A State of Flux: Three Artists – New Work

Karni Dorell - Derek Haffar - Tony Whitfield

on view: September 12 – October 10, 2010
Opening reception: Sunday, September 12, 4–7pm

A State of Flux juxtaposes the human impermanence implied in the two photographic installations on the gallery walls with the solidity of the squat and solid forms made from plaster casts of blank canvases. All three artists are showing new work, partly created for this exhibition.

Karni Dorell, a photographer and video artist, has collected snap shots from family and friends for several years to compile this piece that portrays a global mass of figures engaged in every day activities. Several hundred of these small cut-out images appear on the gallery wall and remind us that human beings are bent on survival; we continue our lives without interruption even though horrendous tragedies are taking place all around us. 

Tony Whitfield’s large, fragmented photographs focus on a culturally diverse family, connected by blood, marriage and affection. Central to this group is a  beautiful young woman in her mid-thirties, who suffers from metastatic cancer. Whitfield’s images range from the young woman’s wedding during the summer of 2008 to intimate time spent with her mother during chemotherapy in 2009.

Derek Haffar will exhibit sculptures from his latest body of work, blank canvases cast in plaster. The canvases are shaped into forms that are at once brittle and vulnerable (indicated by cracks and fractures) as well as sturdy and substantial. Their minimal, white presence presents an imperturbable element in the space filled with the human movement and gesture of the photographic works.

Karni Dorell’s work has been shown at several galleries in the Netherlands, at The Gallery at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Kentler International Drawing Space in Brooklyn and the Scott Pfaffman Gallery in New York. Derek Haffarhas worked with many N.Y. sculptors, created props for Matthew Barney's Cremaster cycle, and works as an Exhibit specialist for the Wildlife Conservation Society . He manages private commissions and teaches three dimensional design at Parsons. Tony Whitfield’s photographs have been exhibited in one-person exhibitions at the Instiuto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano in Lima, Peru, at the Amy E. Tarrant Gallery at the Flynn Center in Burlington Vermont, and the Leslie Lohman Gallery in New York. He is the Associate Dean for Civic Engagement at Parsons The New School of Design. His design work has been shown internationally since 1992.

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.

acknowledgments:

The exhibition is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. the New York State Council on the Arts, The Greenwall Foundation and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.