Fred Tomaselli
Early Work or
How I Became a Painter
OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY, FEB 5, 2016, 6 – 8 PM
BOOK SIGNING SATURDAY, MAR 12, 2:30 PM
James Cohan is pleased to announce an exhibition by Fred Tomaselli entitled Early Work or How I Became a Painter, the artist’s fifth solo presentation at the gallery, opening at our Chelsea location on Friday, February 5 from 6 – 8 PM, and remaining on view through Saturday, March 19, 2016. The exhibition features two immersive and four interactive artworks made between 1984 and 1990 and a group of mixed-media paintings and works on paper from the 1990s. Many of these works have not been shown in New York since the 1990s, and in some cases, not since the 1980s.
According to Tomaselli, something unexpected happened soon after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in painting and drawing: he had a crisis of faith. Racked with doubt about the relevance of the medium and troubled by its commodity status, he decided to quit painting altogether. After moving to downtown Los Angeles in 1982, Tomaselli began creating performative installations, a direction he continued after moving to Brooklyn in 1985. These immersive environments, made of low-cost, commercially available products, were created to deliver an escapist experience to the viewer while simultaneously commenting on the mechanics of that experience.