Untitled (Landscape), 2012-15. Chipboard, archival foam, paper, aluminum, plastic, rubber, approx. 5 x 3 x ½ inches

These works were conceived as a pair of site-specific architectural interventions for the Palazzo Cesari-Marchesi in Venice, an Eighteenth-century palazzo, which, up until this installation, had been abandoned for over thirty years. Using the palace’s original terrazzo floors as a jumping off point, I cut and inserted small shards of blue painter’s tape and matching paper into the matrix of the terrazzo, referencing the palaces original Trompe l’oeil embellishments.

Top: Terrazzo Intervention #1 (studiolo), 2015. Painters tape and archival paper inset into terrazzo. Dimensions variable; Bottom: Terrazzo Intervention #2 (salle à salle), 2015. Painters tape and archival paper inset into terrazzo. Dimensions variable

Installation for three windows, 2013. 243 hand-sanded Styrofoam bricks. Dimensions variable. Installation view

Floor Drawing (6 colors), (Detail) 2013. Archival paper and foam, 25 x 25 inches. Installation view at Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York

, into his dazzling kingdom, , 2013. archival foam, paper, wood, approx. 2 ¾ x 8 x 1 inches

Series A #2, 2013. chipboard, paper, paint, 7 ½ x 4 ¾ x ½ inches

1 X, 4 Triangles, 2012. cardboard, chipboard, matte board, paint, paper, wood, 5 x 3 ½ x ¾ inches

‘Friendship,’ Aristotle defines in Part VIII of his Nicomachean Ethics, ‘is a virtue or implies virtue, and is besides most necessary with a view to living.’ And while by no means synonymous with contemporary art, ‘friendship’ as set forth by Aristotle - shared between lovers of ‘good’ and not precipitated by ‘utility’ or ‘likeness’- makes for a compelling, resurrected discussion of ‘virtue’ (for Artistotle: arete) within the context of contemporary art. Nicomachean Ethics was a cornerstone of the reading list for this graduating class of the MFA Fine Arts Department, a reading list that seemed to advocate dually for the role of community and for a renewed criticality when it comes to context - beyond institutional critique. This, for a program that seems to allegorize the pluralism of production method: The artists here, working in painting, sculpture, installation, film, video, performance, robotics, airbrush… And what brought them to the discrete context of art? Certainly not ‘likeness.’

In spite of its long history in the human language, ‘virtue’ is a word that so powerfully connotes traditional moralities, that it’s difficult to deal with it in the context of ‘progressive,’ ‘secular’ contemporary art. And yet ‘value,’ a term much more au courant and with resilient use but no less secular via-a-vis the market, doesn’t begin to explain the complex cultural heritage of art today, nor why these artists came to Manhattan to work in tightly-fitted, loosely organized, small and modular studios. It does not explain the deep issues unleashed when, say, a truncated archival video clip by David Wojnarowicz is censored from a public museum. Reminded of the culture wars of one generation ago, we ask, What does art have to communicate on an axis of today’s morality, one no less necessarily recursive than modernism? What permissions does contemporary art offer, and what constraints?

Text: Gartenfeld, Alex, “Implied Virtue,” SVA MFA Thesis Exhibition, January 2011

Stringcourse, 2011. archival foam, matte board, paper, 67 feet x 1/8 inch

Composite, 2011, plywood, chipboard, paper, archival foam, spray paint, 5 x 4 3/4 x 3 inches

Series A #1, 2012. chipboard, paper, paint, approx. 5 x 8 x ½ inches

HGL(G), 2012. archival paper, wood, approx. 11 x 5 x ¾ inches

Red, 2010. paper, wood, approx. 2 ¼ x 3 ¼ x 3 ¾ inches

Horizontal Green Envelope, 2011. archival foam, staple, approx. 12 x 18 x 2 inches (destroyed)

In Excelsis, 2010, cardboard, wood, approx. 9 x 4 1/2 x ½ inches

Vertical Red Envelope, 2010. archival foam, staple, approx. 18 x 12 x 2 inches (destroyed)