Auto Body: ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE
March 10 – April 22, 2018
Opening reception: Saturday, March 10, 5 – 8 PM
Book release: Saturday, April 7, 2 – 5 PM
6BASE is pleased to present an exhibition organized by Auto Body, on view March 10 through April 22, 2018.
Auto Body is a curatorial group with a focus on bringing art to unconventional environments in an effort to reach diverse audiences. Founded in Bellport, New York, in 2014, the group is composed of eight practicing artists and designers: Tyler Healy, Johnny Knapp, Aria McManus, Claire Read, Georgia Read, Will Rose, Quinn Sherman, and Charlie Stravinsky. Originally based in a self-renovated auto body garage on Main Street of Bellport Village, the group has since expanded beyond its physical space to produce art shows in various landscapes, rooftops, attics, ferry boats, farms, and beaches, operating both as a collective and as curators.
For their show at 6BASE, the members of Auto Body seek to study the artist’s studio in an effort to better understand what it means to inhabit a creative workspace in New York. With a focus on New York City and Long Island and exploring a wide range of spaces occupied by artists in the past and currently, Auto Body will present a selection of collected items that conceptually or physically represent the artist’s studio which they come from. Through the process of visiting studios and collecting physical materials, they will examine how the studio shapes the practice of the artist and engages with its surrounding environment. The collected items will be displayed on one singular blue table running the entire length of the gallery. The table, an element found in most studios regardless of medium, and the blue color serve as a reference to the blueprint drawing whose purpose is to render the foundation of a space. The interest in studying the studio as a typology comes at a time when Auto Body is looking ahead to the prospects of building a studio of their own for a residency program in Long Island. Two limited edition prints made by the members of Auto Body depicting the site of the American painter George Tooker’s Bellport house and studio, a potential site for the group’s residency program, will also be on view.
Since 2014, Auto Body has organized thirty shows and performances in the United States. Most recently, Midnight Run: Kevin Evans + Molly Lieberman at the Brooklyn Public Library featured collaborative works by the two Brooklyn artists. For the sixth annual Parrish Road Show in 2017 hosted by the Parrish Art Museum in Watermill, New York, Auto Body created a multi-site art installation, consisting of billboard-like wooden works with nature-themed colloquial phrases at several locations along Montauk Highway, one of the oldest and most scenic roadways in southern Long Island that connects Bellport and Water Mill. Other previous shows organized by the group include Pot Hole: Ida Badal, Bellport-Brookhaven Historical Society; Barrier Island Birds, Smith Point, New York; Setting: Evan Robarts, Post-Morrow Foundation, Brookhaven (all 2017); Salt Talk, on board a ferry on the Great South Bay, Dioramas, Hamlet Organic Garden Farm, Brookhaven, 8:33, on the roof of Three Four Three Four gallery, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, West Hollywood, AA|LA, Los Angeles (all 2016); Ho-Hum, Main Street, Bellport (2015); The Beach Show, Main Street, Bellport; The Chair Show, Main Street, Bellport (2014); among others. Each year Auto Body self-publishes a book documenting the behind the scenes from the year’s events. The group also hosts a weekly radio show on 8 Ball Radio.
Photography by Genevieve Carruppo
