Andrew J. Greene

Paul Soto is pleased to present New Work, a solo exhibition by the Los Angeles based artist Andrew J. Greene.

“When Andrew first started talking to me about his show, I was studying the I Ching, the ancient Chinese divination text. [1] The hexagram Clinging Fire is believed by many I Ching readers to hold significance in 2024. Clinging Fire is represented by an image of a small bonfire. Modern interpretations of this symbol urge us to embrace the interdependence of our existence, our docility, and our own light in order to overcome dark forces.

“Fire appeared all around me while I was preparing this text. I felt compelled to chain-smoke, though I have never been a big smoker. Boiler technicians fixed my perpetually broken heating system and now my apartment is warm. I caught a fever.

“The interconnectedness of these events led me to evaluate Greene’s work, too, as a connected system rather than isolated objects. His practice often addresses broad disciplines of politics, economic class, psychology, and mysticism in a coherent formal language that (if he admits it) builds language systems within a floating universe of meanings. These variables constitute Greene’s domain, opening up endless possibilities for narrative and relational interplays between objects. They demarcate and magnify acute readings of American reality.

“Greene’s exhibition, New Work, is comprised of three parts:

1. A sculpture made with a readymade mannequin sourced from a Los Angeles based company called Sign Waving Robot. The company makes crudely mechanized mannequins, designed to replace sign spinners on urban streets. Greene placed a Magic 8 Ball in its waving hand and dressed it like a businessman. The mannequin also wears a handmade globe costume.

2. A commercially available artwork hanging system that spans the perimeter of the gallery. The simple and readymade design allows heterogeneous content to be organized in a harmonious and unified pattern. Greene engraved the system’s aluminum molding with the words Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock, which alternate along the gallery’s 14 walls.

3. A series of aluminum framed photographs, which are suspended from the hanging system along the longest wall of the gallery. The images depict dress shoes of young professionals against the fake terrazzo floor of the New York City subway. Greene used his phone to secretly photography these subjects during his morning commutes from Ridgewood to Chelsea twelve years ago.

“These variables exist independently, and their azimuth and numerical relationships constitute a spiritual and emotional field. This is how variables and systems are described in divination. Though Greene has never drawn any direct connection between his art and divination, his method of creation is very similar. The conditions, variables present, and sense of future in his exhibition are all relative and always changing. His open systems are surprisingly accurate along this reading of divination, not only because they conform to the evolution of language, but also because they tolerate many uncertainties. Greene leaves constants to commercialism, which seems like not only a personal choice, but also a classically American one.

“Looking closely at all of the elements of the exhibition, one can almost envision a black-and-white movie in the style of Jim Jarmusch. The trainee salesman is sitting in a crowded New York subway, his hand hanging on the silver handrail, swaying but firm. The subway’s car moves towards the place where he wants to realize his dream: where there will be circulating currency, turbulent politics, and a personal destiny fulfilled."

—Claire Li

Andrew J. Greene (b. 1988, Lake Forest, Illinois) lives and works in Los Angeles. Greene studied at School of the Art Institute Chicago. His works have been exhibited at The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2022, 2020, and 2019); And Now Gallery, Dallas (2023); Paul Soto, Los Angeles (2022); FF Projects, Monterrey (2022); 83 Pitt Street, New York (2016); The Meeting, New York (2016); Balice Hertling, Paris (2015); and Soccer Club Club, Chicago (2015), among other venues. In 2020 Greene’s book Unconditional Surrender was published.

1 - The I Ching is an ancient Chinese divination text that comprises 64 hexagrams, each consisting of a figure of six stacked horizontal lines. Each hexagram is accompanied by a description, often cryptic and akin to a parable, which have been interpreted over thousands of years.