Joshua Cardoso, Jason Eberspeaker, Carsten Fock, Daniel Gordon
project space Haeri Yoo

November 2 - December 22, 2006

Reception: Thursday, November 2, 6 - 8:30 pm

Thomas Erben is pleased to present a selection of works by four artists all of whom expand beyond postmodernism's preference for horizontal movement. Although the term 'truth' in many arenas still functions upon modernist, linear, progress driven models in which 'truth' and 'universal' are synonyms; contemporary thinking over the past three decades has caused artists to recognize multiplicities, fracturing and dispersal.

For some, the loss of absolutes results in an overarching skepticism, whereas in the works exhibited nonhierarchical multiplicities are seen and explored as multiple points of truth without irony. Together with the new circularity with which history is now being viewed, 'truth' is contained and explored by its stylistic, conceptual and material treatment. This is not to suggest the desire for conclusiveness within these artists' work but rather an ability to see infinite possibilities within "An Inch of Truth".

Returning after his well received solo show at the gallery earlier this year, Joshua Cardoso (b.1979, Boston) presents the most recent of his meticulously rendered, luminous, large scale ink drawings. On his surfaces letters, numbers, and glyphs swarm and cluster in frenzied movements, finite but unfixed. The accumulation of tiny marks creates a highly seductive microscopic or cosmic myriad as observed through the apparatus of science or a non-ordinary state of consciousness. The seemingly intangible forms evoke both a scientistic knowledge of nature and a personal confrontation with the sublime.

Straddling the line between drawing and painting, Carsten Fock's work essentializes that which it chooses to leave out thus heightening what is present. Born in 1968 and raised in East Berlin, Fock's work is best known for the weaving together and editorializing of cultural and aesthetic histories. Both the seen: American slogans, literary fragments and popular imagery; and the invisible: their placement in time and space; are given equal weight. Their estranged relationship is consecrated by the exquisite, almost traditional quality of his brush stroke. Fock has exhibited extensively in Germany and was included in the seminal exhibition: "Deutschemalereizweitausenddrei", Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2003.

Daniel Gordon's (b.1980, Boston) No Title, again turns photography's truth on its head. Contrary to Yves Klein's Saut Dans le Vide, Gordon hurled himself through the air in order to simulate split-second moments of flight. Anticipating the viewer's 'savvy' in dealing with manipulated photographic reality, Gordon reminds us of photography's ability to depict the physical world while leaving as the subject the medium's ability to deceive. Deprong Mori, a photograph of a fabricated, three-dimensional forestscape built out of found photographs, achieves a similar shift in our perception of the medium. Gordon had solo exhibitions with Angstrom Gallery, Dallas, and GroeflinMaag Gallery, Basel; a forthcoming solo show is scheduled at Zach Feuer Gallery, New York in 2007.

Through paintings, which at times take on unconventional supports, Jason Eberspeaker (b.1980, Grand Rapids, MI) liquidates the distinction between the unique object of art and mechanized production. Working with flattened images, devoid of particulars, this highly varied collection pushes the aura of art past it's breaking point towards a vacated, undefined mysticism. Finally, Eberspeaker displays to us a nuanced, irreducible, unreflexive painterly gestalt. A recent graduate of the MFA program, Yale University, this is Eberspeaker's first New York appearance.

In the project space Haeri Yoo puts forth an installation, using her drawings and paintings, which weave together a disrupted narrative of feministic, culturally attuned mayhem. Bringing together the formal sensibility of her native Korea, psychological tension, outsider art and the graphic arts; this grouping is simultaneously refined and direct. Bold flourishes in line and subject undercut the delicacy of her technique. Haeri Yoo;s work is akin to the unrestricted mind of a child expressed with sophistication and eloquence.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10 - 6
For further information and visuals, please contact the gallery at 212.645.8701