Several Options

About

HORSEANDPONY Fine Arts is pleased to present Several Options, an exhibition organized by Matt Ager and Guy Rusha. Several Options began with the coming together of work by two artists, Dan Basen and Zebedee Armstrong. Although these artists made work in different contexts, they shared a similar attitude toward materials. This initial pairing prompted Ager and Rusha to search for a group of artists that, while driven by various agendas, have an eye for the discarded and overlooked.

Dan Basen (1939-1970) continually used ready-mades to assemble categorization assemblages, collage and painting in 60’s New York. His conceptual rigor led him to make figurative and abstract paintings, including ‘Color Wheel’ (1964) that was made from oil and found pasted packaging fragments.

In 1972, an angel visited Zebedee Armstrong (1911–1993) and warned him of the end of the world. Armstrong went on to construct almost 1,500 box calendars to determine the exact date of doomsday. The wooden sculptures have hand-drawn calendars and clocks on every seen and unseen surface. 

The works in Several Options have cultural value and personal significance; they are rooted in material investment, nurture and faith. The rough edges, torn images and found materials highlight an attraction to the unfinished, removing the hierarchy between materials through attention to detail.