A HIGH DISREGARD
Adam Beris + Will Anderson, 2020
Digital Exhibition 11
"If there is a general lesson to carry away from studying the emergence of these various uses of fragmentation and repetition in early modern art, it must have to do, not with the drive to newly absolute simplicities of certainty or negation, but with play, in the serious sense of the word; the play between observed particularities and hidden orders, between individuals and societies, and especially between mobile forms and changing contexts of use, as the engine to produce the variety of particular meanings we have seen underlying these resemblances. That play of 'meaningless' forms, from which arise new ways to model the world, is a key way social meaning is produced."
- Kirk Varnedoe, A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern (Ann Arbor, MI: Harry N. Abrams, 1990) 143.
Adam Beris + Will Anderson, 2020
Digital Exhibition 11
"If there is a general lesson to carry away from studying the emergence of these various uses of fragmentation and repetition in early modern art, it must have to do, not with the drive to newly absolute simplicities of certainty or negation, but with play, in the serious sense of the word; the play between observed particularities and hidden orders, between individuals and societies, and especially between mobile forms and changing contexts of use, as the engine to produce the variety of particular meanings we have seen underlying these resemblances. That play of 'meaningless' forms, from which arise new ways to model the world, is a key way social meaning is produced."
- Kirk Varnedoe, A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern (Ann Arbor, MI: Harry N. Abrams, 1990) 143.
Two painters walk into a room, drink a twelve-pack mixed with a bit of bourbon and stumble out sculptors.
The discipline becomes questioned…individual discipline, communal discipline, technical discipline, compositional discipline, representational discipline, conceptual discipline, color discipline, postural discipline, even satirical discipline. The things that add up to some sense of judgment that drive our values become vulnerable. At a certain point we sit alone in our studios and the anxiety builds until a moment comes along that positions us to question all of it. We begin to disregard certain parts and maybe we disregard the whole thing. Once that happens the weight of the discipline seems to fall apart and we become available for a new set of values that confront our evolving judgment, allowing the process to start over again.
Two sculptors walk into a room, drink a twelve-pack mixed with a bit of bourbon and stumble out painters.
The discipline becomes questioned…individual discipline, communal discipline, technical discipline, compositional discipline, representational discipline, conceptual discipline, color discipline, postural discipline, even satirical discipline. The things that add up to some sense of judgment that drive our values become vulnerable. At a certain point we sit alone in our studios and the anxiety builds until a moment comes along that positions us to question all of it. We begin to disregard certain parts and maybe we disregard the whole thing. Once that happens the weight of the discipline seems to fall apart and we become available for a new set of values that confront our evolving judgment, allowing the process to start over again.
Two sculptors walk into a room, drink a twelve-pack mixed with a bit of bourbon and stumble out painters.
Self-isolated viewing of A HIGH DISREGARD in Little Italy, Omaha:
Photos Courtesy of Dan Schwalm
Video from Will Anderson:
Video Courtesy of Will Anderson
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Photos Courtesy of Adam Beris, Will Anderson & Mike Nesbit
Email conversation between Adam Beris, Will Anderson, and Mike Nesbit regarding this digital exhibition:
About the Artists:
Adam Beris has created his own unique hieroglyphic language of distilled imagery often constructed with paint straight from the tube. Routinely aligned in a grid-like fashion, his compositions of objects and heads in profile conversely embody both a strictly scientific study and a loose informal rendering. Beheaded profiles float across a gradient orange canvas next to a cactus, some glasses, and a hashtag; how each item relates to the next is left up to interpretation. Because of this, even in abstract blobs of paint, the viewer learns to see characters and still-lifes, and even his looser compositions hold symbolism in their layered paint globules.
Born in Milwaukee, WI in 1987, Adam received a dual degree in Painting and Creative Writing from Kansas City Art Institute in 2009. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad including at Over the Influence, Hong Kong (2019), Guerrero Gallery , San Francisco (2019), Y53, Los Angeles (2018); Fabien Castanier Gallery Los Angeles (2017); The Late Show, Kansas City (2011). Beris was also included in the exhibition Bounding Boundaries at the MCC Longview Cultural Center in Lee’s Summit, MO (2013). Adam currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
www.instagram.com/adamberis
Will Anderson was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. He attended the Kansas City Art Institute receiving a BFA in painting in 2008. Anderson has participated in a number of group shows and solo exhibitions over the years in spaces such as the Bemis, the RNG Gallery, Petshop Gallery, and others. Will currently lives and works in Omaha.
www.willandersonart.com
Adam Beris has created his own unique hieroglyphic language of distilled imagery often constructed with paint straight from the tube. Routinely aligned in a grid-like fashion, his compositions of objects and heads in profile conversely embody both a strictly scientific study and a loose informal rendering. Beheaded profiles float across a gradient orange canvas next to a cactus, some glasses, and a hashtag; how each item relates to the next is left up to interpretation. Because of this, even in abstract blobs of paint, the viewer learns to see characters and still-lifes, and even his looser compositions hold symbolism in their layered paint globules.
Born in Milwaukee, WI in 1987, Adam received a dual degree in Painting and Creative Writing from Kansas City Art Institute in 2009. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad including at Over the Influence, Hong Kong (2019), Guerrero Gallery , San Francisco (2019), Y53, Los Angeles (2018); Fabien Castanier Gallery Los Angeles (2017); The Late Show, Kansas City (2011). Beris was also included in the exhibition Bounding Boundaries at the MCC Longview Cultural Center in Lee’s Summit, MO (2013). Adam currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
www.instagram.com/adamberis
Will Anderson was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. He attended the Kansas City Art Institute receiving a BFA in painting in 2008. Anderson has participated in a number of group shows and solo exhibitions over the years in spaces such as the Bemis, the RNG Gallery, Petshop Gallery, and others. Will currently lives and works in Omaha.
www.willandersonart.com