Peter Brock
Peter Brock is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY.
BILL JENSEN with Peter Brock
On the occasion of the painter’s recent exhibition at Cheim & Read, Bill Jensen welcomed the painter/contributing writer Peter Brock to his Williamsburg studio to talk about the new direction that has occurred in his work and more.
Dmitri Hertz: Crabapple
By Peter BrockBitter and misshapen, perhaps the crabapple has its reasons? Dmitri Hertz has reasons—ideas and sources that inform his sculptures—but the understated eccentricity of his work is so visually compelling that I was in no hurry to interpret these forms in terms other than their own.
Rochelle Goldberg: Psychomachia
By Peter BrockPsychomachia further develops a conviction that manifests throughout Goldberg’s work and writing: that consumption, whether physical or visual, is necessarily a mutual process.
Yuji Agematsu: Times Square Times (Kodak All-Stars)
By Peter BrockThe orgy of artificial light and advertising causes most visitors to tilt their heads skyward as they drift through Times Square. Despite, or perhaps because of this maximalist effort above our heads, Yuji Agematsu remains attuned to the peripheral drama unfolding at street level. Over the course of four years during the mid-2000s, the artist took hundreds of 35mm photographs during nightly walks through Midtown Manhattan’s most exalted intersection. The resulting images form the basis of his third solo exhibition at Miguel Abreu Gallery.
Ragen Moss: 8 animals
By Peter BrockThe decision to hand-write the bits of text and the question of where to place them are certainly aesthetic concerns, but Moss does not appear to prioritize these formal qualities. Her script is casual, and her placement is direct and frontal. The words deliver their punch despite their appearance, not because of it.
David Flaugher: Weekends and Holidays
By Peter BrockIn his first solo exhibition at Lomex, Weekends and Holidays, David Flaugher presents an austere scene that manages to feel at once delicate and confrontational.
Brandon Ndife: MY ZONE
By Peter BrockNdife lures us into examining these bizarre hybrids, which evince a process that simultaneously involves decomposition and growth. A mysterious form of allegorical and biological change emerges as the protagonist of this show, with each sculpture testifying to its strange presence.
Matthew Schrader: M. Obultra 3
By Peter BrockMatthew Schrader’s solo presentation at White Columns explores the complex symbolism of an iconic piece of American flora. Symmetrical pairs of curved leaves give ailanthus altissima an instantly recognizable silhouette, but Schrader’s work also speaks to the ways that this plant is actually a thriving immigrant entangled in the matrix of race and power that structures this country.
The Rock
By Peter BrockA large, squat boulder occupies what would otherwise be a parking spot at the corner of Montrose and Manhattan Avenues in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Flanked by yellow caution tape and four orange construction barriers, the placement of this massive stone was clearly meant to be temporary. And yet, like many aspects of daily life under COVID-19, this rock is now stranded in an unfamiliar predicament with an uncertain future.
