Artist’s Statement

I currently work a full time job as a mat cutter at a frame shop in midtown Manhattan. I have realized that, in the art world, the frame shop essentially functions like the neighborhood barbershop, or better yet, the red-headed step-child of an already dysfunctional family. Clients feel free to discuss their inner dealings and gallery gossip in our showroom as if none of us should or could have any regard for their lack of discretion. Over the past five years, I have collected these nuggets of conversation, have imagined my own conversations with these entities, and have sought out tidbits from others who hold lowly but otherwise vital positions within galleries and institutions. I have, at the same time, collected numerous provenance stickers from the backs of frames and portfolios and have appropriated them with my own name and titles and details.

The impetus for this body of work came from one particular conversation with a client who reminded us to remove the provenance stickers from the old frames and to adhere them to the new frames because “all the money IS in the label.” My work explores both the idiocy and the irony of such a sentiment and is essentially a sharp critique of the world in which I choose to maneuver. Like the goal of all good literature, I strive to make nuanced work that is at its core an examination of the oddities and intricacies of the human condition.

Artist’s Links

artist’s website:   www.alexgingrow.com    

gallery links:   www.mikeweissgallery.com