UPCOMING
FREDERICK SOMMER: VISUAL AFFINITIES
Opening Reception: October 24, 6 – 8pm
On View: October 24 – November 27, 2019
Visual Affinities, Ricco/Maresca’s second one-person Sommer exhibition in collaboration with Bruce Silverstein, presents a selection of work that reflects the variety of expression in the artist’s practice: from photography, ink on paper and “glue color” drawings (pigment suspended in hide glue), to his “musical score” works.
MICHAEL WOLF
METROPOLIS
October 24 – December 21, 2019
Opening reception: October 24, 6-8 pm
Bruce Silverstein Gallery
529 West 20th Street
New York
CLOSING SOON
JAZZ, Ricco/Maresca’s second collaboration with Demisch Danant, highlights the unrecognized affinities between French 1950s furniture design and works depicting architecture by William Hawkins.
On view: September 10 – October 19
Demisch Danant
30 W 12th St. New York, NY 10011
Massey (1895 – ?) was an African-American self-taught artist and poet who created a compelling body of work during his incarceration at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. As an inmate, Massey engaged in a years-long correspondence with Charles Henri Ford, the editor of the pioneering surrealist publication View, which resulted in the eventual inclusion of Massey’s art and poetry in issues of the magazine between 1943 and 1946.
On view:
September 10 – October 19
MONOGRAPH AVAILABLE
Preface: Kimberly Reyes
Introduction: Alejandra Russi
Edited and designed by Laura Lindgren
96 Pages
PRESS
Are Joe Massey’s Prison Drawings the Next Big Thing?
The Next Big Thing, which may well be the Real Thing, too, could be a recently surfaced cache of ink-on-paper drawings made by Joe Massey, a self-taught African American artist who spent the latter part of his life in jail. His unusual, vivacious creations are now being shown, through October 19, in Shut Up: Joe Massey’s Messages from Prison, at Ricco/Maresca Gallery.
This presentation kicks off the current New York exhibition season with an unmistakable reminder that, sometimes, less really is more, for there is no stopping the expressive power of a skilled draftsman with little more than a nib pen, a bottle of ink, and a deep well of imagination.—Edward M. Gómez
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Pictured: Joe Massey. “A mixtre,” 1946. Ink on paper. 11″ x 8 1/2″
NEWS
Gil Batle and Joe Massey will be included in the exhibition The Pencil Is a Key at the Drawing Center, presenting historical and contemporary drawings by artists who were or currently are prisoners juxtaposed with drawings by prisoners who became artists while incarcerated.
The Pencil Is a Key
Drawings by Incarcerated Artists
The Drawing Center
October, 11 2019 – January 5, 2020
35 Wooster Street,
New York, NY 10013
Gil Batle. “3 Owl/OG (Old Gangster),” 2017. Graphite on cardboard. 4″ x 2.75″
Joe Massey. “Were you speaking to me ,” n.d. Ink on paper. 11″ x 8 1/2″