"Here's the Thing: The Single Object Still Life"

Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY
March 30 – June 29, 2008
Curated by Robert Cottingham

The Katonah Museum of Art presents “Here’s the Thing: The Single Object Still Life,” an exhibition that celebrates single objects, their closeup beauty, mystery and the one-on-one relationship, even the psychological involvement, that each artist reveals in depicting such solitary items.

Curated by acclaimed photorealist painter and printmaker Robert Cottingham, the exhibition includes more than 60 paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, created between the late Nineteenth Century and the present, including works by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Jasper Johns. It will be on view through June 29.

“Here’s the Thing” asks questions and inspires nostalgia. The single objects featured are familiar everyday, manufactured items: packaged goods, household appliances, utensils, prepared food, furniture, apparel, hardware, building materials and tools. It is things remembered from childhood or simple overlooked objects that are presented.

A prime example is Shimon Okshteyn’s graphite drawing “Iron,” in which his super-sized appliance reveals an abstraction pattern of the collected scratches, stains and scorches it has accrued over the years.