CONCEPT
NEW YORK MINUTE is the inaugural exhibition under the new director of MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome, and will take place in the suggestive spaces of MACRO FUTURE, the former slaughterhouse located in Rome’s Testaccio neighbourhood. The exhibition presents sixty artists who live, work or gravitate around the city of New York. It’s a look at the drama, danger, speed and dynamism of the city’s diverse creative activities. It is the first exhibition to take place under the new direction of Luca Massimo Barbero, the former president of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation and of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. There is great anticipation, both in the press and the arts community, for his debut as Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome. NEW YORK MINUTE is curated by Kathy Grayson, a young and already well known American critic and Director of Deitch Projects, one of the most influential art galleries in the United States. Kathy Grayson is today one of the greatest international experts on new tendencies in contemporary art. NEW YORK MINUTE is a look at one of the most glamorous communities of artists in the international panorama. Artists such as Dash Snow, Terence Koh and Ryan McGinley are the new protagonists of the star-system. Artists who turn their lifestyles into the very product of their art. NEW YORK MINUTE is the first event that brings this “community” to Europe. The project is promoted and produced by the DEPART Foundation, a new organisation dedicated to the promotion and support of young contemporary artists.
The exhibition NEW YORK MINUTE is articulated in three thematic areas: Street Punk, Wild Figuration and New Abstraction. Artists such as Dash Snow, Kembra Pfahler, Terence Koh, Nate Lowman, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Lizzi Bougatsos and Aurel Schmidt belong to the first category. A mix of dark energy and street-life made evident through collage, performance, music and sculpture. The second more colourful, explosive and sincere trend privileges compositions made from found materials and the handmade. Among others, Chris Johanson, Jim Drain, AVAF, Paper Rad, Takeshi Murata, Midsaki Kawai and Jules de Balincourt are included in this area. The third trend represents explorative attempts into the field of abstraction, with the energy of street culture and the digital era. Representatives of this area include Dan Colen, Rosson Crow, Sterling Ruby, Xylor Jane, Tauba Auerbach and Ara Peterson. NEW YORK MINUTE will feature large-scale installations, site-specific murals, sculptures, light structures, paintings and video projections that create connections between each other within the frame of MACRO FUTURE. The NEW YORK MINUTE exhibition will be accompanied by a series of collateral events, concerts, screenings, performances and happenings that present like-minded artists, both aesthetically and content-wise, to the spirit of the exhibition.
