Crunchy Systems

Borna Sammak, Untitled, 2015, heat applied T-shirt graphics and embroidery on canvas, 40" x 30". Courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York. Photo credit: Jason Wyche

Long before crunchy found a thrilling new life as a pejorative for hippies, the journalist Nico Colchester used it to describe a set of economic conditions: “Crunchy systems,” he wrote, “are those in which small changes have big effects leaving those affected by them in no doubt whether they are up or down, rich or broke, winning or losing, dead or alive … sogginess is comfortable uncertainty.”

“Crunchy,” a new group show Marianne Boesky Gallery, takes its inspiration from Colchester’s definition, though it owes just as much to the word’s new, granola-centric connotation. Organized by Clayton Press and Gregory Linn, it collects essentially tactile paintings—the hard, the crisp, the agreeably sharp. “It is about the materiality of material,” they say, which sounds tautological until you look at the paintings, all of which induce various forms of synesthesia. You’ll want to bite some of them. Don’t—don‘t make the same mistake I did. There are no flavors there.

“Crunchy” is up through February 21.

Anna Betbeze, Muff, 2015; acid dyes, ash, wool; 61" x 80"

 

Anthony Pearson, detail from Untitled (Plaster Positive), 2013, Pigmented hydrocal in walnut frame, 43 1/2" x 31 1/2" x 3". Courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York. Photo: Jason Wyche

 

Installation view. Courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; photo credit: Jason Wyche

 

Ethan Greenbaum, Post, 2015, direct to substrate print on vacuum formed PETG and spray enamel, 41 3/8" x 48 1/8". Courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; photo credit: Jason Wyche