PAST EXHIBITIONS:

ENEAS CAPALBO

January 18 – February 17, 2007

Newman Popiashvili Gallery is pleased to present Eneas Capalbo’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. Eneas Capalbo’s Abstraktes Bild borrows the title from Gerhard Richter’s 1976 series of abstract paintings.

In his “abstract paintings,” he follows Richter’s example and starts the painting with one layer and builds up the painting until he reaches the desired result. However, Capalbo’s paintings are in fact representational since the artist uses photographs that he takes of linoleum floors, cubicle dividers, office ceilings, wallpapers, window blinds, early MTV video backgrounds, the images printed on paper cups, a Krisma record cover from 1982. Finally, among these abstract looking works are paintings of paintings - details of a Lucas Samaras and a Rainer Fetting painting as well as a painting of a Mike Kelley drawing.

In his exhibition at the gallery, Capalbo recreates the aura of the ‘80s – the work conjures up a certain feelings of an era. Yet, as Richter said his abstractions were “an assault on the falsity and the religiosity of the way people glorify abstraction with such phony irreverence,” we see Capalbo take this deconstructing of the abstract painting even further by using his photos of the mundane as a visual basis for the work.

Eneas Capalbo exhibited at Gracie Mansion, Esso, Salander O’Rielly galleries and he recently had a solo presentation of society portraits at the Valentino Boutique on Madison Avenue.