The ‘Hood Meets Madison Avenue
Sculptor Gregg Lefevre Switches Mediums and Messages in Exhibition of Large-Scale Photographic Art to Open Sept. 26th at the Cooper Collection Gallery
“Branding and the City,” a show of photographic art, opening September 26th at The Cooper Collection gallery in Greenwich Village, presents a rich comparison of commercial sex and glamour, as seen on billboards, with the anarchy, grit and raw energy of inner city life. Artist Gregg Lefevre’s messages are myriad and inescapable in panoramas capturing the ironies of urban (New York City) sociology, structure, and juxtaposed circumstance. The show will run through November.
“My goal is to lead the viewer beyond the product being promoted to a larger interaction with modern marketing: the commodification of sex, evolving constructs of beauty, the creation of cool with everyday life…where the streets meet Madison Avenue,” says Lefevre. His photograph “Bus 5409” captures a glamorous model from the F.C.U.K. ad campaign, thoughtlessly sliced to accommodate air vents on an MTA bus. Another is “Liberty in America” featuring the gray toned Statue of Liberty in the ten-story D.K.N.Y. billboard on Houston Street --spattered with neon orange paint balls. (A sample of images in the collection is attached in PDF format and can be requested for use in media coverage.)
In this new body of work, LeFevre’s images catch art evolving from art with poignant accuracy and irreverent perspective. It is spawned of his considerable experience with public art; Lefevre has more installations in Manhattan than any other artist in New York City and is well-known for his public art throughout the United States. Among his Manhattan installations are Library Walk, relief imagery cast in bronze and set directly into the sidewalks of 41st Street from Park to Fifth Avenue across from the New York Public Library, his inset Union Square Timeline which wraps around the southern half of the square and his work in front of the courthouses of Foley Square. Currently in commission is another series to be installed as the Madison Avenue Walk of Fame. But, whether sculpture set in sidewalks, free-standing, along corridors in public buildings or in his new medium, film, Mr. Lefevre’s understanding of the life of art as it enters the life of its surroundings is highly evident in the “Branding and the City” exhibit.
The Cooper Collection gallery is a large bi-level space at 137 Perry Street in Greenwich Village... an ideal setting for LeFevre’s large-scaled installations on the main floor, with framed photography on the second floor. Among the exhibition’s sponsors is The American Association of Advertising Agencies, in conjunction with their annual week-long event, Ad Week, (Sept 26th thru Oct. 1st). Branding and the City will be in exhibition at the Cooper Collection gallery through November, 2005.
Gregg Lefevre’s background and sculptural commissions and patrons are documented at www.lefevrestudios.com
