Gary Cruz: I'll Take You There
We have had a wonderful opportunity to work with New York-based artist Gary Cruz on his current, "I'll Take You There" exhibition. Cruz explores the potential of painterly abstraction through iPhone shots and edited works, creating compelling portraits of queer space across 30 banners playfully ensconced in aluminum-clad walls. The exhibition documents the interiors of gay bars he has visited across the country and world throughout his travels. The abstracted images are a reflection of queer sites, aesthetic, community and history. Cruz' career in architecture and interior design has allowed him to have an acute eye for capturing aspects of lives, emotions, and energy within bar interiors. He manipulates the images using a unique process of pinching, expanding, pushing and pulling which ultimately results in a dynamic combination of mood, spirit, and complexities of space.
"I'll Take You There" is the second installment in the curatorial project "HotHouse," which explores current queer creators' relationships to queer history, space, and memory. The artists' ongoing project allows the audience to reflect on what their individual roles are when remembering or recording aspects of queer history and intentional queer spaces. Cruz's work is printed on our dye-sublimated matte finish aluminum with aluminum flush frame, displayed alongside a variety of his many other abstract, thought-provoking abstractions.
Gary Cruz (b. 1961) earned a degree in architecture from University of Texas, Austin, TX, and attended Bronx Museum of the Arts, AIM Program, Bronx, NY. The artist is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Grant and Robert Rauschenberg Change Inc. Grant. His first solo show was at White Columns in 2003, and he has also exhibited at The Drawing Center, Art in General, and the Islip Art Museum. A native of Rockport, Texas, he now lives and works in New York City.
"I'll Take You There" is showing January 10th - March 10th 2020
Located at The Olympia Project
255 McKibbin Lofts #15
Brooklyn, NY 11207
Open Saturday -Sunday 12-6 or by appointment
