Post No Bills: Public Walls as Studio and Source at the Neuberger Museum of Art
Neuberger Museum of Art
Sep. 11, 2024 - Dec. 23, 2016
Work by nine internationally renowned artists who use the urban landscape as inspiration will be on view at the Neuberger Museum of Art in the multi-media group show Post No Bills: Public Walls as Studio and Source, opening September 11, 2016. Their subject matter revolves around the collective human experience, rooted in the people, culture, and physical environment of the cities in which they live.
There are twenty works on view by Blu (Bologna), Mark Bradford (Los Angeles), Burhan Dogançay (Istanbul), José Carlos Martinat (Lima, Peru), José Parla (Brooklyn), JR (Paris), Robin Rhode (Berlin and Johannesburg), Vhils a.k.a. Alexandre Farto (Lisbon), Jacque Villeglé (Paris), each of whom contributes to and captures a unique and public narrative.
This stunning, colorful exhibition explores a contemporary archaeological aesthetic, celebrating the marks made by anonymous hands and examining the evolving history of walls that have been layered over time with paint, posters, and narratives.
“Urban walls layered with graffiti, posters, messages, paintings, and drawings hold the history of a place,” explains Avis Larson, curator of the exhibition. “In our daily lives we often pass them by, barely noticing what appears on their surfaces. Yet these very walls contain a record of human existence that serves as an inspiration for this multi-generational group of artists, who share a humanistic philosophy and have a tremendous sense of social responsibility. In a sense, they archive society.”
“Urban walls layered with graffiti, posters, messages, paintings, and drawings hold the history of a place,” explains Avis Larson, curator of the exhibition.. “In our daily lives we often pass them by, barely noticing what appears on their surfaces. Yet these very walls contain a record of human existence that serves as an inspiration for this multi-generational group of artists.”
The humble materials they employ – such as house paint, chalk, wheat paste, paper, and detritus replicate the elements they find on the walls that inspire them. Their tools are those of carpenters, house painters, and excavators, while their techniques, often borrowed from graffiti culture, are inextricably linked to their subject matter. Blu actively paints graffiti. His large figurative murals reinvigorate urban walls all over the world. Bradford transforms materials scavenged from the street into large collages that he believes map the “psychogeography” of Los Angeles. Doğançay documents urban walls; the more cluttered and layered, the better. They are “the testimonials of human beings expressing and communicating their history.” Martinat explores what it means to remove murals from public spaces without permission. In particular, he appropriates political banners and bills and recontextualizes them in the gallery. Rhode’s exuberant animations – created in the streets, studios, his parents’ yard in Johannesburg, and Berlin – transform the quotidian into the playful and fantastic. The street is his canvas. Vhils believes destruction is a form of construction. He drills into walls “to free the poetic images hidden beneath urban spaces.” Villegle removes large sections of layered and torn billboards from the street and presents the ready-made abstractions as a historic archive of our time. Parlá’s heavily layered paintings resemble distressed city walls and explore the accumulated history, both physical and allegorical, of the urban environment.
Post No Bills: Public Walls as Studio and Source is organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY, and curated by Avis Larson, Assistant Curator. Support for this exhibition has been provided by ArtsWestchester with support from the Westchester County Government. Additional support has been provided by the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art and by the Purchase College Foundation.
Public Programs
In conjunction with Post No Bills, the Neuberger Museum of Art has organized the following programs:
Wednesday, Sept 28, 12:30-2:30pm
Film screening: Megunica and Q&A with Director Lorenzo Fonda
Join award-winning Italian filmmaker Lorenzo Fonda for a special screening and conversation of his film, Megunica, which follows the muralist and animator BLU through Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Argentina.
Tickets to public programs are free to Purchase College students, staff, and faculty, and Neuberger Museum of Art Circle Level Members. General Admission: $10.
Wednesday, Oct 26, 12:30 – 2:00pm
Posters, Politics, and Power in Communist Cuba: Screening and Discussion of Wrinkles of the City
Artist-made documentary Wrinkles in the City follows JR and José Parlá as they collaborate in Cuba for the Havana Biennale. Following the screening, Elizabeth Guffey, Purchase College Professor of Art and Design History and author of the book Poster: Paper in the Post-Digital Age, will discuss how JR and Parlá’s project builds off the poster tradition in Communist Cuba.
Tickets to public programs are free to Purchase College students, staff, and faculty, and Neuberger Museum of Art Circle Level Members. General Admission: $10.
Tickets to public programs are free to Purchase College students, staff, and faculty, and Neuberger Museum of Art Circle Level Members. General Admission: $10.
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The Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York is the premier museum of modern, African, and contemporary art in the Westchester/Fairfield County area. An outstanding arts and education institution, the Museum was conceived with the dual purpose of serving both as an important cultural resource to its regional, national, and international audiences, and as an integral part of Purchase College. Support for the Museum’s collection, exhibitions, publications, and education programs is provided by grants from public and private agencies, individual contributions, the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art and its Board of Directors, the Purchase College Foundation, and the State University of New York.
The Museum is located at 735 Anderson Hill Road in Purchase, N.Y. (Westchester)
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www.neuberger.org
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Sunday (after September 1), Gallery Talk, 3 pm
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The Neuberger Museum of Art is easily accessible by car or bus, and may also be reached by Metro-North. By car: From the North or South – take the Hutchinson River Parkway to Exit 28. Head north on Lincoln Avenue to Anderson Hill Road. Turn right onto Anderson Hill Road. Left at first traffic light into Purchase College campus. From 684 – take Exit 2 South on Route 120 to Anderson Hill Road. Turn left onto Anderson Hill to 2nd traffic light. Turn left at Purchase College campus. From the East – take Route 287 (Cross Westchester Expressway) to Exit 8E. Take second left over Expressway onto Anderson Hill Road. Follow signs to SUNY Purchase. At SUNY purchase follow signs to Parking Lot W-1.
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On the Purchase College campus, after you have entered the main entrance, make a left at the fork, then a right hand turn on Lincoln Avenue. Take the 1st left hand turn (across from Starbucks) and follow the Neuberger Museum handicap parking sign to the back of the museum (behind cemetery).