Priska C. Juschka
Since 2007
Works in New York United States of America

BIO
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art was established in 2001 in the cutting-edge area of Williamsburg, NY, and relocated in 2005 to the Chelsea district of New York City. By representing diverse artists who evoke questions regarding pertinent issues, such as the urban experience, the ever-fluctuating values of contemporary culture and the global socio-political landscape, the gallery wishes to create a continuous dialogue with both the local and international community. The gallery's program is comprised of artists working in different mediums, focusing on unique two and three-dimensional work, as well as groundbreaking site-specific projects.
Discussions (0) Opportunities (0) Events (21) Jobs (0)
EVENT

Almagul Menlibayeva - Daughters of Turan


Dates:
Thu Apr 08, 2010 00:00 - Sat Apr 03, 2010

Almagul Menlibayeva
Daughters of Turan
Video and Photography
April 8 - May 15, 2010

Opening reception:
Thursday, April 8, 6 - 9 PM

Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present Daughters of Turan, Almagul Menlibayeva’s third solo exhibition of video and photography at the gallery. In the Steppes of her native Kazakhstan, Menlibayeva stages and films complex mythological narratives, with reference to her own nomadic heritage and the Shamanistic traditions of the cultures of Central Asia.

Daughters of Turan explores the emotional and spiritual residues of an ancient belief system as well as a historic conflict, still resonating among the peoples of Central Asia today, between the Zoroastrian ideology of former Persia, spreading widely across Eurasia and influencing Western politicians and philosophers and the Tengriism (sky religion) of the Turkic tribes, reaching as far as the Pacific Ocean. Tūrān, the ancient Iranian name for Central Asia, the land of the Tur, inhabited by nomadic tribes, takes center stage signifying the relationship between the male and the female principles ingrained in the stories, myths and ritual practices of a widespread population and its cultures.

The nurturing earth goddess Umai and favorite wife of Tengri, the god of the sky, much like Gaia in the Greek mythology, created life also gynogenetic, out of herself, and symbolizes the close relationship of the people to the land and its given riches, without agriculture, by animals and humans feeding off her body and drinking her milk. The elusive sky god Tengri, foremost living on in Christianity, where then becoming omnipotent, is here still in his adolescent phase - while Umai satiates the voracious appetite of her inhabitants, Tengri watches over her body, the plains of the great Steppes of Central Asia, playfully entertaining several other wives and fathering many children.

Menlibayeva reaches further into the psychological fabric of the people living today on the Steppes which their ancestors had traversed before they were forced to settle down, first by Persia and China to become peasants and in the 20th century by the Soviet Union in a cultural genocide. Umai, said to have sixty golden strands, still has her ‘daughters’ today, the female population, engaging in the same acts as their predecessors, symbolizing the circle of life, the most powerful Shaman symbol by making sure the circle remains undisturbed and intact, reflected in Menlibayeva’s video, Milk for Lambs. From this perspective, all men remain ultimately adolescent- feeding on the female riches, “When I look at the Steppe, it reminds me of my body, dry and in some places hairy,” referenced in all roundness of all things, “When I look at the round yurts and tables, they remind me of my breasts.” (lyrics, Milk for Lambs, Menlibayeva).

In her video Butterflies of Aisha Bibi, Menlibayeva recounts an ancient love story of the Sufi poet’s daughter Aisha Bibi and Karakhan, the Central Asian version of Romeo and Juliet, visually transforming it into a modern day drama of unfulfilled longing, unconditional love and its underlying gender discourse, addressing a never ceasing problematic synergy/symbiosis, deeply rooted in the civilizations born between the elements of earth and sky.

Almagul Menlibayeva was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan and lives and works in Amsterdam and Berlin and holds an MFA from the Art and Theatre University of Almaty. She has gained international recognition exhibiting at the Sydney Biennial of Contemporary Art, 2006; the 51st, 52nd & 53rd Venice Biennale, 2005, 2007 & 2009; Tarjama/Translation at the Queens Museum of Art, 2009, and the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca, NY, forthcoming 2010; and the Oberhausen Film Festival, Germany, 2009 & 2010. Menlibayeva’s video Kissing Totems is traveling in Off the Beaten Path, Stenersen Museum, Oslo; University Art Gallery, the University of California, San Diego, CA, 2009; El Cubo-Tijuana Cultural Center, Tijuana, Mexico; Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City, 2010; and forthcoming, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa; COP10 Nagoya, Japan; and the UN Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, China.

GALLERY HOURS: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 AM - 6 PM or by appointment.


