"The Fall Season" opens this September 7 in the back room at Jack the Pelican. This is a show about (what else?) falling. Featured artists from around the world include: Susan MacWilliam from Belfast, Li Wei from China, Robert Yarber from Sonnabend and Jerry Kearns and Graham Guerra from Jack the Pelican. Feeling groundless? Join the club. This is a new age for Williamsburg and no one knows exactly what is coming. Literally, the buildings are falling down all around this little island of Jack the Pelican (OK, they're being knocked down), all to make way for more towering luxury condos--the one kitty corner, the one behind us, the behemoth next door...Yes, and that be the one against which our rickety old structure leans.   When the rubble clears, will we remain standing? And what about the larger issue of the 'Burg in general? and of the NY art world when it collapses? and the city as a whole when the terrorists strike again?

Will progressive thinking and civilization as we know it really survive the Bush years? We just don't know. Sometimes, what we do doesn't have any impact whatsoever. Nobody's listening. The forces are just too strong. We do not have control.   We succumb. There is no choice. Nothing even to hold onto, as it all goes down. Yes, the sensation of falling can be among the most frightening. We prefer to believe that succumbing to greater forces is not necessarily negative.  Anyone fall in love lately?

In art, falling is a powerful metaphor. We've chosen to represent this show with the image of Yves Klein leaping into the void "with great discipline," in acknowledgement of his inspiration.  

We are also greatly pleased to include two large seminal tondos by longtime Sonnabend artist Robert Yarber.  

The Magus of Turin , 1993, oil and acrylic on canvas, 84" diameter.		Plain as a Lie , 1987-88, oil and acrylic on canvas, 84" diameter (appeared as MTV ad in Rolling Stone).

Frankly, we felt that we couldn't really do a falling show without him, as he is the falling artist of the last fifty years. His images were so ubiquitous in the 1980s, during our formative years, that MTV purchased one of the very paintings in this show to be the star of one of their early 90s print campaigns. Once the ad hit the newsstands, they received a spate of letters from concerned parents, suggesting it encouraged teen suicide. They politely withdrew the campaign and returned the painting.  It has remained in storage ever since.

And we are thrilled to include the video Faint by important Belfast artist Susan MacWilliam.

Faint , 1999, DVD, color with sound, 3mins 40secs.

She initiated this period piece of a fainting girl set against the image of birdsong during her residency in 1999 at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. A feminist piece, it evokes the 19 th century tradition of 'hysterical' women, and is tied to her interest in the Spiritualist movement.

View video

We are also excited to include two extraordinary new works from Jerry Kearns, among the most politically engaged and innovative American artists of the last thirty years.

No! No! Yaaaee ..., 2007, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 84"		Madison , 2006, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 48 x 48"

No! No! Yaaaee... appears as a veiled reference to the thing we don't talk about during this show. His signature collision of styles here presents a twisted dark superhero gone wrong, hurtling malevolently into the placid composure of 'innocent' and oblivious American life. In Madison, by contrast, the chic becalmed bride wafts light as a feather toward the ground which she will probably never reach. This Madison [Avenue] beauty hath no earthly substance.

We are hugely glad also to have our own personal favorite falling work ever return to the gallery in a new incarnation. A computer generated version of After the Party, which appeared in Graham Guerra's solo in 2004, now reappears as an accomplished large-scale work in oil.

After the Party, 2004

This parody of melodramatic representations of hedonistic excess raining down from heaven against a glorious sunset is all too wrong in its Baroque loveliness. The reworked composition amps it up in the fat of paint.

And we are especially glad to include two photographs from Beijing artist Li Wei's startling series "Freedegree over 29th story." The reversal of the protagonist's orientation powerfully captures the duality of fear and empowerment that is at the heart of this show.

040-02."Freedegree over 29th story" July 24,2003 SOHO Beijing big: 120x175cm small: 100x68.56cm		040-01."Freedegree over 29th story" July 24,2003 SOHO Beijing big: 120x175cm small: 100x68.56cm