Now You See

Closing Reception:

Friday, March 11, 7pm to 11pm

Bill Blast, Al Diaz, Tyler Jordan, Kyzer, Mekia Machine, Malike Sidibe, Smurfo, Mr. John Wright

Curated by Josh Gosselin & Mr. John Wright

Now You See is an exhibition featuring eight artists who live and work in New York City. The title of the show serves as a frustrated

exclamation directed at those who hold influence and power in the art world.

Prominent institutions, galleries, and collectors have historically snubbed artists, styles, and mediums that existed beyond a western (white) academic narrative. Such elitist and limited views regarding the progression of Contemporary art have always been challenged through globalization, but the stories and works produced by queer artists and artists of color were still put second, and until recently, never truly given the attention that was deserved.

Now, in the past few years, there has been an obvious shift in the art market. Esteemed public and private collections that once insinuated street art and artistic graffiti was too low brow to take in, now eagerly wait for stylistically adjacent pieces to turn up on the secondary market. After excluding, exoticizing, or tokenizing work from artists of color, museums and galleries have drastically changed their tune.

Outsider art works have always held monetary and cultural value, but only now have established artistic entities had this epiphany. The artists of color who make up Now You See, are from different backgrounds, genders, and generations. Formerly not taken as

seriously as their white male peers, the urban art aesthetic that some of the artists in this show have popularized, is now highly sought after.

Agh, NOW you see, and since you see, we will give it to you.

The eight artists of Now You See represent multiple generations and backgrounds in art making. From graffiti pioneers to younger artists with an academic studio arts background, the common thread is “the streets.” In the late 1970’s, Al Diaz used the streets as his canvas for SAMO, his timeless collaboration with Jean- Michel Basquiat. Today, Diaz uses the signage of the MTA to make cultural observations in a script familiar to every New Yorker. He will feature new original works created for this exhibition, as well as older collaborative pieces with Jilly Ballistic. Fellow graffiti pioneer, Bill Blast, fresh off his feature at the Museum of Graffiti in Miami during Art Basel, will also present newer creations. These OGs are juxtaposed with graffiti artists’ whose work is indisputably “right now.” Kyzer and Smurfo both speak to the visual language of today with cartoon inspired, abstract canvases.

Mekia Machine, on the other hand, is a Jamaican born, multidisciplinary artist and graduate of Columbia University. She will debut her series, “The Witnesses,” which was created during the four week trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd. Machine explains seeing the emotions she felt during the trial mirrored on the faces of the witnesses who were on the streets at the scene of the crime on May 25, 2020. Photographer Malike Sidibe captures everyday New Yorker’s through his portrait booth pop-ups, as well as extraordinary moments, such as New York street scenes from last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. For Now You See, Sidibe will publicly present for the first time his pop-up portrait booth works from the Metropolitan Museum’s 2018 “Afro Punk Festival.” Photographer Tyler Jordan, like Al Diaz, riffs on the MTA, giving the viewer perspectives only a past employee would have, of the rarely seen underground world of the MTA.

Lastly, co-curator and artist, Mr. John Wright, a painter and street-wear designer, applies the techniques of garment making back onto his canvases. The graphic t-shirt played an essential role in disseminating New York City street culture across the globe. Wright’s canvases play with this notion, featuring a backdrop of silk-screened images from past designs he has used in his clothing.