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GCA
119 Ingraham Street #315, Brooklyn
In Every Dream Home...
August 22 - September 21
Opening Friday, August 22 from 7-9 pm
In Every Dream Home… is an exhibition that looks into the dark side of a seemingly benign trinity of earthen materials – marble, granite and clay. In the hierarchy of stone, marble is supreme. Cool, fetishistic marble flooring is suited for imperial palaces, stately mausoleums and bank lobbies. Art museums, marble-flanked show rooms that exude sheer lavishness, house the most priceless marble sculptures of Western art history. Granite, a more durable down-to-earth stone, makes for an acceptable runner-up for ordinary residences and banal artifacts (kitchen countertops, gravestones, memorials). Carved of sturdy granite, Mount Rushmore is a cultural monument built to weather geological time. In comparison, ceramic objects themselves are more vulnerable to elements of decay. However, most of us are closest to clay; two-thirds of the world's population still lives in dwellings that are made from it. Dirt – sand, silt, soil, gravel, mud – is everywhere.
The pristine white walls of In Every Dream Home… are decorated with Brendan Loper’s paintings of opulent marble floors that play on power and reflection. He materially critiques the illusion of the impenetrability of stone through a classical rendering of shiny surfaces, but with gouache – the most lusterless painting material. The center of the room displays Michael Dickey’s Minimalist ceramics so meticulously crafted that it’s difficult to imagine how a clumsy human hand made them. Almost perfectly round, their shape and matte finish evoke ancient clay storage containers. Each vessel’s small singular opening leaves you curious about the possible contents inside – they could house a snake’s den or be used as funerary urns. The room is anchored by Mike Schreiber’s rough mosaic Counter Culture, made from pieces of discarded granite countertop he hauled from the sidewalks of Bushwick – shards of ruin from the gut renovation and domestic upgrade of a New York City neighborhood. While it weighs over two tons and can be walked on, the mosaic is unfixed and impermanent. Rest assured, In Every Dream Home… was carefully curated and custom hung with the utmost attention to detail, built to satisfy the cultivated sensibilities of the most well-heeled and discerning visitor.
BRENDAN LOPER was born in Lancaster, PA in 1984. He received a BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Studio Art from American University. He lives and works in Queens, NY.
MICHAEL DICKEY was born in Colorado in 1979(virgo). He earned his BFA from Colorado State University(painting). He lives and works in Brooklyn(Bushwick).
MIKE SCHREIBER was born in Maryland in 1980. He earned a BFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design. He works in Bushwick and is co-founder of GCA.
GCA
119 Ingraham Street #315, Bushwick, Brooklyn NY 11237
Open Sundays 12-6 and by appointment
Holiday House NYC
