Brian Alfred
Installation Views
Selected Works
Press Release
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – AMERINGER | McENERY | YOHE is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by artist, Brian Alfred. In Praise of Shadows will open on 26 May and remain on view through 1 July 2016. A public reception for the artist will be held on 26 May from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by Yundler Brondino Verlag featuring an essay by Sarah K. Rich and a conversation between the artist and the director of the Andy Warhol Museum, Eric Shiner.
This body of work was made in response to Alfred’s month long trip to Japan to research a project for Japan Railways to create animations in relation to the Niigata area for the Genbi Shinkansen, a high-speed railway service. The paintings are all small works on canvas of views that Alfred found during his travels. The title of the show references Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s celebrated book of 1933, In Praise of Shadows.
In the publication, Tanizaki focuses on the leisurely and idle pleasures of pre-industrial Japan. As Sarah K. Rich notes, “Alfred’s paintings of views onto busy streets, office facades, stadiums and airport runways might seem at first glance to exemplify the very opposite of what Tanizaki praised, sincemost of them capture bright, modernized spaces designed for efficiency. But therein lies the gambit. Because Alfred gathers such views in order to put Tanizaki’s insights to work. His paintings search for shadows— for poetic elusiveness—that might yet stretch across our otherwise blunt and over-lit world.”
The Genbi Shinkansen launched in Japan at the end of April. It is a special Shinkansen service this spring on the Joetsu Line that runs between Niigata Station on the coast and Echigo-Yuzawa Station inland. The carriages of the new bullet train will be fully dedicated to art appreciation, with one side of the train featuring a gallery of contemporary art, the name “Genbi” means “contemporary beauty.” The service has already been dubbed “the world’s fastest art experience.” Alfred is one of seven artists asked to contribute and the only non-Japanese artist.
Alfred also recently launched his podcast SOUND & VISION, where he visits artists and musicians in their studios to talk about their lives as creative people. The podcast is available for free download on iTunes.
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.
Recent solo exhibitions include “New Animations,” Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel; “Beauty in Danger,” Salon 94 Video Wall, New York, NY; “It’s Already the End of the World,” Frist Center for Visual Art, 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 “In An Illusion Village: Our Form Connected by Media Art,” Aomori Museum of Art, Aomori City, Japan; “Mercury Retrograde: Animated Realities,” Galerija Galzenica, Velika Gorica, Croatia; “100 Works for 100 Years: A Centennial Celebration,” Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; “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 the Jerome Foundation Grant; Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, the Excellence Award from the Japan Media Arts Festival, 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.