A Change of Place: Four Solo Exhibitions at The School
By Karolina Sotomayor
Image above: © Fernando Sandoval, The School
On May 22, 2016, Jack Shainman Gallery celebrated The School’s second anniversary with the opening of A Change of Place: Four Solo Exhibitions. The former high school building’s interiors have been reimagined by Spanish architect Antonio Jiménez Torrecillas into white cube-style galleries currently featuring the works of four separate artists whose works revolve around themes of transformation, environment and memory.
The artists accompanied the first visitors on a brief tour through the gallery, speaking of their present and future projects. Nonetheless, it was not all work and no play. After roaming the interiors of The School, visitors enjoyed the sun on the former playground accompanied by music, food and drinks served by whom I discovered to be former students.
Image above: © Fernando Sandoval, The School
If you find yourself looking for excuses to get out of the city, the exhibition is worth the two and a half-hour ride from Manhattan. Suffice to say it features Richard Mosse’s colossal and breathtaking images of striking magenta landscapes from his ongoing project in Congo, which appear truly sublime and as the artist himself described them, “other-worldly.”
The rest of the space is occupied by Garnett Puett’s metal structures enveloped in honeycombs, Hayv Kahraman’s female nude paintings recalling her childhood memories of the war in Iraq and Pierre Dorion’s perfectly symmetrical portraits actually inspired by The School’s interiors.
Image above: © Fernando Sandoval, The School
Despite working with four different mediums, Puett, Mosse, Kahraman and Dorion’s works interact and share the exhibition space with unique fluency and coherence.
The School is open on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment. I highly recommend taking a day trip to Kinderhook and experiencing this collective exhibit available throughout all of Summer 2016.
Image above: © Fernando Sandoval, The School
Photographs © Fernando Sandoval
Article © Karolina Sotomayor