EVENT

Ryan Schneider: Send Me Through


Dates:
Thu Jan 14, 2010 00:00 - Sat Dec 05, 2009

image

Ryan Schneider
Send Me Through
Paintings
January 14 - February 20, 2010
Opening reception:
Thursday, January 14, 6 - 9 PM


EVENT

Almagul Menlibayeva,


Dates:
Thu Feb 26, 2009 00:00 - Fri Feb 20, 2009

Photography and Video


EVENT

The Formulaic Nature of Appearances


Dates:
Thu Jan 29, 2009 00:00 - Thu Jan 29, 2009

Nicky Nodjoumi

The Formulaic Nature of Appearances

February 19 - March 28, 2009

Opening reception: Thursday, February 19, 6 - 9 PM

Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present The Formulaic Nature of Appearances, new paintings by Iranian born artist Nicky Nodjoumi. By speaking literally and figuratively of two worlds simultaneously, the Western Hemisphere and the Middle East, Nodjoumi evokes individual dialogues against a continuous backdrop of ambiguity, allegory and irony.

Nodjoumi creates large scale oil paintings using a visual narrative that combines Persian metaphors and Iranian iconography with references of Western and foremost American culture and politics. The inherent symbolism of Mullahs and Ayatollahs juxtaposed with that of suit clad Western bureaucrats suggests an extremely delicate balance between and beyond all cultural and sociopolitical boundaries. On his canvases, the struggle against tyranny and domination, both personal and universal, unfolds seemingly in front of the viewer’s eye. Nodjoumi directs a staged scenario, full with connotations, revealing the hypocrisy within our societies - whether in form of ideological or physical exploitation, male supremacy or sexual repression.

In his most recent paintings, Nodjoumi expands into an even more complex landscape - where his characters become synonyms for the conflicts within the constructed equilibrium of power. Invoking the ideas of the Flat Earth Theory that formerly preceded the occidental idea of Enlightenment, Nodjoumi leads the viewer into a world of separations by visually dissecting the composition with dividing lines. The result is a new formation onto the picture plane - Nodjoumi placing his subjects either above ground, suggesting the existing world or below into a nondescript, subterranean space equivalent to the underworld. Analogous to the legendary figure of Orpheus in Greek mythology alluring his audience with his songs and poems - Nodjoumi’s narrative leads through a world full of creatures, hovering above and below ground and similarly leaving an overall sensation of displacement behind. Furthermore, by unveiling the precarious relationship between oppressed and oppressor akin to the Social Pyramids of the ancient pharaohs', Nodjoumi leaves us with a distinct notion of unsettlement - as if nothing has changed ever since societies’ first formation.

Nicky Nodjoumi was born in 1942 in Kermanshah, Iran and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New He earned his B.A. from Tehran University of Fine Arts in Tehran, Iran and his MFA from the City College of New York in 1974. Nodjoumi’s work has been the subject of several national and international solo exhibitions including Seyhon Gallery, Aria Gallery and a 1980 Retrospective at The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, in Tehran, Iran. Most recently, Nodjoumi co-curated “Ardeshir Mohassess: Art and Satire in Iran,” with Shirin Neshat, at the Asia Society and Museum, New York, NY.

GALLERY HOURS: Tuesday - Saturday 11 AM - 6 PM, or by appointment.


EVENT

Rhetoric of Violence and Trauma


Dates:
Thu Oct 23, 2008 00:00 - Thu Oct 23, 2008

The Durst Organization in conjunction with Priska C. Juschka Fine Art presents

Dana Melamed

Rhetoric of Violence and Trauma

October 31 - December 12, 2008

Reception for the Artist
: Wednesday, November 5, 2008, 6 - 8 PM

Dana Melamed has always been fascinated with the development of cities from an architectural, historical, social and political point of view. The urban experience serves as the framework and trigger for the emotional turmoil that she sets forth with her fierce and impulsive practice. In her work, Melamed assembles a fictitious urban environment that does not refer to a specific place, nor express a particular narrative—yet carries the weight and intensity of a mute history.

Melamed
uses a collection of current and historical documents, architectural renderings and aerial photographs as references for her landscapes. Building upon her canvases using materials associated with construction, including sheet rock mesh, plaster, printing waste and scrap metal, the artist creates a unique three-dimensional surface. To process her work, Melamed scorches the surface with a blow torch and cuts into the layers with a razor. As the different materials dissolve into one another, concept and technique coalesce, thus forming the overwhelming impressions of destruction and decay.

The fusion of destructive techniques in her work reflects the aggression and abuse demonstrated by mankind throughout the centuries, directed towards each other and the environment. However, the artist remains optimistic viewing the process as, "....A journey deeper into our personal layers and past, our own thoughts and emotions. Perhaps if we dig deeper, we can find ourselves beyond the bustle, noise, chaos, and at last—beneath the surface."

The Durst Organization
Lobby Gallery
1155 Avenue of the Americas
(Between 44th & 45th Street)
New York, NY 10036