Located in a homey neighborhood next to the busy Chinatown, Gallery Nine5 is maybe the size of your typical deli. Get off the 6 train on Spring Street, and it is only a three blocks walk. If I had not been actively looking for it, I would have walked right past its glass doors.
The first sculpture you would see as you enter the small gallery space is David Inox by Alben, a headshot of what might possibly be the famous David by Michelangelo. You would wonder what the resin is filled with and upon closer inspection, you would realize that it’s utensils: spoons and forks and knives.
Directly across from David Inox is FALL by Jessica Lichtenstein. Now, are you the type to see an image first or the word that the image makes first? Because behind the thick layer of acrylic base that spelled the word “fall” was a black and white print of tress over a lake. You might think that leaves were falling off the tree, but upon closer inspection, you would be shockingly surprised to find hentai girls instead of leaves.
A little past FALL, around the corner of the wall, you would find an organized mess of wires propped up on a wooden base. Unlike the reoccurring trend of taking a closer inspection, you would have to take a few steps back to appreciate the profile of Obama found in the wires. Tension (Obama) by Michael Murphy is reminiscent of the president’s 2008 change posters.
The art throughout the gallery defies our traditional conception of paint on canvas art, and challenges our modern conception of mixed media art. In his sculptures, Ignacio Muñoz Vicuña uses “paint as a muse rather than a medium” to capture the movement and texture of the paint itself. The folds and drapes of his canvases on wood are supposed to embody that fluid movement. Compared to traditional paint on canvas art, Vicuña challenges the idea of modern art by making color singularly art.
Similarly, Katherine Mann combines the idea of paint on canvas in an explosive mixed media sense. In her Cloud in Oil piece, she uses acrylic and sumi ink on paper to illustrate the “chaos and contingency of an organic environment.” Her highly patterned painting might seem abstract, but in that confusion of shape and color, Mann creates a space where chaos makes sense. Her shapes and colors grow off each other in an organic process.
At the same time, Steve Ellis uses the traditional idea of paint on canvas to introduce a modern art piece. In his Monster Storm piece, he uses oil to illustrate a fictitious scene through realism. In an almost angry manner, vibrant colors rip into a copper-colored cityscape of New York City. Sharp corners poke at the edges of each other in an overlapping manner, but it’s not busy enough to be overwhelming. You make out words so well-proportioned that you wouldn’t believe it wasn’t mixed media.
I asked Irina Gusin, director of external affairs, how they chose which pieces to display. She told me that the gallery owner would contact artists that he was interested in, and would represent them in Gallery Nine5 if they were not represented elsewhere. Much like the unknown Gallery Nine5, simply another gallery within the near seventy other galleries in the general area, the artists that I encountered there were also unknown until that day.
I enjoyed the time spent mulling over the concepts of art at Gallery Nine5 as a result of the art displayed. I also really recommend for anyone to go because the sculptures on display are a lot more breathtaking in person. You would definitely be pleasantly amused.
