Love Junk @ Spring Break Art Show, NYC
Curated by Jason Patrick Voegele Featuring: Edie Nadelhaft, Michelle Doll and Cobi Moules
Here we are, swimming around in the petri dish of a post analog world. Despite all the wonders of our awesome new technology, we still experience wars of aggression, desperate poverty, pandemic disease, addiction, gun violence, sex crimes, racism, homophobia, greed, and piracy. It’s just another day in the life of a 21st century earthling. Sometimes it feels like all the progress we made in the 20th century is bound to come crashing down all around us at any moment. For those who somehow endure these traumas, there is still the gloom of survivor’s guilt to juggle. We humans sure are complicated beings. It’s as if we were either built or evolved to be our own worst enemy.
However, as much as self-harm seems to be an inherent principle of our programing, so too are we endowed with the counterbalancing creative principles of love, conception, and introspection. Emotionally intimate love, joyful sexual intercourse and the existential beauty of a meaningful inward journey are all powerful symbols of that creative/regenerative force. When regularly exercised, these positive expressions can teach us to see reflections of ourselves in both the lives of everyday people and in the macrocosmic awe of the infinitely expanding universe. Isn’t it for those reasons we struggle to overcome seemingly impossible odds and refuse to give into despair or apathy? Don’t we labor for harmony in the hope that eventually, everything will find its balance? If so, it is fortunate for us that for every malevolently minded agent at work in the world there are benevolent champions out there, intent on keeping the balance in check.
In this exhibition, “Love Junk”, Edie Nadelhaft, Michelle Doll and Cobi Moules, attempt to capture this spirit of optimism with new works that not only testify to affirmative creative power, but as a grouping transcend the sum of their parts to celebrate the inextinguishably sublime, the sensual, the altruistic and the unselfish emotional forces we sometimes call love and sometimes call hope. Are you overwhelmed by the talking heads on your local news broadcast, stoking your fears about the world going to hell in a handbasket? Well, you can check your horrors at the door my friend, “Love Junk” has the post-traumatic stress relief you need. Also, the paintings are for sale.
Jason Patrick Voegele is a curator, writer, creative entrepreneur, former gallerist, art consultant and logistics expert based in New York City. His clients range from first time collectors and emerging artists to museums, corporations, auction houses, celebrities, state institutions, established artists and exceptional private blue chip art collections around the world. An American Citizen raised in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, Voegele left South East Asia in 1991 to study painting and art history at Pratt institute in Brooklyn and The Gerrit Reitveld Academy in Amsterstam, NL. He received his MFA from Pratt institute in 2000 and thereafter held several executive level staff positions in a number of contemporary New York City galleries such as American Primitive Gallery and Yancy Richardson Gallery, among others.
From 2007 to 2009 Voegele co-founded and was lead curator at MCV gallery in Brooklyn. In
2009 he founded and directed the curatorial collective and charitable brain trust Republic Worldwide. From 2011 to 2013 Voegele served as Marketing Director for The Fountain Art Fair in both New York and Miami and was a frequent consultant for Fourth Art’s Block’s public arts program. In 2012 he co-founded and directed The Lodge Gallery on the lower east side of Manhattan which primarily exhibited representational figurative work alongside immersive new media programing. After 6 years The Lodge Gallery presented its last exhibition in 2017 and Voegele went on to form NY Art Consultant firm which serves selected private art collections and champions select artists of merit. He is a member of the NYFA Doctors program and has been a visiting critic at the New York Academy of Art, Rutgers University and Pratt Institute’s Master’s program. Voegele has participated in numerous art fairs over the years including Pulse (NY), NADA (Miami), and Volta art fair in NY. He is currently an independent curator based in NYC.
Edie Nadelhaft is a visual artist whose work addresses the intersection of the physical world and digital culture. Through vivid realist paintings and playful glass and mixed media sculptures, she explores societal mores concerning privacy, social media, the value placed on both fine art and personal data, and sexuality in Western art history. Edie studied art history and studio art at SUNY Purchase and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and received a BFA from The Mass. College of Art & Design in 1995. Nadelhaft’s work has been widely exhibited at galleries and art fairs throughout the US, Europe and Asia and has been the subject of multiple solo and 2-person shows in New York and Massachusetts. Her work is part of the permanent collections of The Ford Foundation, Falconworks Theatre for Social Change, and University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Edie has lived and worked on the LES of Manhattan since 1998. www.edienadelhaft.com
Michelle Doll’s paintings capture quiet, private moments hinged on personal connections between herself and her subjects. Her paintings are infused with themes of intimacy and explore contemporary ideas about family, love, desire and femininity. The subject matter, although not idealized in form, implies idealized moments of intimacy that we all either consciously or unconsciously crave. Born in Canton, Ohio, she received her BFA from Kent State University and her MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2006. She currently lives and works in Hoboken, NJ and is an adjunct professor at New Jersey City University, Marymount Manhattan College and Felician College. In 2019 she received a fellowship from the NJ State Council on the Arts and received the Prince of Wales / Forbes Foundation Travel Grant and The Bennett Prize Honorable Mention in 2018. Her paintings exhibit regularly in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Barcelona, Oslo, Salzburg, Rome and Switzerland. www.michelledoll.com
Cobi Moules is a painter who creates vibrant and luscious paintings of queer bodies at play. Donning nothing but a glittering jockstrap their bodies embrace and move through the limited space with a sense of agency and abandon. Using symbols of queer joy, their bodies push out of the frame and beyond the limitations that are afforded to them. They obscure the landscape they inhabit and render it as a mere backdrop to their fleshy pleasures. Moules’ work often centers around queer and trans desires. Born in a small conservative rural town in central Californian his work frequently reflects upon stifling historical representations of the landscape and reshapes how the queer body sits within that history. Cobi received a BFA from San Jose State University in 2004. In 2010 he received an MFA from The School of Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts. His work has exhibited at numerous institutions including The Leslie Lohman Museum, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Jepson Center, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Crystal Bridges Museum, Ogunquit Museum of American Art and Smack Mellon. www.cobimoules.com
