the 2004 So-Ho-Chelsea international art competition
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The 2004 SoHo-Chelsea International Art Competition-by Van StokesThis year, Agora Gallery's annual art competition, juried by the Guggenheim's venerable Susan Cross, yielded a great diversity of work. Spread across its spaces in both SoHo and Chelsea, the exhibition opens the doors for a select number of artists to exhibit in one of the two seminal New York regions for contemporary art. Agora's newest space in Chelsea, the art world's epicenter of late, is a finely renovated space set in the heart of West 25 th Street. Built in the tradition of Chelsea's industrial-complex-turned-crisp-white-gallery-space, the environment is a perfect context for the forward looking art exhibited by the 2004 contest winners.
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This rethinking of the grid space is an ironic and optic post-consumer-era take on the infiltration of modern detritus into ordered space. Close by is Hiroshi Kumagai's spirited painting. His illustrative abstraction engages the symbolism of movement. Much like Inka Essenhigh's bold swirling forms, his work approaches abstraction through representing fantastic affect or motion. Another interesting take on flatness and abstraction is Chris Jordan's work "Recycling Yard." His Gursky-like photograph of a recycling yard fills the pictorial space with a consuming visual texture - that of bailed trash. These artists' works represent an undercurrent of Chelsea's oeuvre - the precession of concept and sensibility.[...]
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