The Birth of Art
Theodore Titolo
July 8 - August 19, 2017
Opening reception July 8, 2017 6-8pm
138 Eldridge Street, New York, NY 10002
PRESS RELEASE:
"When I go to art galleries and museums, I feel that artists are, on the whole, dealing with an 'another' and wonder why they try to hide themselves in this 'other.' Perhaps they feel it is what is expected - the distance. I never considered the aesthetic zing of the personal to be a worthy target. The pursuit of making or enjoying the aesthetic after 300 years of defining itself into a century of bloodless formalism, has resulted in creating the dope of the intelligencia. One goes to a gallery or museum and gets a quick fix, an art high, a cheap thrill, about as profound and instructive as a popsicle and just as enduring." - Theodore Titolo
Theodore Titolo studied art from the early 1950s to the late 1960s. He felt his style was never clearly definable and thought he could never find success as an artist, as he didn’t see the work fitting easily into commercial galleries. He obsessed equally over the line drawing, collage, and painting. Always somewhat autobiographical, the work explores his deep yearning to become a hermaphrodite, his homosexuality, his time as a stock broker on Wall Street, the Indian, Tibetan and Southeast Asian tradition of tantric work, Socialism, movie stars, spirituality.
Titolo has always desired to keep art and money separate, so as to not morph art's creative purpose. For him, reproductions hold as much value as originals and he often made prints of his own work, which is the only work he would consider selling. For his first gallery show in over 30 years, Shoot The Lobster is presenting a selection of those reproductions, as well as line drawings, collages, paintings, text, and photography.
"Perhaps my only consistency is curiosity." - The.
Theodore Titolo (b. 1928 New York City, NY) lives in Torrington,CT.
A special thank you goes to the Leslie-Lohman Musuem of Gay and Lesbian Art.