"Farm to Table" at Foxy Production, New York.
Amid anguished discussions of contemporary painting that focus on big-money auctions and empty abstraction, this group show, curated by artist Michael Bell-Smith, assesses the medium with some much-needed intelligence and humor. Painting here has a summer-break vibe, as most of the six artists in “Farm To Table” are also known for conceptually driven installations or multi-medium projects that reflect how images and ideas circulate online. Petra Cortright, whose videos often play with the dense visual space of the computer screen, fills the canvas with layers of what appear to be digitally rendered gestural brushstrokes. Joel Holmberg’s composition evokes the interface of the proto-Powerpoint application Hypercard. Beneath an image of soaring pterodactyls is printed an incongruous text that offers a wry thesis for the overall exhibition: “The range of mediums they worked in was un-fathomable.”