Nick Farhi Solo Exhibition: Autumn Leaves
Hong Kong Wong Chuk Hang Space
November 27, 2024 - January 4, 2025
CURATED BY SHADOW QU
Tang Contemporary Art is thrilled to present Autumn Leaves, an exploration of nostalgia and fragility through the lens of a New York-based artist Nick Farhi's vibrant imagination.
In a new body of work shown here for the first time, Farhi pays homage to New York City in the 1970s: a decade that saw the birth of the loft jazz scene in downtown Manhattan and with it, the emergence of dozens of DIY artistic venues for performing and visual arts. Enamored by this moment of intense artistic creativity amidst precarity and excess, Farhi reimagines films set in the city in the period.
In them, he transforms mundane urban night scenes—a busy street crossing, a dark storefront, wet concrete, or a lonely corner—into dazzling feasts for the eyes. In them, vibrant raspberry reds, sapphire blues, mint greens, and bright purples dance on the surface, pulsating with life. The artist’s loose and energetic brushstrokes blend into and clash against one another like the notes of jazz emerging from an underground club. In The West Village Jazzmen, bursts of light, blurred neon signs, and watery marks create a visual cacophony. These contrasting perspectives—converging momentarily on the surface of a dirty puddle on the road—crystalize the improvisational nature of the genre.
Farhi’s paintings are electric, yet in them, the deafening sounds of construction, traffic, emergency services, and pedestrians in angry disputes with one another seem to dissipate. Despite containing the ferocity of New York City, these scenes are surprisingly serene, poetic. In them, time seems to elongate, allowing for contemplation and respite. A lone ballerina dances in a street corner; a shirtless man carries a box with puppies for sale; another admires spring blooms in a flower stand. In these cinematic compositions, the busy streets somehow convey openness and a sense of possibility.
Seen together, these works reveal a careful exploration of the memories contained within the lived environment. An ode to the layers of encounters experienced in any street corner across time. Farhi’s project, though tinged with nostalgia for a bygone era, rather celebrates the continued vibrancy of the city. As the artist expressed, “great energy never dies,” it only transforms
—Carlota Ortiz Monasterio
A falling piano chord, an accordion of decommissioned pre-war sinks, still-lifes hung across the walls, a girl dancing in the rain while a Pacino-looking man adopts a puppy. This metamorphosis of subjects, contrasting weights of tropes and dim recollections of vintage New York cinema, center political fragility. The viewers are pulled through the offerings of individual stances; army green glasses versus a rainbow of stemware, a twitter-colored bird juxtaposes with its prey a lonely green fish.
Temporality is the constant mechanism of waking life but is bound by rich landscapes of the New York-based artist’s critical imagination. Time is precious only because it is about to break, and life moves only because there are dwelling moments of still meditation to examine it.
Film frames are constantly shuffled, sped across light at speeds to create the illusion of movement, whereas here, the oil paint moves across the canvas, outlasting captured memories.
—Sam Farhi
EXHIBITING WORKS
Softer Rhythm Oil on aluminum 89 x 119.5 cm 2024 | The West Village Jazzmen Oil on aluminum 109 x 195.5 cm 2024 | Under the Same Umbrella Oil on aluminum 91.5 x 91.5 cm 2024 |
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The Accordion Oil on aluminum 203 x 101.5 cm x 3 2024 | Street Dancer Oil on aluminum 112 x 104.5 cm 2024 | The House of Cherrys Oil on aluminum 134.5 x 104 cm 2024 |
Fragil Song Oil on aluminum 58.5 x 78.5 cm 2024 | Passing by the School Oil on aluminum 43 x 78.5 cm 2024 | Evening Pearls Oil on aluminum 76 x 76 cm 2024 |
In the Twilight of One's Own Oil on aluminum 109 x 195.5 cm 2024 | People Looking Oil on aluminum 66 x 89 cm 2024 | Drawing the Bath Oil on aluminum 78.5 x 145 cm 2024 |
Moment Before the Adoption Oil on aluminum 89 x 167.5 cm 2024 | Army Chalices Oil on aluminum 119.5 x 162.5 cm 2024 | The Pear Tree Street Oil on aluminum 109 x 195.5 cm 2024 |
Pink Glass Pots Oil on aluminum 78.5 x 86.5 cm 2024 |
ARTIST
Nick Farhi
b. 1987, New York, USA
Lives and works at New York, USA
Nick Farhi’s works, encompassing both still and moving life, are intentionally crafted at bewildering and unconventional scales. He highlights and interrogates the tonalities and cultural universals prevalent in Western societies, often anthropomorphizing them in his compositions. Farhi’s creative process involves a dynamic interplay between visual research, drawing from sources such as found imagery and autobiographical photography and video. Through his use of mark-making and abstract symbologies, he delivers nuanced reflections on waking life and the subconscious.
Farhi obtained an MFA in Visual Art at Columbia University in 2023 and has exhibited both nationally and internationally in solo exhibitions with Annarumma Gallery, Naples, IT, Stems Gallery, Paris, FR; The Fireplace Project, East Hampton, NY, Tripoli Gallery, East Hampton, NY, Will Shott, New York, NY; Freedom Gallery, New York, NY; Palazzo Monti, Brecia, IT; Golsa, Oslo, NO; Serving the People Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; United Artists Ltd, Marfa, TX; Bill Brady Gallery, Miami, FL; Neochrome Gallery, Turin, IT. Recent group exhibitions include the South Hampton Arts Center, South Hampton, NY; Villa Lina, New York, NY; Nino Mier Gallery, New York, NY; the Jewish Museum, New York,NY; M+B Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA; Galleri Golsa, Oslo, NO; Marlborough Gallery, London, UK; Half Gallery, New York, NY; amongst others. Farhi has lectured and given critiques at universities and institutions including the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Columbia University School of the Arts. His writing and poetry have been published by the Yale School of Architecture’s Paprika! magazine and the 2023 MODA Critical Review Journal of Columbia University. Farhi's work is included in numerous collections of trustees of the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Hort Foundation, The Collection Ringier of Switzerland, specifically: Beth Rudin De Woody Collection & The Neidich Family Collection, and soon to be included in the permanent collection of the ICA Miami in early 2025.