Paolo Curti & Co. Gallery
opens the first Italian solo exhibition of the
American artist Erik Parker.
Born in Stuttgart,
Germany in 1968, Erik Parker lives and works in
New York. Erik Parker is a
self-appointed archivist of postwar New York Art,
with an interest extending to music and
performance. His
paintings, which resemble drawings, are mostly
made up of words: elaborate litanies of name, of
people, of places and movements both familiar and
famous, that evoke an era or a scene.
Parker
paints organisation charts, maps, thorough lists
of famous artists around the world, curators,
gallery owners, artists, musicians, poets, drug
dealers, pimps and famous people that animated
the second half of the previous century. The
various names are individually enclosed in a
cocoon that, seen as a group creates a type of
link rich in detail, an original plot in which an
expressive strenght extends beyond the work of
art, deliberately using “naif” false
style.
In his
paintings, each element is linked to another, or
descends from another, his works are similar to
some amusing family trees. Already
sanctioned in the pages of the New York Times as
one of the most interesting young New York
artists, Erik Parker has created for this
exhibition 5 oils on canvas of large dimensions
and a series of drawings.
The artist
has also participated in the Greater New York
exhibition, PS1, New York, 2000 and in Artists in
the Market Place, Bronx Museum, New York
