Canvas and Berries.....

There are some really great art opening this thursday. Hopefully the weather will subside and I can squeeze in a few.
My personal pick:



Darío Escobar
presents
"Play Offs"
May 22, 2008 6-8pm
Josee Bienvenu Gallery
529 West 20th Street (bet. 10th & 11th Ave.)
2nd floor
New York NY 10011

I really don't know too much about Darío Escobar. I received a picture of this old skool deck with a bmw sign on it about 1 year or so to date. At the time, I thought it was odd but I followed up and after awhile stubbled upon Guatemalan artist Darío Escobar.
(via Josee Bienvenu Gallery email)
Josée Bienvenu gallery is pleased to present Play Offs, Dario Escobar’s first solo exhibition in New York. As gas prices go up on a daily basis, the best remedy is to do more sports: walking, skateboarding, playing tennis, baseball, ping-pong. Play Offs is an invitation to deconstruct depression by approaching the most common objects with a radical subjectivity.
Dario Escobar’s work is characterized by the use of materials charged with historic and symbolic meaning, articulated in a language that references minimalism as well as pop art. He started by using elements from his immediate context: his first object interventions were on icons of Guatemalan colonialism’s legacy. Altered and modified religious imagery, and use of traditional Baroque colonial techniques such as gold leaf and silver repoussé are some of the trans-contextualizing methods he has developed over the past ten years.
In Play Offs, the artist pursues his ongoing investigation of the semiotics of the object in the arena of sports. Confiscated, manipulated and reconfigured, sport objects stop being part of identifiable structures to become symbols that question the dynamics of power and challenge notions such as competition, success and failure, virility, social status, and national pride.

Darío Escobar presents "Play Off"
May 22, 2008 6pm(reception)
Josee Bienvenu Gallery
529 West 20th Street (bet. 10th & 11th Ave.)
2nd floor
New York NY 10011