All Smiles…

Leo Koenig Inc. is delighted to announce the fourth solo exhibition of new works by Greg Bogin and the simultaneous release of the publication greg bogin: from here to here.

More than any other preceding it, the current generation has been bombarded with an informational and visual offensive that arguably renders the subject near incapacitation. The ennui of a previous era seems relatively innocent against the backdrop of today’s psychic cannibalism. We have become inert, obliging, insatiable and addicted to ever more stimulation. The screen is our constant companion; the half-life of the cathode ray now burns directly to our cortex.

Greg Bogin’s works exist within the parameters of this sensory bombardment, and yet stealthily defies them. Using a palette of intensely saturated color and a technique that outwardly places his work on the same footing as some finish fetishists, Bogin begins a conversation that starts out of nowhere, and ends up everywhere. Seamlessly integrating sculptural aspects, Bogin’s paintings are where you want to be, but are afraid to go. They exist in a place that communicates the contemplative gesture, but promises nothing in return. On a whole, deceptively cheerful titles; canvases with bright colors and beautiful surfaces; modular sculptures with materials such as wood veneer, and carpeting that evoke a touch of home; all belie a complexity that escapes cursory observation. Throughout his career, Bogin has subsumed the ubiquitous visual stimulae that exists in contemporary urban life into beautifully crafted talismans for a wounded contemporary psyche.

Recently, Bogin related that during his last exhibition, (I Want to be Your Friend, 2009) “ it was as if the world was becoming unhinged, but it seemed, at the time, that things could only get better…” Since then, we are still waiting for better. For his current show, Bogin is partially striving to give the viewer an escape from the barrage of “heaviosity” that we face on a daily basis. Yet, subtle changes in this new series of works reveal instead, an integration of our collective, sublimated unease, otherwise known as the “New Normal.” In Bogin’s optimism there is always an underpinning of tension. Impeccable expanses of white can be seen either as a new beginning, or a step into the unknown. Canvases that were once fashioned into conjoined component shapes now seem to drift. But for those of us who can recall the fascination of the cathode ray tube, Bogin presents its unmistakable shape; re-igniting our imagination, and remarkably, easing our confrontation of the abyss.

Greg Bogin (American, b. 1965) has exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe and Asia, and is included in the collections of Bischofberger, Switzerland; Daimler Contemporary, Berlin; Gian Enzo Sperone, New York; Taguchi Art Collection, Japan; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels, among others. Bogin received his BFA at The Cooper Union and lives and works in New York City.

greg bogin: from here to here is the first comprehensive, illustrated survey of the artist’s oeuvre from 1993 to present. The catalogue includes an essay by historian Suzanne Hudson and is published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln.