Link to Press Release

Good Work Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition and book launch for  “This Dog Needs A Name”, a group exhibition and book organized by Kerry Cox and featuring works by:

Anna Adler
Caitlin Baucomb
Courtney Childress
Erin Marie Dunne
Samantha Harmon
Dominique Hurth
Honey McMoney
Reuben Lorch Miller
Adam Pape
Ryann Slauson
Erin Sweeny
& Frank Traynor

Book featuring works and essays by:

Anna Adler
Caitlin Baucomb
Christiana Cefalu
Courtney Childress
Kerry Cox
Erin Marie Dunne
Daniel Esparza
Samantha Harmon
Dominique Hurth
Honey McMoney
Edgar Meza
Reuben Lorch Miller
Adam Pape
Ryann Slauson
Erin Sweeny
& Frank Traynor

Opening Saturday July 18:
Performances by Honey McMoney and Anna Adler

Screening of Sam Harmon’s Untitled (green)

Closing Saturday August 8:
Performance by Caitlin Baucomb

“This Dog Needs A Name” is the first in a series of annual or semi annual exhibitions called the “Notebook Series” that is also a book. Assuming the role of artist as curator, I am tracing common interests across a group of friends and acquaintances. The artists and writers included here often use fictitious elements to create non-fictitious narratives, or glean elements from non-fiction to create fictions. They are interested in character development through objects and use elements of surreality to bring us into commonplace themes. Also, this show is based on the following story.

One warm night a few weeks ago some friends and I found a dog in Bed Stuy. She had no collar but was well groomed and a nice guy from the neighborhood was feeding her canned food on paper plate. For the next twelve hours, this dog was all we could talk about. We had no idea where she came from but we wanted to make sure she was taken care of. We began to refer to her as “Choochi”, after Socrates Bueno, the Lower East Side Barber. That night, a kid decided to take her home to see if he could keep her, or until we could figure out something more permanent. In the morning, he told us his mom wouldn’t let him keep her. He had decided to sell her for $150. It took ten minutes. We never even knew her name.

Like Choochi, all the works in this show are the product of a narrative that may be real or imagined. In Samantha Harmon’s video “Untitled (green)”, Harmon portrays a hedge fund manager who laments not becoming an artist. In this confessional video portrait, Harmon’s character matches her clothing to money and tells us about her ideas for art projects. In works from his photo series “Blunts and Skunks” Adam Pape fixes his lens on the nighttime life of Dyckman Park in Inwood creating an eerie Lynchian documentary photo series. In Ryann Slauson’s sculpture “Preservation”, a paper mache bicycle wheel hangs from a branch, a scene of a possible suburban melodrama or the result of an abandoned petit theft.

The “This Dog Needs A Name” book features collaborations between artists and writers whose work has similar connective tissue. It serves as a sort of expanded exhibition catalog and independent work of print in its own write. It is produced by EAT editions in an edition of 50 and available for sale, here.

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