press release
John Avelluto: Disintegrator
Studio10 is pleased to announce John Avelluto’s solo exhibition titled “Disintegrator.” The exhibition presents the viewer with what appears, at first glance, to be a series of art objects fashioned from graph paper. These gridded sheets, which have been folded, cut, and reconfigured, recall a quotidian scene or perhaps one of minimalist abstraction. Further examination, however, confounds the initial reading, and engenders the revelation that not everything is as it seems. “Disintegrator” is not a collection of manipulated paper artworks, but rather a simulacrum. That which the eye recognizes as paper is, in fact, paint.
Avelluto plays within a carefully constructed set of rules, painting innumerable iterations of a single object. Each piece is formed in incremental veils of acrylic paint. The surface of each layer is refined, after which the familiar colors of blue and pink are applied in the ubiquitous grid.
As a result of this method, Avelluto produces a two dimensional surface that bears little content other than physical actions and alterations. The “paper” is a facsimile that betrays its material identity only through its handfeel and weight, both are trace results of Avelluto’s process that can be discerned only by touching the art object.
John Avelluto's works complicate the act of looking. The image and the dimensions of the work’s surface refer to the utilitarian sheet of graph paper. But Avelluto’s entropic reshapings of its typically precise grid, emerging here are disassembled and reconstituted. They intimate something more than simple formal play: the opportunity that these pieces present the viewer to examine the nature of perception, objecthood, and representation, our understanding of which effects the manner in which we experience art.
John Avelluto was born in Brooklyn, where he continues to live and work. His work has been shown in PS1 (Queens, NY), The Storrs Gallery @ UCONN (Connecticuit), The Slought Foundation (Philadelphia), The Living Art Museum (Reykjavik), Centotto (Bushwick) and AIRPLANE (Bushwick). His work has been featured in The New York Times and Brooklyn Rail. In 2007, he was invited to be a visiting artist at The Glasgow School of Art. John is the founder and President of the annual 5th Ave Bay Ridge Storefront Art Walk.
For more information and images, please contact Annelie McGavin at (718) 852-4396.
Gallery hours: Thursday through Sunday 1 - 6 pm or by appointment
Contact: studio10bogart@gmail.com www.studio10bogart.com