Bill Saylor — Aidas Bareikis

May 15 - May 26, 2012
Artists Reception: May 15, 6 – 8 pm

540 W 29th Street, New York, NY 10001

PRESS RELEASE

Bill Saylor — Aidas Bareikis
May 15 – May 26, 2012
Artists reception: Tuesday, May 15, 6 – 8 PM

Shoot the Lobster is happy to announce an exhibition of collaborative works by Bill Saylor and Aidas Bareikis.

Rivers are not supposed to catch on fire...yet sometimes they do.... And in case you were doubting, in 1969 the Cuyahoga River caught on fire. As proof, an excerpt from a Times Magazine article:

"Some River! Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows. Anyone who falls into the Cuyahoga does not drown, He decays". . . The Federal Water Pollution Control Administration dryly notes: "The lower Cuyahoga has no visible signs of life, not even low forms such as leeches and sludge worms that usually thrive on wastes." It is also -- literally -- a fire hazard...”

It takes a while to see things in the woods at dawn, and sometimes it takes an old manʼs assistance to make out the appearance of 14 cranes, a stork, and a moose. But by the end of summer, all these things will have been seen, and will be etched in memory, or forgotten in a box of ash. So, in a pit, a bunch of paper was thrown, the same size, to one and then the other. Scenes, figures, animals and conversation come without much coaxing, and (only sometimes plenty of beer), surprising the makers with stories that become acquainted with themselves.

Instigated by a friendship, and fueled by imagery sifted as much from outrageous realities as from real outrage, a decision was made by a mad Frenchman regarding a number, and then another. And so this collaboration continued, over the weeks building a pile, turning an initial humble winter zine project into a room full of drawings. Please be forewarned, this may or may not be a cautionary tale...

Aidas Bareikis was born in Vilnius, Lithuania and graduated from the Vilnius Art Academy in 1993. He came to America the same year and completed the MFA program from Hunter College in 1997. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and has been the recipient of a Soros Foundation Grant. Aidas Bareikis has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. Most recently his work has been seen in “Destroy Athens,” the Athens Biennial of Contemporary Art, “Fancy Meetings,” Locust Projects, Miami Fl., “When Humour Becomes Painful” at the Migros Museum, Zurich, Switzerland.

Bill Saylor has exhibited extensively internationally and has been included in such shows as The Peanut Gallery, curated by Joe Bradley, Journal Gallery, Brooklyn NY, Kults, Werewolves and Sarcastic Hippies, Yerba Buena Art Center, San Francisco, CA., and Contemporary Painters; curated by Alex Katz, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME.. In 2010 he was selected for the Artist in Residence program at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa TX. Both artists live and work in Brooklyn N.Y.