NEW YORK, NY.- Love Hurts, Yeah Yeah is a group exhibition offering an antidote, not to love and Valentine’s Day itself, but to the one-note, normative Hallmark messaging that inundates us this time of year. We’re celebrating the brilliant, twisted, and irreverent take on the ups and downs of seeking, and living day-to-day with, the many splendored thing. Humor is a connecting thread through the show with sentiments by turns sweet, stinging, and inspired by cry-in-your-beer songs. Love Hurts, Yeah Yeah, is on view January 22 through February 14, 2022, in HEY CHECK THIS OUT GALLERY (inside Quality Mending Vintage Shop), with additional art in the online exhibition on
heycheckthisoutgallery.com.
Brother and sister artistic duo, Zou and Lou (Jacques and Aurélie Bernard Wortsman), render Cupid falling down on the job in an all too familiar covid-style ennui: sunk into a Lazy-boy, bong and “Munchos” in hand, and bow and arrow at rest; there’ll be no love connections forged that day. Celebrating saints and sinners, Ghost of A Dream's From the Bottom of My Heart collage, created from Las Vegas sex workers’ business cards, is presented alongside C. Finley’s vibrant orgasmic martyrdom of Ecstasy of Santa Theresa. Cartoon-style jokes and one-line stingers, that could easily replace hackneyed greeting cards, include: Betty Tompkins (With Her You Never Know If You’re Going to Get a ‘Fuck You’ or a Chicken Dinner), Guy Richards Smit (You’re more than just a good man, Tom. You’re a viable alternative.), and more by Maynard Monrow, Noah Davies, Eric Doeringer (Richard Prince Joke) and Sean Mellyn’s snowman getting snipped.
Colin J. Radcliffe’s brightly colored ceramics are wrapped around hookup, breakup, and ghosting text messages in the form of sad-eyed big-penis figures (You’re Not DEAD But You’re Dead To Me), condoms and Grindr-lit phones. Beloved vices are honored by Walter Robinson’s paintings of French Fries (Saverin) and femme fatales (Angel), as well as in Larry Krone’s doily Heart Medallion (Jack Daniel’s). Inner monsters are revealed in the mirrored reflection of moby’s photograph Demons, and revenge is the message in Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Evil Thoughts throw.
As the exhibition is presented in a gallery inside a store, functional objects abound: Corey Escoto’s bronze tissue box cover, etched with the saying In My Arms Many Flowers, is equipped with tissues to wipe away those tears; Scooter La Forge’s hand-painted t-shirts address a range of our desires from Sexy Ugly to pleading to be loved. Larry Krone’s double lamp illuminates contradictory messages sewn onto the shades with his hair (You Never Had it so Good, I Never Had it so Bad.), muscle shirt (Don’t Fall in Love With Me), and Bottom of the Bottle Sticker Set - all capturing the power struggles of intimacy and providing a shot of empathy with which to drown your sorrows. Editions such as Ghost of A Dream’s fabricated pencils, You’ll Always Be (No.2), and framed cards and books by David Shrigley provide affordable dissing options.
The exhibition is also spreading the love, with benefit editions on view giving 100% of sales to some of our favorite non-profits, including: Jenny Holzer’s print and wood postcard (EXPIRING FOR LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL BUT STUPID) for Printed Matter; and from the Artist Plate Project, works by Haas Brothers and Lawrence Weiner (Somewhere, Somehow) by Artware Editions for Coalition for the Homeless.
The online video of Ted Riederer’s Drums and Roses, references his live performance at the inaugural rendition of Love Hurts, 2015, at Geary Gallery. Using 100 long-stem roses as drumsticks, the violence of the intense playing colors the room in a blanket of red rose petals. A many splendored thing indeed.
