Ahron Weiner - Bible Adinfinitum - A hot exhibit.

Klompching Gallery - until August 11, 2011
111 Front Street, #206 (Dumbo) Brooklyn, NY

Creation of Man - Ahron D. Weiner

It was hot, I mean really hot at that opening in the very cool heart of Dumbo.  But well worth it since Weiner's four large pigment prints (24 x 36) were impressive and intriguing.  Weiner's technique of rip, tear, deface and then photograph layered public poster ads is right on the edge of trespass and vandalism, but since most of his victims are also simply opportunistic advertisements on someone else's property, I guess all is fair in love and art.


Of course its the subjects he imposes on essentially arbitrary juxtapositions and layered revealings that fascinate me.  The inherently roughly hewn surfaces lend a painterly expressionism that works to contextualize his biblical titles. 
The Creation of Man is simultaneously obvious and exuberant, a figure being lifted up against a primordial blue background.  The found nature of the image makes it seem like a rescued snapshot. The Temptations of Eve (temptations?) seemed a bit facile with the Apple logo front and center, as well as the Destruction of Sodom with a bit of flesh on flesh pinned down by bold letters and blue background. 
Potiphar's Wife Lusts for Joseph was the one that really got me.  On the right a woman's head in profile stares longingly at an amazing little multicolored collage of squares and rectangles that effectively summons the hapless Joseph's coat of many colors.  Its tattered abstraction with just enough narrative clues makes this one of his masterpieces.
It was hot, I mean, really hot.

Richard McBee.

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Eve's Temptations

Sodom

Potiphar's Wife