Month: August 2017

August 7, 2017

Exhibition History at Gourmet Garage

Woodward Gallery was originally located in SoHo across from the first Gourmet Garage back in the 1990s. Director John Woodward had been a chef at the historic Four Seasons Restaurant and also a private executive chef. With this strong culinary background, Woodward had the idea to share epicurean themed art in his popular SoHo neighborhood by inviting Artists working in varied styles and mediums. Woodward set out to feature a new project called, Art By The Pound in the Gourmet Garage street level windows. The director’s goal was to build the relationship between viewing art and shopping for food, an infusion of both visuals as an enhanced experience. The ground floor window exhibitions were curated directly across from the Gallery. Seen by thousands of folks daily, the project soon became so popular that Woodward Gallery expanded this art program, a type of interactive display, inside that original SoHo space.


Woodward relocated its main gallery to the Lower East Side over the years. In addition to the rotating gallery exhibitions on Eldridge Street, Woodward broadened the art installations to additional Gourmet Garage locations throughout New York City at: SoHo (489 Broome Street), TriBeCa (366 Broadway) and Lincoln Square (155 West 66th Street). Director John Woodward curated Contemporary Art in the Gourmet Garage exhibition windows and within their 50,000 square feet of interior space each year. Dozens of exhibitions and countless artworks later, each store location featured the symbiotic gourmet food and fine art relationship.


This cultural collaboration concluded in June 2019 after nearly twenty years of installations. Thanks to all who participated in this fun project!


August 7, 2017


Thomas Buildmore
Sacred Mountains
September 8 – October 27, 2017
at Woodward Gallery
 
Historically, mountains have been significant symbols in our culture. Standing tall and sturdy, mountains are difficult for the average man to climb. Artists long to reach the peak of their own metaphorical mountain, challenging themselves along their creative journey. The ancestral history of many cultures can be introduced to younger generations by simply pointing to “sacred mountains”.

It is in this simple concept that the contemporary artist, Thomas Buildmore, found inspiration for his new body of work: his homage to the great mountains of art history. Buildmore’s work seeks to understand the pinnacles of art culture, which have been passed on for generations.

It is common for Artists to study the ingenious styles others have created before them, advising their own technical practices and visual sensibility. However, Buildmore has chosen to engage deeply into the masterpieces of the past. Buildmore’s current body of work deciphers and translates previous master works through the modern medium of spray paint. Refreshing the subjects through his generous use of color and ease of lines, Buildmore reinvents cultural nostalgia, finding a beautiful way to command the now— a purely transformative contemporary vision. Rather than climbing the ever-reaching mountain that every artist must attempt, Buildmore  choses the sacred status of those artistic heights, and successfully challenges it by offering his mountain to us.
 

The complete exhibition is available online (WoodwardGallery.net), always in the Gallery’s street level windows, and by private appointment.
 
 

Selected Press:
BLOUIN ART INFO
Wall Street International 
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