Kristin Simmons at 450 Park Avenue

450 Park Avenue is pleased to present works by New York-based artist Kristin Simmons in the lobby gallery through December 2020. Simmons uses paint, printmaking, and mixed media to provide commentary on herself and her contemporaries, bringing to light the double-entendres present in our everyday lives. The reception and artist talk will be held on Wednesday, February 19 from 5–7 PM at Philips Auction gallery, located at the intersection of 57th Street and Park Avenue. This is the twelfth show the building has mounted as part of its contemporary art program.

Heidi Johnson at 527 Madison Avenue

527 Madison Avenue is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by Heidi Johnson in the Lobby Gallery from January 9 – April 10, 2020. Located at 54th Street and Madison Avenue, there will be an opening reception on January 21 from 5–7 PM. The show is open to the public 9 AM – 5 PM, Monday through Friday. This will be the seventeenth exhibition in 527 Madison’s ongoing program showcasing noteworthy emerging and mid-career artists.

The exhibition features five of Johnson’s paintings, which give a glimpse into a constructed world where flora and fauna have overwhelmed their environment, seemingly oblivious to what might be considered chaos. An Abundance of birds, animals, insects, and plants appear to thrive and delight in the detritus of human existence.

Inspired and informed by the conceptual template of Dutch Still Life, where disparate species of flora and fauna meet on the same plane, time is compressed.  Johnson’s paintings speak to our contemporary personal temporality, they exist in a culture of overrun by excess, and saturation. The work plays with the space between the unending highly constructed world of the internet and the very real and immediate space we dwell in. Although obviously farcical the paintings emit anxiety with excess that is very familiar. 

Heidi was born in Providence, RI and attended Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She currently lives and works in the Mott Haven area of the Bronx.

527 Madison Avenue is a boutique commercial office building located at the corner of 54th Street and Madison Avenue in New York City.  Completed in 1986, it was designed by celebrated architectural firm Fox and Fowle. The property has recently completed lobby and elevator upgrades and is owned by an affiliate of Mitsui Fudosan America, the US subsidiary of Japan's largest real estate company, Mitsui Fudosan Co., LTD.

Melissa Meyer at 499 Park Avenue

The Lobby Gallery at 499 Park Avenue is pleased to present seven oils by veteran New York painter Melissa Meyer through April 3, 2020. Known for her bravura gestural paint application and gridded organization of space, the show features paintings from 2009-2018 and is accompanied by an essay by Norman L. Kleeblatt. The opening reception will be held on October 15 from 5 – 7 PM. This is the sixth show organized at 499 Park Avenue by Jay Grimm Art Advisory. 

New Media | 8 Perspectives at 375 Hudson

“New Media | 8 Perspectives” brings together the work of eight established video artists from around the world. Installed in the atrium of 375 Hudson Street, located in the Hudson Square neighborhood of SoHo, the exhibition will feature the work of Lauri Astala (Finland); peter campus (New York); Victoria Fu (San Diego); Erdal Inci (Turkey); Adam Magyar (Berlin, Germany); Kambui Olujimi (New York); Leslie Thornton (New York) and Naoko Tosa (Japan). There will be a public reception on Wednesday, October 2, from 5 – 7 PM.

This exhibition is presented in partnership with Moving Image.

Kim Keever Abstracts at 450 Park Avenue

450 Park Avenue is pleased to present works by New York-based artist Kim Keever in the lobby gallery from July 26 – October 18, 2019.  This is the tenth show the building has mounted as part of its new program of rotating contemporary art exhibitions, and the exhibition is produced in partnership with Tillou Fine Art.

 Trained as an engineer, and working briefly for NASA, Kim Keever has been a full-time artist since the mid 1970s. His background in science, and interest in the landscapes of the Hudson River School and German Romantic painters, informs the unique process used to create the colorful large-scale abstract photographs for which he is best known. Keever’s process begins by meticulously creating miniature landscapes inside a 200-gallon tank, which he then fills with water. Pouring pigments into the water, he must quickly capture their dreamy cloud-like forms using his large-format camera. Sometimes romantic, and other times eerie, the resulting images evoke a sense of the sublime–– landscapes that feel simultaneously familiar and imagined.

Kim Keever lives and works in New York City, and has exhibited his work nationally and internationally. His work is in numerous collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Chrysler Museum and more. Upcoming exhibitions of his work in the US include Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, North Carolina Museum of Art, New Britain Museum of American Art and Figge Museum.

Roland Kulla at 527 Madison Avenue

527 Madison Avenue is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by Roland Kulla in the Lobby Gallery from July 17 – November 27, 2019. Located at 54th Street and Madison Avenue, the show is open to the public 9 AM – 5 PM, Monday through Friday. This will be the sixteenth exhibition in 527 Madison’s ongoing program showcasing noteworthy emerging and mid-career artists.

 The exhibition features six of Kulla’s photo-realist paintings, which depict detailed renderings of New York City’s many beloved bridges. Fascinated by engineering and the built environment, Kulla began examining and painting the bridges of his native Chicago in 1998, and subsequently expanded his oeuvre to other “bridge cities,” such as Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, and Berlin. Reflecting on what these bridges tell about their builders and the human experience, he abstracts the structural elements from their context and renders them in a way that highlights their monumentality and the creative thought inherent in their production.

Of his first solo exhibition in New York at George Billis Gallery, Maureen Mullarkey of The New York Sun said, “He is interested solely in the structural dynamism of bridge forms and the functional splendor inherent in their components: trusses, bolts, girders, railings, arches, beams, struts, ties and cables. His hard-edged paint handling is as austere and rigorous as his subject.”

Transitioning to painting from a 30-year career as a social worker, Kulla holds a BA from Bellarmine University and an MA from the University of Chicago. He has shown his paintings in numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions in Chicago, New York, Boston, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Maryland and Berlin. His work has been featured in publications such as American Art Collector and New American Paintings. Roland Kulla is represented by George Billis Gallery in New York.

This exhibition is presented in partnership with George Billis Gallery.