LADADA featuring Shalom Neuman, Kevin Wendall, and Konstantin Bokov
Opening Reception; Thursday, June 23rd 6-9pm
On view from June 23rd to August 31st, 2016

Rooted in the Dada art movement, LADADA has blossomed on the LES at the Van Der Plas Gallery. LADADA, is a group show featuring Shalom Neuman, Kevin Wendall and Konstantin Bokov.

“Art is made because of the inner need of an artist. Art is not a career. It’s a passion. It is as important as food, sustenance. Art is not a profession. Art is an action.” – Shalom Neuman In his Amerika series, Shalom Neuman has constructed “talking” heads made of broken toys and other found objects: when approached, a motion detector triggers the sculpture to recite a poem recorded by members of the poetry collective, The Unbearables: Jim Feast, Carl Watson, Tsaurah Litzky, Thad Rutkowski, Steve Dalachinsky and Ron Kolm. A member of The Unbearables as well as the Rivington School, Shalom coined the term FusionArt, which aims to provoke thought by engaging multiple senses. Neuman has recently been exhibiting in Europe, and is the driving force behind a new museum in Prague, the International FusionArt Gallery and Museum.

Unthreatened by societal conventions, Konstantin Bokov says, “I live for my imagination.” With found objects he creates layers of multiple dimensions accented by precise lines and bright colors, “I am giving you back what you once threw away.” In the 1980s, Bokov’s work was exhibited at the Now Gallery along with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. The Emerging Collector Gallery has also shown his work. Bokov’s art has been part of group shows in London, Paris, Holland, Berlin and Japan, as well as at the Morin Miller Gallery on 57th Street, The Grant Gallery in Soho, and the Monique Goldstrum Gallery in Chelsea. He showed at the 2008 European Outsider Art Fair in Vienna and the 2009 Outsider Art Fair in New York. Since 1993, he has been exclusively represented by the Van Der Plas Gallery.

Kevin Wendall, aka FA-Q, was a graffiti artist in 70’s and 80’s who creatively disfigured billboards and advertisements, scraping out letters to give them new meanings. By the mid-80’s his work came into it’s own: he was awarded the Finland Travel Grant and eventually ending up as an Artist In Residence in Dusseldorf, West Germany. In Italy he met and worked with the artist Enrico Baj, one of Italy’s best-known contemporary painters. He then joined the Rivington School on the Lower East Side where he and Shalom worked with metal sculptors, blacksmiths, painters, performance artists and other outsider artists. The school’s most significant production was the construction of the Rivington Sculpture Garden. FA-Q said, “We were against commercial art, and against capitalism, championing art for people.” A forthcoming book, “Rivington School” from Black Dog Publishers in London is expected to come out by the end of 2016.

Source: LadderandKey.com, TheLowDownNY.com