Pretty Ugly is a dual-part summer show that just opened at Gavin Brown Enterprises and Maccarone Gallery in the West Village. The neighboring galleries conceptually explore the back and forth of how art defines beauty, cast in flux as opposed to a rigid model. The exhibition includes over thirty artists including Ida Applebroog (Season 3), Louise Bourgeois (Season 1) and Raymond Pettibon (Season 2).
The press release quotes a text by Umberto Eco: “Today everyone (including those bourgeois who should have been stunned and scandalized) recognize as artistically beautiful all those works that had horrified their fathers. The ugliness of the avant-garde has been accepted as a new model of beauty, and has given rise to a new commercial circuit.”
Pretty Ugly runs though August 29th.
