Destinations/ Departures,
Nick Farhi: Emptied Pails
April 28–May 12, 2022
Iron Velvet is pleased to present Nick Farhi: Emptied Pails, an exhibition curated by Carlota Ortiz Monasterio on view from April 28th to May 12th, 2022.
There is a strange allure to Nick Farhi’s paintings, where seemingly commonplace domestic objects are transformed into extraordinary presences. The vintage and contemporary glassware sets, floral vases and glass pitchers that serve as his subjects are captured tightly in the picture frame. Often large in scale, they carry the gravitas of intimate portraits and embody what Marcel Proust once called “the profound life of ‘still life.’”*
However, unlike most of still life tradition, where visible traces of human life are imprinted on objects’ surfaces—lipstick marks on a cocktail rim, smoke coming out of a recently put out cigarette butt, condensation on the surface of the freshly served glass of Coke— Farhi’s objects are empty and show no signs of having been used. This approach, which rejects the cinematic dimension of still life, highlights instead its status as a commercial product.
In part, it stems from the places where Farhi finds most of his subjects, sites such as Craigslist and eBay, quintessential platforms for second-hand goods. Sifting through dozens of postings of glass sculptures, modern and antique glassware sets, crystal vases and decorative objects, Farhi uses their promotional images as a starting point. These imperfect shots, taken by the object’s owners, employ commercial photography conventions—including a high-angle perspective, blank or neutral background, and empty environments—that aim to highlight their aesthetic aspects over their use value.
In the recent paintings presented in this exhibition, Farhi has focused particularly on glass objects. The choice of this subject matter shows a predilection for pictorial challenges, where only the most deft mastery of color—subtle combinations of whites, grays, blues and pinks—allows the objects to come to life. It also demonstrates a deeply-rooted interest in light and transparency. Glass demands a careful study of reflections and translucency, of distortions of light and space, and of slight variations in the intensity of light.
This rich accumulation of effects, however, is more than just a realistic rendering. While it may be tempting to reify the objects in Farhi's works, what is at the core of their depiction is a troubling of the notion of commodification and a revelation of their corollary emptiness. A ubiquitous industrial substance, glass both contains and gives shape. In its materiality, it reveals layers of history and time, processes of production, distribution and style, histories of exchange and ownership.
Yet, as tempting as it must be, Farhi resists the impulse to imbue his works with particular meaning. The intricate glass sculptures, crystal vases and decorative objects he portrays carry and intentional open-endedness rarely found in contemporary still life. Through it, Farhi seems to be hinting that perhaps the viewer, not the artist, should be the one to fill the empty glass.
—Carlota Ortiz Monasterio
*Marcel Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, translated by James Grieve (New York: Penguin, 2002), 448-49.
This exhibition is part of Destinations/Departures, a six-week rotating exhibition exploring the home as a dynamic space of movement, showcasing the work of artists Nick Farhi, Sophie Kovel, and Hyoju Cheon. Organized by Victoria Horrocks, Ho Won Kim and Carlota Ortiz Monasterio, it will be on view from April 28th to June 11th, 2022.
Nick Farhi
Nick Farhi (b. 1987, New York) utilizes installation and still life painting to connect people, places, and things. Through research, histories and relationships to one another are addressed and given a meeting place. Desperate, lush, and seismic shapes are made from confabulated memory and happenstance in the artist’s practice, arriving to a number of cross-figural dialogues and polemics reflecting current events. Farhi has exhibited his work both domestically and internationally, at outposts such as the Kirkland Gallery of the Harvard GSD, the Mana Museum of Contemporary Art, Bill Brady Gallery, Galleri Golsa, Karma International, and A Gathering of the Tribes, among others.
Carlota Ortiz Monasterio
Carlota Ortiz Monasterio is an art historian, writer and curator based between New York and Mexico City. Her research focuses on practices from the Global South, particularly Latin America and the Caribbean, that explore notions of memory, diaspora, and embodied knowledge. She is currently pursuing an MA in Modern and Contemporary Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies at Columbia University.
Destinations/Departures
New York, NY—Iron Velvet is proud to present Destinations/Departures, a six-week rotating exhibition exploring the home as a dynamic space of movement, where the limits between the private and the public, the local and the global, the personal and the political, are constantly being negotiated. Through three two-week solo shows of artists Nick Farhi, Sophie Kovel, and Hyoju Cheon, Destinations/Departures probes the diverse ways in which the domestic interweaves the individual, the collective, the political, and the cultural. It will be on view from April 28th through June 11th, 2022. In Destinations/Departures, each artist establishes an intimate dialogue with the domestic space of the gallery. Conceiving home not merely as a place of dwelling, but as one of mobility—of destination, transit, and departure—the three presentations suggest diverse modes of inhabiting the world. Through an innovative use of oil and pastel on aluminum, Nick Farhi renders seemingly commonplace domestic objects as extraordinary presences: portals mediating between the personal and the social. Sophie Kovel’s bold doormat series charges the ubiquitous, quotidian object with cultural iconography and political phrases to comment on the leakage of mass media culture into the private sphere. Lastly, through a site-specific installation, Hyoju Cheon sheds light on overlooked domestic spaces—corners, steps, window frames—and activates our often unnoticed relationship with the architecture of home. Through their distinct projects, each artist conveys an experience of being at home that is marked by multiplicity, movement, and interconnection. In blurring the public and the private, Destinations/Departures hopes to be its own journey to reconceptualize one’s sense of “home” in the world.
