February 15, 2007
Contact: Sarah Friedland
For Immediate Release
212.714.0044
JOHNNY SWING, CLARENCE MORGAN SHOW AT REEVES CONTEMPORARY
Reeves Contemporary at 535 West 24th Street, opens two concurrent shows of new work by sculptor Johnny Swing, and painter and printmaker Clarence Morgan. The shows open with an artists’ reception on Thursday, March 1st between 6-8 p.m. and the shows run through March 31st. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 - 5:30 p.m. and by appointment.
An alumnus of Skidmore College and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Johnny Swing has been creating art professionally for two decades. In this latest and most ambitious of his sculptural experiments, Swing will install a large scale sculpture of twisted steel and electric lights that measures over 60 feet in length. Johnny bundles steel rods and swirls them together to accomplish the sinuous lines and dynamic curves of this improbable piece.
Although presently a New Englander, Swing spent the majority of his career as an artist in New York City's eclectic East Village in the 1980s. His obsessive furniture pieces can be found in the permanent collections of notable museums and art centers around the world. Taking common, everyday materials and austerely re-purposing them, typically in a repetitive patterning, Swing’s studio has created unique examples of beautiful and functional sculpture. His contemporary furniture has been featured at the International Furniture Show at the Javits Center in New York; and his designs have been included in The Chair, a review of the most innovative designs of the past decades. His distinctive ‘Nickel Couch’ was featured on the cover of Arts and Antiques magazine.
Clarence Morgan’s new paintings continue his investigation into a formalism defined by his precise integration of geometries and grids. These disciplined paintings nonetheless have a free, rhythmic aspect that belies their Modernist roots: the openings Morgan creates in the black-on-white motif convey tremendous depth of field. The surfaces—especially the black silhouetted amorphic imagery—add a sensuous, tactile element to his otherwise rigorous inquiry.
Morgan studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of The Fine Arts, and graduated with an M.F.A. in painting from the School of Design, University of Pennsylvania. He currently is the Department Chair of the Regis Center for Art at the University of Minnesota. He is the recipient of a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship, McKnight Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship, Minnesota State Arts Board NEA/Regional Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Study and Travel Grant, as well as grants from the Southern Arts Federation (NEA/Regional), Art Matters, Inc. (New York), and a Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council.
His work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States in such venues as the Walker Art Center, Kidder Smith Gallery, Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Harwood Museum of Art, Tweed Museum of Art, North Carolina Art Museum, The Mint Museum of Art & Design, and the Morris Gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of The Fine Arts. Upcoming exhibitions include a solo show entitled Pigmented Distinction: Paintings & Works on Paper, February, 2007 in Lake Forest, Illinois, and a solo exhibit at the Romo Gallery in Atlanta, in April, 2007.
For more information or to visit the online gallery, please see reevescontemporary.com or call 212 714 004.