Doug Meyer
GAR: THEN, AND NOW
Exhibition Dates: November 2 – December 22
Daniel Cooney Fine Art is pleased to announce its third groundbreaking exhibition of work by the versatile artist and designer Doug Meyer. GAR: THEN, AND NOW examines the lifetime output of an Indian-born artist known as Gar, who studied at Black Mountain College and counted luminaries such as Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombley as friends and colleagues in the emerging post-war world of contemporary art. Born Gotama Adan Ram (thus the acronym as a name), the exhibition follows a skyrocketing career that ultimately collapsed in a sequence of events that included the notorious New Year’s Eve raid on the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles and a subsequent denunciation from then-Senator Strom Thurmond and a destructive raid by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI in his West Village studio.
The exhibition traces the trajectory of Gar’s brilliant career and tragic downfall, a story that can only be told in the context not of who he was, but what he was: a gay, dark-skinned immigrant working in post-World War II America.
The work on view shows the scope and breadth of Meyer’s talent and imagination. Throughout his wide-ranging career he has been known, among many other things, for constructing not only the art and objects that comprise the body of his exhibitions but for the sometimes-fictional narratives that guide them. Although Meyer is deeply interested in the history of design and cultural history - both often reflected in the stories behind his exhibitions, much of his work is highly topical and political - and passionate - particularly focusing on the historic and continuing threat of gender discrimination.
Doug Meyer is a multidisciplinary artist currently working in New York City. A graduate of Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts. Meyer’s first solo exhibition "BOD" was shown in 2003 at Rocket Projects, Miami. In 2014, Meyer embarked upon the Heroes Project, an acclaimed series that pays homage to fifty creative figures who were early victims of AIDS. Exhibited in New York, Miami and Los Angeles in 2016, the work later became the book Heroes: A Tribute in three editions. Meyer recently unveiled a commissioned work for the Speed Museum in Louisville where he created large scale movable furniture called “floats” for the museum’s lobby.
This is Meyer’s third exhibition with Daniel Cooney Fine Art. The first, held in the spring of 2021 and entitled Wyldands, imagined a community of isolation retreat dwellings that evolved into a resort in the not-so-far future; it was, at its base, a response to Covid, but couched in a framework that was at once historical and futurist.Wyldlands, in turn, led to a second exhibition entitled Wyldlands Fauna at the Art on Paper fair in September 2021.
A 60-page full-color catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
Opening reception: Thursday, November 2 – 6 - 8pm.
Please contact the gallery for more information at 212 255 8158 or dan@danielcooneyfineart.com
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