs created from 1991 to the present. Known for creating powerful, evocative, and sometimes controversial pictures, Rodick alters images into sequenced compositions that explore the complex realm of the human psyche. The juxtaposition of images mimics the imprecise and non-linear workings of our private thoughts, memories and desires. The photographs selected from the Labyrinth of Desire for exhibition at The MAC examine five bodies of work: Liquid City (1991-1999), sub rosa (1995-1997), Arena (2002-2005), Faithless Grottoes (2006-2008), and Revisitations (2009-current). Rodick says of his work, “what I’m looking for are images that feel more intimately real than our cursory experience of everyday life, images that give a voice to the worlds that live inside us and which somehow demand witness.”
Frank Rodick’s work has been exhibited widely throughout North America, Latin America, and Europe. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Kinsey Institute. Internationally, his work is in the collections of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography in Ottawa, the Musée de la Photographie à Charleroi in Belgium, the Museet for Fotokunst in Denmark, and the Museo Nacional de Bella Artes de Buenos Aires in Argentina. Frank Rodick is represented by Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, Texas.
Katherine Ware is Curator of Photography at the New Mexico Museum of Art and has served as Curator of Photographs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Assistant Curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She is the author of numerous works on photographic art and its history.
Photo Credit: Kevin Todora, McKinney Avenue Contempory
Harif Guzman Dying to Live February 23 – May 4, 2013
Deborah Colton Gallery is pleased to present the Texas debut of artist Harif Guzman with his solo exhibition Dying to Live. Dying to Live opens Saturday, February 23, 2013 with a reception for the artist 6:00 to 9:00 pm.
Harif Guzman, New York Crimes, 2013, Mixed Media on Wood Panel, 48 x 60 x 1.5 inches
Harif Guzman, born in Venezuela, spent much of his childhood surrounded by his mother and sisters and was influenced strongly by his father (a printer and typesetter). As a little boy in 1980, Guzman came to New York City. Guzman calls New York not only home, but his canvas and inspiration. The inspiration of his work derives from mechanical reproduction, and the hands-on kill-based technique that refuses the deadening effects of iconographical conformity. Further inspiration is the result of Guzman’s earliest experiences of image-making, and the honest craft that he encountered working in his father’s print workshop as a boy. The subsequent trajectory of his path from shop worker, street-smart skate punk, busboy, and valet, to the art gallery, involves an alchemical shift as humble cast-offs become Fine Art gold in his studio.
Guzman’s work explores the idea of behavior and human transformation. The reclaimed materials Guzman employs are not just physical elements but deeply rooted second hand imagery that characterizes the contemporary urban existence. At times portraying urban life as simply an assemblage of humanity, Guzman simultaneously forces the concept of a deeper, in-depth individuality. This individuality is subtle and purposely consumed within Guzman’s works.
Relevant themes of power, death and money become romanticized as Guzman exposes human addictions within culture extremes. He collectively explores the concept of behavior adjacent to obsession, yet individually and aggressively exploits it through visually capturing commonality, and the elemental functions that drive us. Circumventing the traditionally approved arc that takes an artist from art school to art gallery, Guzman’s unorthodox route from the base-metal street artist to the gold of the accomplished work centers his attention in a stylish, contemporary urban idiom.
Harif Guzman’s works have been included in numerous international exhibitions in London, Tokyo, Sydney as well as throughout the United States in New York, Miami, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
