Tonight, the Meatpacking District...Tomorrow the world. MWAAHAHAHAHA.

Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?
Like the Spice curates at...
Leo Kesting Gallery
812 Washington St.
New York, NY 10014

July 17th – August 3rd 2008
Opening Reception Thursday July 17th 7-10:00pm

Have you seen a horizon lately?
If you have, watch it for a while.
For you never know,
It may not last so long.
-Yoko Ono

Allison Edge, Tomorrowland at Night, 2008
oil on canvas, 48 x 48"


Like the Spice is proud to present Have You Seen the Horizon Lately, an exhibition featuring contemporary landscapes by Rachel Beach, Liz Brown, Anna Druzcz, Allison Edge, Dean Goelz, Nora Herting, Eric LoPresti, Ross Racine and Nicole Stager and hosted by the always-on-the-cutting-edge Leo Kesting Gallery in the meatpacking district.

Landscape art has historically had more to do with artists and the cultures they live in than with the actual lay of the land. Today, as natural landscapes are further than ever from our day-to-day lives, landscape art is even more tenuously connected to any sense of a natural pristine beauty. Landscapes today are phantasmagoric representations of communities, ecologies, memories and consumer fantasies. Most places we spend our time in are either haphazard mishmashes of the architecture of necessity or environments purposefully designed to encourage our consumption.

The artists in this exhibition combine the fantasy of and longing for a place we belong with a deep understanding of the near impossibility of finding it. Dystopian visions of landscapes in ruins, works depicting the sublime horror of battlefields, fantasy suburban developments with nonsense layouts and abstract memories of what nature was like populate this show. There are also moments of levity. A spaceship presides over a stuntman’s ring of fire in the desert, a duck-human hybrid contemplates nature and we get a peek of Space Mountain as we stroll through Tomorrowland in a technicolored photo-memory.

Now We Have To Party Like It's 2099

Packed? You don't know the half of it! Friday, June 11th, Like the Spice hosted our first Second Birthday Party And Raffle! For about fifty bucks, anyone could get a raffle ticket and a chance to pick up some fantastic pieces from Like the Spice artists like Eric LoPresti, Anna Druzcz, Grace Teng, Allison Edge... hey, we could list our artists all day, but if you wanted to see their names, you'd be looking at them. You're here to read about the party, right? Cause it was HUGE!



The honor of being picked first went to Peter Feigenbaum, fresh from his show There There where he shared our space alongside Ross Racine. Peter's work brought something special to our gallery, so we were happy he got to be Draft Pick #1. Look at that lucky guy!



The lovely Liz Brown gave us two pieces that went pretty quickly. Here she is with Like the Spice family member Dylan Peet, who's first curated show, After Everything, just finished a very exciting run. But we did say two pieces, right?



Here's Liz with the other lucky winner, Clint Downing of Downing Frames. Clint also gave away a free framing to one lucky winner. Clint's an expert framer and we recommend him very highly. If you want to know more, drop us a line!



Here we have artist John Zaso showing off his newly acquired Rachel Beach. Also featured: Rachel Beach! Isn't it nice when our artists can play together so well?



Here's Chadwick Whitehead, Steve Tabbut, and our good friend Himkar, who has an eye for art. Steve and Chadwick are two of our artists and they have each admired the other's work for some time, however it wasn't until tonight that they finally got to meet in person! We're sure they talked about many lofty and artistic things. Or maybe they just got trashed with Himkar. You never can tell at artist parties.



Our entertainment for the night was Young Man About Town, who joined us before during Make Music NY and they were fantastic. Everyone left happy and everyone enjoyed their art. All smiles at Like the Spice!



What a great night. We should do this again next year... or sooner! Think we could start counting our birthday in dog years?