Make It Big, Make It Red, Put A Crown On It

New York, July 1, 2014 – Catinca Tabacaru Gallery​ is pleased to present Make It Big, Make It Red, Put A Crown On It, featuring a diverse grouping of eight artists and the debut of roster newcomer Jasmin Charles. As the old art school adage goes, “If you can’t, make it good, make it big. If you can’t make it big, make it red.” How has the color red come to be a stand-in for ‘good?’ At one time, cochineal red pigment was as good as gold and one could make a living trading in its dyes. From red-light districts to French nobility, Indian weddings to Catholic insignia, the color has continued to serve one bold statement to the next – sometimes seductive, sometimes terrifying, but never an accident. Presenting an almost entirely red collection of works, Make It Big creates an experience where the viewer cannot but confront the internal stirring of something primal. Barnaby Furnas’s never before seen Division #10 mars the canvas with explosive swipes of crimson, exploring the duality of creation and destruction, both an entry point for playing with form and conduit for digging deeper. Newcomer Jasmine Charles’s synesthetic structures transpose her original violin scores into optical compositions of palpable energy and fierce vibrancy. Roster artist Greg Haberny, conscious of the spectacle created, stirs the figurative pot and provides the all-too-customary red dot – stripped of its familiar function and up for sale instead. In addition, works by Korean Doo-Jin Ahn, English Christian Dore, Slovakian Peter Kappa, and Americans Brian Leo and Andrew Smenos add to the visual splendor and heightened impact of the show. And, our inquiry continues, when everything is red and powerful in tandem – and the playing field leveled so that works must reach beyond what’s “good” – we bear witness to a new beginning of what resonates on its own accord, and what lies beyond the spectacle.