Press Release:
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Excerpt from Art and About:
“The huge crowd that turned out for the opening night of David LaChapelle’s and Elaine Reichek’s show at 56, Bleecker Gallery wasn’t on bit dull, insipid or shriveled up. Everyone looked just the opposite: fluffy, ripe and in blossom. The place ablaze with personalized radical chic, but these weren’t hollow hipsters, these were people with actual substance inside their decorative shells. People were bandying their imaginations about and their art observations as well. No vapid spine-chilling trendies here, these were good-looking art-worlders. It struck me that here truly was the young avant-garde. So the crowd was here, and the art? That was here too.
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LaChapelle’s work is big, first of all. These photographs are t least forty by sixty inches. What one would call them are “manipulated” Cibachrome, I suppose, meaning that there is more here than just camera work and Cibachrome shine. His show, titled Your Needs Met, was announced in the mail by a large card with the image of a gorgeous child-man wearing a piece of fluff and framed in roses. I guess this advertising brought some of the crowd there. It just looked right. The work was stylized mythic-religious-poetic: lots of hunks with angel wings in supplicant poses, innocent children and sweet madonnas attempting transcendentalism. The photographs were all in vivid color, yet misty, like dreams newly converted Christians living in the 1950s would have had when they slept. (Or maybe the dreams of sex-starved missionaries living in the 1950s.) When I saw this show, earthly problems just fell away.
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All the work is mounted beautifully, an added enhancement making many of thse Cibachromes truly collectible art pieces. Our needs are met.
Elaine Reichek’s work is a step away from NYC reality, like a far trip away. Somewhat akin to collage, yet never as chaotic, the overall motif has to do with the beckoning song of the Pacific islands. Hawaii, Fiji, Tahiti, Bali, Balai-Hai. Her work is refreshing. She created an entire installation under the skylight, complete with palm tree and coconuts strewn about the floor.”
Written By Cookie Mueller.