Last Thursday night, Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld presented Sick Atavus of the New Blood, a new solo exhibition of the Paris-based artist Nicolas Pol to great acclaim. Transforming the industrial setting of 560 Washington Street into a guerilla museum space, the exhibition features a suite of twenty new paintings and a group of new sculptures that […]
Nicolas Pol ‘Sick Atavus of the New Blood’
Last Thursday night, Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld presented Sick Atavus of the New Blood, a new solo exhibition of the Paris-based artist Nicolas Pol to great acclaim. Transforming the industrial setting of 560 Washington Street into a guerilla museum space, the exhibition features a suite of twenty new paintings and a group of new sculptures that densely and frenetically layer paint with stencils, text, and silkscreens of commercial information. Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld has previously presented Pol’s work in two large scale international exhibitions – The Martus Maw in New York in 2009 and The Mother of Pouacrus in London in 2010. This is the second New York exhibition for Nicolas Pol.
Amongst the cool fashion sets, invited VIP guests included Carine Roitfeld & Sisley Restoin, Andy Valmorbida, stylist Giovanna Battaglia, W Magazine Editor-In-Chief Stefano Tonchi, John Demsey, Stavros Niarchos Jr., PC Valmorbida, Aussie mdoel Jessica Hart, Bianca Brandolini, Michelle Harper, Stephen Gan and more. After the opening, VIPs headed to Gramery Terrace at the Gramercy Park Hotel for an intimate sit-down dinner.
Pol’s works are webs of contradiction that pit the classical against the delinquent, recasting the practice of the Ab-Ex Modernists in a savvy swindle of both art history and contemporary painting. This is the second New York exhibition for Nicolas Pol. Anything but calm, with no fear of the grotesque or vulgar, Pol’s canvases are dynamic, bold, raw, and cataclysmic. The show’s title, Sick Atavus of the New Blood, reflects the morbidity and violence that undergirds every one of Pol’s rough strokes. Paradoxically, it also belies a technological paranoia, both in the sci-fi reference of “Atavus,” and, perhaps, in whatever manner that “new blood” springs forth.
As Pol writes: “Boxes are vanities. Hollow like skulls. Vanities of human enterprises, technological progress or power. Computers make fake easy. They are the laziest way to make metaphysical statements. Beyond pessimism. Is it really the builder or the destroyer that cares for the future?”
A new monograph featuring the paintings and drawings of Nicolas Pol with an essay by David Hunt is available.
Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld presents: Nicolas Pol: Sick Atavus of the New Blood, will run from May 5, 2011 to May 22, 2011
Video below by Emily Segal from Nadine & Johnson
images and text provided by Gia Kuan
