Wyatt Gallery: Subtext at Foley Gallery

Image above by Wyatt Gallery, 50C:7-13, 2014, UV Pigment on Dibond, 40 x 53.5 inches, ©Wyatt Gallery, Courtesy of Foley Gallery, New York.

Foley Gallery opened exhibition Subtext, photographer Wyatt Gallery’s newest work on January 21st, 2015.

By photographing found advertising spaces in the New York City subway where advertisements have been temporarily removed, torn posters, paint, graffiti, and glue applied repeatedly over decades are revealed. Wyatt Gallery transforms these unintentionally made tableaux, referencing the masterful paintings by American abstract expressionism and French décollage art of the 1960’s Nouveau Réalisme movement.

These accidental works of art, formed by the hands of unknown employees repeatedly installing and deinstalling advertisement posters, are discovered by chance during daily subway commutes by the artists and might only remain visible for days until the next advertisement is placed on top, never to be seen again in this form. Subtext reveals a world of unintentional “non-made” street art that asks: What lies beneath that which forms desire?

Wyatt Gallery, 50C:388, 2014, UV Pigment on Dibond, 40 x 53.5 inches, ©Wyatt Gallery, Courtesy of Foley Gallery, New York.

Wyatt Gallery in collaboration with Hank Willis Thomas, 50C:9-367-9, 2014, UV Pigment on Dibond, 30 x 107 inches, ©Wyatt Gallery, Courtesy of Foley Gallery, New York.

Wyatt Gallery, 50C:379-377, 2014, UV Pigment on Dibond, 30 x 107 inches, ©Wyatt Gallery, Courtesy of Foley Gallery, New York.

Opening image by Paula Rey Jimenez