Love Is Not All – Iron Gate East (Southampton, New York)

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Quiet LunchLeave a Comment

Iron Gate East will be hosting an opening reception for the group exhibition Love Is Not All on Saturday, November 3rd, 2018 from 5 to 8 in the evening at 230 Bishops Lane, Southampton, NY. The exhibition features works by Meghan Boody, Patti Grabel, Ryan Michael Kelly, Jeff Muhs and Richard Pasquarelli.

The title of the exhibition, Love Is Not All, is drawn from a poem by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and first-wave feminist Edna St. Vincent Millay in which Millay explains the inadequacy of love:

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain

How To Rope A Snake by Jeff Muhs

However, Millay points out later in the poem that, despite love’s inability to sustain us, many a man is making friends with death…for lack of love alone.  The final lines of the poem seem to express her belief that, despite the limitations of love, she would not exchange it for a life without it.

It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

While there is arguably no theme more ancient and intrinsic to human history than Love, questions around what constitutes appropriate expressions of romantic love and sexual desire continue to be debated at every level of our society—from art to politics. It is fascinating to note the differences between the gendered “gaze” felt around the representations of femininity in the exhibition: from Muhs’ girdled cement torsos and Kelly’s cinematic erotic photographs, to Grabel’s photographs of a spoon suggestively cradling a pearl, and Boody’s children—magical and savage looking characters, disconcertingly presented like wild, miniature elf-queens seated at a debaucherous feast.

Timeless Beauty 3 by Patti Grabel

While some of the works in the exhibition seem to examine, and even challenge, social norms and boundaries, other works take a softer of view of love. The time we take to stop and look at things. The time we take to lick the spoon. The attachments we form with our belongings, especially those which remind us of a time, or place, or person we have loved. The loneliness we feel in the absence of love. One visceral aspect of love that reverberates throughout the exhibition is the joy the artists take in their materials—the elegant lines and rich colors, the luster of the surfaces. For what is creation, if not the ultimate act of love? —Kelcey Edwards, Curator

Sara No.1 by Richard Pasquarelli

Magie Noire (Of her dainty flesh they did devise a common feast) by Meghan Boody

Artists: Manhattan artist Richard Pasquarelli has exhibited his work with galleries and museums internationally and has exhibited on the East End with Salomon Contemporary. Manhattan artist Meghan Boody has exhibited internationally and is also no stranger to the East End, having exhibited with Parrish Art Museum, Guild Hall, Salomon Contemporary and Carole Reed Designs. Brooklyn artist and fashion photographer Ryan Michael Kelly has had his work published internationally in top-tier fashion magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair and Vogue. Kelly will be making his Hamptons debut. Southampton artist Jeff Muhs has exhibited internationally, and extensively throughout the East End. Muhs was recently awarded Top Honors at the Guild Hall Artist Members Exhibition. Southampton artist Patti Grabel had her first two solo shows earlier this summer in Southampton and New York City. www.irongateeast.com

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.