Popular History

nycartscene:

Opens Tuesday, June 26, 6-8p:

“Our Ladies of Infamy and Grandeur”
 Graham Preston

East Village Visitors Center, 75 East 4th St., NYC (bt 2nd Ave & Bowery)

The exhibition of five gilded paintings will honor the exploits, undertakings and legends of lost cultural heroines from Manhattan’s historical Five Points neighborhood.

Preston arrived at the concept for this series through numerous conversations with his friend and mentor, Tom Sanford. Additionally, in the artist’s words, “I came up with the initial idea for this series of paintings while reading ‘The Blackest Bird’ by NYC author Joel Rose. I wanted to explore the lore of embellished accounts from Manhattan’s early days […] The implied iconography in these paintings calls our attention to narratives which, in some cases, have managed to live on through time as mere sentiments found within a few sentences in a couple of books […] I wanted to make small paintings which glorify small events by rather insignificant and even infamous individuals within the context of our written histories.”

Presented by Fourth Arts Block. Curated by Keith Schweitzer.- thru Sept 5

(via coolchicksfromhistory)