Michael Mazur: Stoneham Zoo (1977-1979) October 16 – November 15, 2014
Ryan Lee Gallery
515 WEST 26TH STREET NY, NY 10001
TUESDAY-SATURDAY, 10AM – 6PM
RYAN LEE is pleased to announce Michael Mazur: Stoneham Zoo (1977-1979), a selection of paintings and monumental pastel portraits of caged primates. This is the first time these works have been exhibited in New York since the artist’s groundbreaking show at Robert Miller Gallery more than 30 years ago. In the late 1970s, during a strong realist movement in the art world, Mazur returned to the subject of captivity, a theme which recurred in several phases of his career, beginning with his renowned hospital series, Closed Ward (1962-63), which portrays the most afflicted residents in a psychiatric ward. Throughout his life, Mazur addressed the individual human condition as well as society’s role in exploitative policies and systems of confinement. The work demands of himself and viewers recognition of the abused and forgotten. The American Way Room (1968), a wall and floor installation in an empty storefront where viewers walked over images of victims of the Vietnam war, brought his anti-war position to public spaces. His monotype collaboration, with poet laureate Robert Pinsky, of Dante’s Inferno confronts states of relentless anguish. In a 1993 interview with the Archives of American Art, Mazur said “I decided to do some work on the monkey cages at Stoneham Zoo, which were very depressed and reminded me of the mental hospital. It was a strange return to the hospital work via the world of animals.” His mastery of pastel is essential to the Stoneham Zoo pieces. The medium provided him with a way to combine elements of drawing and painting. Pastel’s directness of touch gives a visceral feeling of movement. The primates are on edge, yet in stasis. Tangible despair and the inhumane nature of zoos are conveyed in these portraits of the primates in their looming, barren cages. Light and shadow capture the dualities of passivity and tension within the images. A psychological intensity is heightened by Mazur’s extreme color choices.