Marylyn Dintenfass and Rachel Lee Hovnanian Set for 'TOXIC BEAUTY' Talk, 12/17

TOXIC BEAUTY: NOTIONS OF BEAUTY, SEXUALITY + DANGER IN POST-WAR ART + CULTURE

A Conversation with Artists MARYLYN DINTENFASS + RACHEL LEE HOVNANIAN, with JILLIAN STEINHAUER, Senior Editor, Hyperallergic + SCOTT INDRISEK, Executive Editor, Modern Painters magazine, moderated by SUSAN SAYRE BATTON, Managing Director, Dia:Beacon

Tuesday, December 17, 7-9pm

How has post-war art and culture manipulated concepts of beauty and the sensual-manufacturing the illusion of danger as beauty itself? What role does color have in this powerful alchemy? Is there truth in this ideation of aesthetics, or is this cultural serum truly toxic?

Please join Marylyn Dintenfass, along with artist Rachel Lee Hovnanian, Jillian Steinhauer, Senior Editor at Hyperallergic, and Scott Indrisek, Executive Editor at Modern Painters magazine, moderated by Susan Sayre Batton, Managing Director, Dia:Beacon, for an evening of conversation in celebration of the publication MARYLYN DINTENFASS: DROP DEAD GORGEOUS. The event is held in partnership with ArtTable, and sponsored by STRANGEBEAUTIFUL and Vosges Haut-Chocolat.

DROP DEAD GORGEOUS is Marylyn Dintenfass' body of large-scale chromatic abstractions of stunningly beautiful, but poisonous flowers, which evoke a representational narrative about nature's fatally duplicitous markers. Embodying the theme of "things are not what they seem," these works draw their inspiration from some of nature's most beautiful, yet dangerous plants. This event marks the 2013 publication of the 64-page hardcover with full color plate book by Driscoll Babcock Galleries, authored by Scott Indrisek with contributions from John Driscoll, PhD.

All proceeds from sales of MARYLYN DINTENFASS: DROP DEAD GORGEOUS during the event, and through December 31, 2013, will benefit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and A Blade of Grass-which nurtures socially engaged art.

Date + Time
Tuesday 17 December, 7-9pm

Location
Marylyn Dintenfass Studio
529 West 20th Street, 8E
New York, NY 10011

RSVP
Please RSVP by Dec. 15 to rsvp@AKArt.com

To purchase a copy of MARYLYN DINTENFASS: DROP DEAD GORGEOUS

About Marylyn Dintenfass: Marylyn Dintenfass is an internationally known artist whose work is found in major public, corporate and private collections worldwide and is currently represented by Driscoll Babcock Galleries. Among the institutions that have acquired her work are: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Mississippi Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her 2010 Parallel Park permanent installation-which just celebrated its third anniversary-at the Lee County Justice Center in Fort Myers, Florida is one of the largest and most noteworthy of the last decade. Her 2011 Driscoll Babcock Galleries exhibition as well as her recent 2012 exhibition, Drop Dead Gorgeous at Driscoll Babcock Galleries, were both selected by Modern Painters magazine as one of the year's "100 Best Fall Shows" worldwide. Dintenfass has twice been a MacDowell Fellow and has received both an Individual Artist Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and two Project Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. She was awarded the Silver Medal at the First International, Mino, Japan, and The Ravenna Prize at the 45th Faenza International in Italy. Books on the artist's work include the monograph MARYLYN DINTENFASS PAINTINGS written by Lilly Wei [Hudson Hills Press, 2007], MARYLYN DINTENFASS PARALLEL PARK written by Aliza Edelman [Hard Press Editions, 2011] and MARYLYN DINTENFASS DROP DEAD GORGEOUS written by Scott Indrisek [Driscoll Babcock Galleries, 2013].

About Rachel Lee Hovnanian: Rachel Lee Hovnanian is an American contemporary artist born in Parkersburg, West Virginia and currently represented by Leila Heller Gallery. She grew up in Mexico, Texas, and New York. Her socially explosive installations have been seen in the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Growing up in Texas and spending summers in California informed Hovnanian's ongoing exploration of deep stereotypes as they pertain to beauty as well as off-camera realities behind the public illusions of beauty. Utilizing the large-scale platform of the Texas and California psyche, the artist's intention is to examine beauty, narcissism and technology as powerful symbols of contemporary values. Encompassing sculpture, interactive installations, painting and photography, her work focuses a laser eye on her exploration of beauty's subjective meanings from our tribal past to our media saturated present. Hovnanian's visual vocabulary includes trophies, narcissus flowers, tiaras, sculptures of swimsuits, cosmetics and the media environment that surrounds and supports them. Rachel Hovnanian lives and works in New York City and received her B.F.A. at the University of Texas, Austin. She has had solo exhibitions in New York, Houston, L.A., Palm Springs, Madrid, Barcelona, Antwerp and Hong Kong. She exhibited with Leila Heller Gallery in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Hovnanian set up a summer studio in Shanghai and will be presenting a commissioned public installation in 2014 in Beijing. In April she will be exhibiting in Moscow and in June 2014 she will show new work in New York at the Leila Heller Gallery.

