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DECEMBER 22, 2008

GALLERIES—DOWNTOWN



ALAN REID

Reid uses colored pencils on canvas, leaving gauzy pastel impressions that might be mistaken for faded frescoes. The effect suits this exhibition, breezily titled “Heiresses on Terraces.” Young, androgynous men and women look like hybrids of Weimar Republic revellers (à la Christian Schad’s dissipated socialites), Fitzgerald’s flappers, and Leonardo’s aquiline beauties. A handsome dandy gets his closeup in “Staircase,” while a cougar chomps on an unruffled woman’s arm in “Marrakesh.” Sometimes, as in “The Credits,” compositions dissolve into Mannerist chaos. At other moments, decadent silliness reigns, as in the painting “Now That We’ve Trashed the Hotel, Can We Have a Baby?”
Through Dec. 31. (Cooley, 34 Orchard St. 212-680-0564.)

Alan Reid (b. 1976, Texas) is an artist. He lives in Brooklyn and has presented solo exhibitions at Lisa Cooley, New York; Mary Mary, Glassgow; A Palazzo, Brescia, Nicelle Beauchene, NY, Eric Ruschman, Chicago and Patricia Low, Gstaad. His monograph Warm Equations is published by Edition Patrick Frey. He curated the exhibition Air de Pied-à-terre, at Lisa Cooley, NY. Reid's work has been reviewed by Bomb, Frieze, Vogue, NYTimes, New Yorker, and elsewhere. He both writes and speaks about art, on occasion.
Running on Cargo