1 1/2  cols

Karen Azoulay, “In The Water,” 2006–2007, pigment print on watercolor paper, 1 edition of 5.

1 1/2  cols.

Robert Seydel, “Ruth Greisman, Untitled [Orn Du],” from The Book of Saul, 2000–2007, collage on card, 6¾ by 5½ inches

FOR 3-23

CUE ART FOUNDATION AZOULAY & SEYDEL w/2 cuts

ak/lsb set 3/19 #692474

NEW YORK CITY — Cue Art Foundation is showing the work of two contemporary artists, Karen Azoulay and Robert Seydel, through April 21. Cue is at 511 West 25th Street.

The fleeting and fluid aspects found in nature continue to captivate Canadian artist Azoulay. “Wading Under A Crackling Sky,” her first solo exhibition in the United States at Cue, features new sculptures, photographs and a site-specific installation incorporating imagery of fireworks, nightscapes and seascapes represented in staged scenarios reminiscent of the tradition of tableaux vivant. Azoulay captures these transitory atmospheric events through a performance-based aesthetic that enables the viewer to appreciate the stillness and poignancy at play. By using meaningful motifs, which may appear static but contain a fluid ancestry, Azoulay explores the interrelationship between nature and the decorative.

Inspired by the dramatic stage sets often featured in Las Vegas reviews, Azoulay’s site-specific installation depicts a night sky formed from large panels, painted in dark colors with small areas embedded with stained glass, and features abstracted imagery of fireworks.

Azoulay’s visual alchemy involves deconstructing the structure and harnessing the tensile energy of select, ordinary materials in order to transform them into icons and symbols of natural phenomena.

The approximately 80 small-scale collages, drawings and mixed media works on view by Seydel offer a multitude of ways of experiencing visual art as poetry. Working in notebooks and on found paper materials, accord to curator Peter Gizzi, “So many of his tools are a writer’s whiteout, pencil and pen, erasers, tape, type and newsprint, which he uses to capture light and color, the movement between what is lasting and fleeting.”

Seydel’s works on view incorporate fictional strategies, hybrid visual forms, collage, drawing, photography and extensive textual matter often laced with private meanings and references. Many of the pasted-in elements and typography featured are cut out of old books or found materials, and the style of collage mixed with hand drawn elements ads the impression of pages held over from a kind of midcentury archive.

Seydel’s ability to simultaneously work on and rotate between multiple series allows for flexibility within his creative process, and for experimentation with new content. Reflecting the interlocking nature of his practice, a composite installation on view along the main gallery wall will feature a selection of works compiled from a selection of series. The adjacent gallery walls will feature a significant grouping from Seydel’s longest ongoing project, “The Book of Saul,” 2000–present, an epic series incorporating collage, writing and other works, all ostensibly made by the artist’s aunt.

Seydel, born in New York City, lives in Amherst, Mass., where he is assistant professor of photography at Hampshire College. He received a regional fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for his serial work, “A Short History of Portraiture.” The exhibition at Cue Art foundation marks his first solo exhibition in New York City.

For information, karasmith@cueartfoundation.org or 212-206-3583.