About Jillian Steinhauer: Jillian Steinhauer is the senior editor of Hyperallergic. Her work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Paris Review Daily, The Awl, and other places. She is a graduate of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at NYU's Journalism Institute.

About Susan Sayre Batton, Moderator: Susan Sayre Batton is the Managing Director of Dia:Beacon and the Director of Administration for Dia Art Foundation. Active in arts and culture nationally, she also serves on New York and Hudson Valley boards including the Dutchess County Economic Development Corporation and the Arts Council. Before Dia, she was acting Deputy Director at the Hammer Museum, in Los Angeles, in charge of exhibitions, publications and public programs; and Deputy Director at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, focusing on strategic planning, targeting education efforts with local communities and internationally touring exhibitions. From Los Angeles, she directed projects at museums including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and served on the Hollywood Art and Design Advisory Panel, creating the Cultural Trust Fund from the 1% for Art program.

About Scott Indrisek, Author: Scott Indrisek is the Executive Editor of Modern Painters, an international magazine covering all aspects of contemporary art. Author of MARYLYN DINTENFASS: DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, he was previously the senior editor of Anthem. His work has appeared in Whitewall, BlackBook, ARTNews, Bookforum, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, the New York Post, and many other publications. He currently lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

About Driscoll Babcock Galleries: Driscoll Babcock Galleries, founded in 1852, is the oldest gallery in New York City, and in the United States, which from its inception, has focused on American art. The gallery represents contemporary and historic artists who have proven instrumental in extending visual and aesthetic culture, and whose creative visions have resonance and pertinence well beyond the time and place they were created. President, John Driscoll, has helped to secure numerous prized works for major private collectors and dozens of museums across the country. In 2012, the gallery celebrated its 160th anniversary and moved to an expanded, newly designed ground floor space in the heart of Chelsea. Accompanying the gallery's new location is a growing stable of internationally recognized contemporary artists and an enhanced selection of important masters from the past.

About AKArt: AKArt is a boutique art advisory agency as well as an independent curatorial platform. With unparalleled experience developing major art initiatives from the ground up, AKArt offers private and corporate curation, collection management and creative consulting on strategy, programming, exhibitions, strategic partnerships, brand development, marketing, PR, events and sales. Working with art fairs, art galleries, artists, auction houses, collectors, corporations, curators, institutions, luxury brands, museums, organizations and publishing houses, AKArt is a resource for the global art community.

About ArtTable: ArtTable is the leading national non-profit organization dedicated to advancing professional women's leadership in the visual arts. Their on-going mission includes educating and informing their members and the general public about significant developments and issues in the visual arts through public panels, conferences and talks in addition to mentorship programs for young women newly entering the field and professional development seminars for leadership at all career stages.

About A Blade of Grass: A Blade of Grass provides resources to artists who demonstrate artistic excellence and serve as innovative conduits for social change. The organization evaluates the quality of work in this evolving field by fostering an inclusive, practical discourse about the aesthetics, function, ethics and meaning of socially engaged art that resonates within and outside the contemporary art dialogue. A Blade of Grass supports artists who are working in leadership roles and in partnership with communities, in ways that are relevant in everyday life, at ambitious scale, to enact social change.

About Brooklyn Botanic Garden: The mission of Brooklyn Botanic Garden is to serve all the people in its community and throughout the world by displaying plants and practicing the high art of horticulture. BBG provides a beautiful and hospitable setting for the delight and inspiration of the public, while engaging in research in plant sciences to expand human knowledge of plants, and disseminating the results to science professionals and the general public. In addition to teaching children and adults about plants at a popular level and making available instruction in the exacting skills required to grow plants and make beautiful gardens, BBG reaches out to help the people of all our diverse urban neighborhoods to enhance the quality of their surroundings and their daily lives through the cultivation and enjoyment of plants. BBG also actively seeks to arouse public awareness of the fragility of our natural environment, both local and global, and provide information about ways to conserve and protect it.

About STRANGEBEAUTIFUL: STRANGEBEAUTIFUL Library of Color was inspired by the vibrant Red Valentine typewriter designed by Ettore Sottsass and his work with the Memphis Group of designers who rejected the rules of "good taste" and functionalism and regarded design as fashion with outrageous style appearing for a season and quickly disappearing. The stunningly provocative but wearable colors blend the best elements of beauty, science, and design. Every polish has been developed and evaluated with an artist's eye producing hues that are deeply and richly saturated throughout with an elegant, efficient packaging that has been designed with the customer in mind.

About Vosges Haut-Chocolat: Vosges Haut-Chocolat's intriguing chocolate creations are made with the finest ingredients from around the world and welcome you to an experiential realm of storytelling through the medium of chocolate. By means of esteemed craftsmanship and conscious innovation, Vosges Haut-Chocolat inspires you to interact with the world in a different way.