Look At Our Opening

Did that come out wrong? All we meant was that on May 22nd, we hosted an opening night party for Reuben Negrón: Dirty Dirty Love. It was ever so wholesome. There was even a dog and a baby!




Reuben and Naomi are brand new parents. He's having a great year, isn't he? And that baby is a complete angel. Not even a peep while Reuben attempted to juggle fatherhood and career in the face of an art-loving crowd.



We were very pleased to see both old and new faces all night long. And look at all the special surprise guests!



Here's Jenny Morgan telling everyone how she always knew Reuben was going to be a star.



Dean Goelz is totally hitting on you. You know he talks about you all the time. Be sure to visit his work at the 92nd St Y in Tribeca, where he and Collette Robbins are currently on display. You won't be sorry.



The elusive-yet-happy Chadwick Whitehead stopped in for a bit as well! It's always a pleasure. We even got to catch up with Johnna MacArthur (that's her hiding in the lower right corner).



We're pretty sure everyone had a great time, from the critics-



to the brand new mommies. And if you weren't there, keep in mind that Dirty Dirty Love is on display until June 21st. And we're going to give you plenty of excuses to come visit. Keep watching, details are on the way...

Its a neighborhood affair! Pacing Tiger and friends.

Visible from dusk 'til dawn, Like the Spice brings some wildlife to our asphalt jungle in the form of Johnna MacArthur's Pacing, a site-specific video installation in the gallery's newest show: Deer Art: Animal Imagery in Contemporary Art. Like the Spice, which is just as much about community as it is about art, once again entices the average passerby as much as the seasoned connoisseur as we all take delight in glimpsing the tiger for the first time. Whether a surprising discovery during a walk home from running errands, or part of a well-planned evening stroll

Deer Art!

Deer Art: Animal Imagery in Contemporary Art
December 15th – January 11th 2008
Opening Saturday December 15th 6:30-10:00pm

You’re trapped like a deer in the headlights…you can’t run from the upcoming show at Like the Spice.
We hope it don’t run you down.

Images of animals have been increasingly prevalent in contemporary art recently…you can't spit at an art fair without hitting two deer, a bear and probably a sasquatch. Exploring the urgency animal representations have had recently, this show includes works that explore several different aspects of the relationship between animals and culture.

In some works animals stand in for people, they are vulnerable or ferocious in ways that reveal more about the human condition than about the animals themselves. This is the Disney approach, where animals are used to illuminate character types and traits. An owl becomes a wise old man and a fox is always the trickster. Other works use animal imagery for its psychological associations: totemic symbols for forces of nature, threatening or shamanistic, these animals confront us with their unpredictability and archetypical wildness. The unsettling sight of eels crawling over each other. The horror of confronting a predator in the wilderness. This psychological take is complimented by an approach that recognizes our tenuous and mediated contemporary relationship with nature as commodity, test subject, lifestyle accessory and fashion trope. The first dogs in space. The kitten as makeout voyeur. These ideas of course inform and resist each other and some works borrow aspects of each mode.

In the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog, animals cannot help but be what they are...this show asks whether people are any different or whether animals are really that transparent.

This show includes works by Amy Hill, Thomas Clark, Seth Cohen Cair Crawford, Ondine Crispin Allison Edge, Abby Goodman, Jason Head, Undine Brod, Tatiana Kronberg, Max Liboiron , Eric LoPresti, Johnna MacArthur, Philip Simmons, Chadwick Whitehead, Grace Teng, Rachel Lowther, and Steven Tabbutt.

With a special closing performance Friday January 11th 2008, 7:30-10:00pm by Castle Critters.