Puerto Rican artist Glendalys Medina in the group show at Dorsky Gallery-New York

Puerto Rican artist Glendalys Medina

D O R S K Y G A L L E R Y | Curatorial Programs is pleased to announce the continuation of its program of independently-curated exhibitions - Disarming Geometries curated by Gabriel de Guzman will open on Sunday, January 15, 2017 from 2:00-5:00 p.m. and remain on view through Sunday, March 26, 2017. A color brochure with an essay by the curator has been published to accompany the exhibition.

With recurring natural disasters, pandemics, riots, social disparity, and political uncertainty, the world can seem a frightening place. The constant stream of imagery and data about calamitous or perplexing events induces enormous anxiety. Historically, the artists’ role is to create works that act as “mirrors” that reflect and comment on the issues of the day, and “windows” that frame a vision of the world. As today’s world is increasingly defined by apprehension, change, violence, and unpredictability, artists are challenged to address those issues without exacerbating the discomfort they engender. Disarming Geometries features artists — hannes bend, Glenn Fischer, Shanti Grumbine, Nicholas Hamilton, Samantha Holmes, Maria Hupfield, Tatiana Istomina, Glendalys Medina, Mitch Paster, Armita Raafat, Martyna Szczesna, Ryan Turley, Christine Wong Yap — who apply abstraction and geometry as organizing or fragmenting tools for processing those unsettling characteristics of contemporary life.

Glendalys Medina, Black Alphabet Series B. 2014.

Pencil and paint marker on paper. 24"x36".

Geometry without representational imagery is used to allude to spiritual concepts and to forge connections to the natural world by finding common patterns and symmetry in our surroundings. Basic shapes, forms, and lines give these artists an unending supply of image-making tools to represent everything from the simple to the complex, from the cool to the expressive, from the personal to the universal. The works in Disarming Geometries reveal the enduring capacity of geometric abstraction to defuse challenging material in an attempt to make them palatable and comprehensible while not provoking anxiety or inuring us to negative feelings and emotions.

Glendalys Medina is a New York-based multi-media artist born in Puerto Rico. Her work has been exhibited at such notable venues as Artists Space, The Bronx Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Vigo, Spain. She has been awarded the Yaddo artist residency, the Rome Prize in Visual Arts from the American Academy in Rome, a NYFA Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Art, and The Bronx Museum’s Artist in the Marketplace program. Medina received a BFA and an MFA from Hunter College.

Gabriel de Guzman is Curator of Visual Arts at Wave Hill in the Bronx. He has also organized exhibitions for Rush Arts Gallery, The Jewish Museum, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA), Carriage Barn Arts Center, Boriqua College, the Affordable Art Fair, New York, as well as The Bronx Museum’s 2013 AIM Biennial. His writings have been published in catalogues for Wave Hill, The Bronx Museum, Arsenal Gallery at Central Park, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, The Jewish Museum, Rush Arts Gallery, and NoMAA. He earned an MA in art history from Hunter College and a BA in art history from the University of Virginia.

D O R S K Y G A L L E R Y | Curatorial Programs is a 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit organization that presents independently-curated exhibitions of contemporary art. Working with curators, writers, and art historians, DGCP aims to illuminate and deepen the public’s understanding and appreciation of issues and trends in contemporary art. Gallery hours are Thursday through Monday, 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (closed Tuesday and Wednesday), and by appointment. For further information, please contact David Dorsky at (718) 937-6317, via email: david@dorsky.org or visit our website: www.dorsky.org.