Article written by Kathryn Lay
View of the Alessandro Berni Gallery in the Italian Green Design Showroom
The third installment of the City Bites exhibition, known as City Bites III, opened on June 26, 2017 and will run over the course of the summer until August 22. The show is the third variation of curator Asya Rotella’s creative vision for the Alessandro Berni Gallery located in the showroom of the Italian Green Design firm in Chelsea. City Bites III displays works from a wide array of artists whose style and background is as diverse and rich as the city of New York itself.
The show opened with a reception on the evening of June 26 during which the artists Yang Mai and Cojo were in attendance. Yang Mai’s sculpture Made in China is located towards the center of one of the walls of the gallery. The mixed media sculpture utilizes fabric and clothing along with more traditional mediums for sculpture such as metal, paint and foam and expands the possible functions of garments and fashion in relation to fine art.
Yang Mai，Made in China The gallery has six of Cojo’s paintings from his Memory Pools series on display in the City Bites III show. Each canvas contains a different number of white-dream like circles that ripple across a sleek black background. The works are hung so that they draw the viewer’s eyes across the exposed brick wall in a wandering fashion similar to the gentle motions of the rings on the canvasses.
Cojo，Memory Pools
City Bites III also contains artwork by the winners of Call for Chelsea 2015, Mary Mattingly and Stephanie S. Lee. Each of these artists addresses the question of modern urban life, expressing their viewpoints on this uniting theme through their own unique perspectives. Mattingly’s piece Pardon My Dust depicts the constant flux of energy of rebuilding and decay within urban life. The printed photographs of text on a sheet of cut aluminum along with pieces of aluminum debris call forth the feeling of a city site under construction or in flux. Pardon My Dust recalls the notion of movement and change within an urban environment.
From left to right: Mary Mattingly, Pardon My Dust; Yang Mai, Made in China
Left to Right: Stephanie S. Lee’s Korean Tiger Awaiting Fortune Under a Pine Tree; Traditional Wish
Lee’s works Traditional Wish and Korean Tiger Awaiting Fortune Under a Pine Tree seek to reconcile the gap between traditional Korean folk art and modern society. Created on Korean mulberry paper, Lee uses traditional techniques in order to construct artwork that blends images from modern and ancient life. These works along with pieces by the artists Carla Accardi, Piero Manzoni, Pino Pascali, Gilbert Salinas, Jo Fabbri, and, Stefania Pennacchio from the exciting and innovative show that is City Bites III.
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