Brian Alfred
Installation Views
Selected Works
Press Release
In the studio with Brian Alfred from Sedition on Vimeo.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – AMERINGER | McENERY | YOHE is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent works from Brooklyn based artist, Brian Alfred. It Takes A Million Years To Become Diamonds So Let’s All Just Burn Like Coal Until The Sky Is Black will open on 5 February and remain on view through 14 March 2015. A public reception for the artist will be held on 5 February from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Live music will be performed by Ian Williams from ‘Battles’ during the opening.
Automobile racing is beyond a single dimension of experience. It is overwhelmingly visceral; the bright enamel of the cars, slick and beautiful, the sound so loud it makes the body hum, the smell of burning diesel penetrating the nose, and the palpable tension of imminent danger and victory, charged and terrifying. The same can be said of Alfred’s recent work. All implore the viewer to see beyond their singularity.
The genesis for this body of work began with Alfred’s exploration of different visual aspects of racing. However, it does not linger there. Moving beyond pure aesthetics, the work explores the ineffable and multi-dimensional moments of feeling symptomatic of the experience of watching the races.
Alfred’s cropped abstract works elicit different slices of time: defining the dualities of magic and menace, and chaos and calm. Jubilant explosions of confetti characteristic of winning are juxtaposed with fluorescent plumes of pink fire, speckled with dancing grey shrapnel, indicative of crashing.
Beyond the aesthetics of the race, Alfred explores the global threads that feed into making all aspects of the race possible. Depicting both pieces and scenes of tracks across the world, oil slogans, and referencing companies that contribute monetarily to the races, he broadens his global consciousness. Alfred limns wealth, excess, opulence, speed, oil, disaster, calamity, beauty, hubris, and the tragically thin line between living, and dying.
BRIAN ALFRED was born in 1974 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1997 from Pennsylvania State University and his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1999 from Yale University.
He has had numerous solo exhibitions nationally and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include “Storms and Stress,” Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel; “It’s Already the End of the World,” Frist Center for Visual Arts, Nashville, TN; “Co-op,” Giraud Pissarro Ségalot, New York, NY; “Rise Above,” Haunch of Venison, London, England; “It’s Already the End of the World,” Haunch of Venison, New York, NY; “Majic Window,” Studio La Città, Verona, Italy; “Millions Now Living Will Never Die!!!,” Haunch of Venison, Berlin, Germany; “Global Warmings,” SCAI the Bathhouse, Tokyo, Japan; “Surveillance,” Haunch of Venison, Zurich, Switzerland; “Space is the Place!,” Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY; “The Future is Now!,” Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; and “Overload,” Max Protetch Gallery, New York, NY.
Recent group exhibitions include “Uncanny Congruencies,” Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA; “Videosphere: A New Generation,” Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; “Me, Undoubtedly. 1309 Faces,” Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany; “Aichi Triennale,” Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan; “Surface Tension,” South Bend Museum of Art, South Bend, IN; “New Art for a New Century: Contemporary Acquisitions 2000 – 2010,” Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; “Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks,” Den Frie Udstillingsbygning (Den Frie Center of Contemporary Art), Copenhagen, Denmark; “The Shapes of Space,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; “American Academy of Arts and Letters Invitational Exhibition,” American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY; “Radar: Selections from the Kent and Vicki Logan Collection,” Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; “Metropolis,” National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; and “Digital Showcase,” Austin Museum of Digital Art, Austin, TX.
His work may be found in the permanent collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; Phoenix Museum of Art, Phoenix, AZ; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.
Alfred is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Japan Media Arts Festival Award, Pennsylvania State University Alumni Achievement Award, Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award, Pennsylvania State University Alumni Award, New York Foundation of the Arts Inspiration Award, Phelps Berdan Memorial Award, Skowhegan Match Scholarship, and the Edwin Zoller Scholarship.
Brian Alfred lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Alfred will also have, concurrent with the exhibition, a mural for Rag & Bone on the exterior wall of their Houston St. and Elizabeth St. Store, in New York, NY, as well as an exclusive print with Atelier Ace Editions through Ace Hotel, and an exclusive animation release with SEdition. A video interview feature and live Twitter Q&A featuring Brian Alfred, produced by SEdition can be viewed on their website: http://www.seditionart.com/brian_alfred.