A brooding and covertly confrontational exhibition, Ricardo Brey’s Doble Existencia/Double Existence sits with you well after you leave the gallery. The exhibition is rich with symbolism and plunges its audience into a murky reservoir of poignant pigments, fragmented literature and found objects. The audience either willfully drowns or threads lightly.
Ricardo Brey | Rose of Jericho, 2013–2014 | Mixed media
Brey is no stranger to evoking emotion and addressing life’s innerworkings. The Havana, Cuba native has a longstanding interest in the origins of humankind’s co-existence with the world. He first garnered attention in 1981 through his involvement with Volumen I at the Centro de Arte Internacional in Havana. Brey’s recent collection of works stirs the soul.
“Ricardo Brey’s work is important because it complicates static understandings of self and place. Borrowing from diverse source materials that span geographies, time periods, and cultural traditions, Brey’s work offers a nuanced worldview that emphasizes diaspora and hybridity––critical concepts that resonate in our globalized contemporary moment.”
– Alex Santana, AGA Artist Liaison
When you enter Alexander Gray Associates, you are stopped by a selection of videos on loop featuring Brey carefully opening boxes from his series Every Life is a Fire. These mysterious and ritualistic performances are nothing short of entrancing and properly prime the audience for what they are set to consume next.
Ricardo Brey: Doble Existencia / Double Existence | Installation view
Ricardo Brey | Stormclouds, 2017
Ricardo Brey | Meditatie, 2018
Ricardo Brey | A patient man keeps cooking a stone and drinks from its broth, 2018
Double Existence/Doble Existencia is a marriage of dichotomies; an effectively displayed dual narrative of the mortal coil. Its cryptic charisma draws the audience in and invites them to decode Brey’s dialect and piece together the puzzle. Showing through April 6th at Alexander Gray Associates (510 West 26 Street), this engaging exhibition is certainly a must-see if you are in the Chelsea area.
Ricardo Brey | Doble Existencia/Double Existence
February 28 – April 6, 2019
Alexander Gray Associates | 510 West 26 Street, New York NY
Akeem is our founder. A writer, poet, curator and profuse sweater, he is responsible for the curatorial direction and overall voice of Quiet Lunch. The Bronx native has read at venues such as the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, KGB Bar, Lovecraft and SHAG–with works published in Palabra Luminosas and LiVE MAG13. He has also curated solo and group exhibitions at numerous galleries in Chelsea, Harlem, Bushwick and Lower Manhattan.