Brian Dewan

Brian Dewan "Undertow" 2011, drawing from The Tide Waits For No Man Filmstrip, via Pierogi

In his latest exhibit at Pierogi, visual, performance, and musical artist Brian Dewan pokes at humankind’s haughtiness in our tendency to ignore potential unintended consequences of tampering with the natural world. His spoof takes the form of a filmstrip—those dry, hokey educational slideshows from the 1950s. Dewan wrote and performed his own dark and humorous narration of the effect of the moon on humans and tides. Dewan’s watercolors that line the walls of the gallery are the film’s slides, which illustrate both the tidal effects of the moon, and cartoon-faced characters skeptical at the well-founded science behind the facts. They grumble at the thought of moving their beach gear when the tides rise, and genuinely wonder why we can’t use our technology to nuke the moon in lieu of such inconvenience. Dewan skillfully avoids condescension by offsetting the severity of his message with playfully tongue-in-cheek visuals and genuinely funny lines.

See The Tide Waits for No Man in Gallery 1 at Pierogi in Williamsburg through November 13^th.

David Scher

David Scher "Bagnolo Series" 2011 via Pierogi

“Tired of being spoken to? Look at these drawings. Letters hover waiting assignment. Books are where letters clam up,” artist David Scher lyrically advertises his latest exhibition at Pierogi. Over the past year while living in Marseille, France, Scher created eleven mixed media drawings that look like they’ve been recently retrieved from a time capsule. He threads string though wrinkled, aged paper where letters and numbers dance around quickly jotted Latin phrases and puddles of watercolor that appear seamlessly intentional and like spilled coffee. All elements saturate the frame but remain staccato symbols floating about like stars waiting for a viewer to see a constellation. Or perhaps like the day’s detritus settling down to form some patchwork narrative in a whimsical dream.

See David Scher Between the Acts: the Bagnolo Suite in Gallery 2 at Pierogi in Williamsburg until November 13^th.

Michael Schall

Michael Schall "Eidophusikon" 2011, via Pierogi

It’s September and Brooklyn’s summer gallery hiatus has passed. This month, Michael Schall exhibits his new graphite drawings at Pierogi. Schall’s is a dreamy world of tension between structure and the ephemeral. His series of large-scale drawings each include surreal or otherwise off-kilter light sources. In “Eidophusikon” a large screen is illuminated from behind, leaving the front stage in the dark. A gap in a bridge mid-construction spills a waterfall of liquid light in “Hoover Dam.”

Many of Schall’s drawings feature cage-like structures that impossibly enclose clouds or explosions. The combination of his forceful solid lines with soft fuzzy strokes creates a balanced yet unsettling image. Unanchored by horizon line, these object studies float and cast shadows on an undefined white space. The bursting motion of permeable matter sure to escape its precarious bounds incites a tick of anxiety. Schall further warps physics and scale by pairing his explosive clouds with traditional still life subjects—a Fabergé egg, an ornately carved wooden box, a mason jar. The absence of color throughout his work maintains a cohesive sense of silence. The specificity of his tone almost masks his raw drawing skill, which is worth attention in itself.

Wall Cloud is on view at Pierogi in Williamsburg until October 9^th