Mixed Greens XXX Year Exhibition

Back in 1999, Paige West founded Mixed Greens as a place to support emerging artists. What began as an online-only entity has, over the last decade, organically morphed into a traditional gallery. We’ve pioneered gallery e-commerce, traveled shows, organized panel discussions, hosted events, and produced educational catalogs in an effort to push the boundaries of what a gallery can do. We currently represent 22 artists, but over the years, we’ve worked with over 100 artists at varying stages in their careers, and (call us crazy!) we’ve decided to put them all in one BIG anniversary show. With X, we present a large selection of the many amazing artists with whom we’ve been privileged to work. Their techniques and subject matter vary widely, but all of these artists captured our attention either by their extraordinary use of materials or through their deep examination and investigation of their subjects. There is no theme uniting the 84 participating artists—the only common denominator is Mixed Greens. Some might call it narcissistic. Others nostalgic. We consider it to be a celebration of some of the best artists working today. July 9 - August 14.

Mixed Greens Gallery | 531 West 26th Street
Opening: Today, noon - 6PM

Participating Artists
Noriko Ambe, Chris Ballantyne, Luke Barber-Smith, Rachel Beach, Sonya Blesofsky, Rob Carter, Zoë Charlton & Rick Delaney, Soyeon Cho, Jinkee Choi, Rob Conger, David Coyle, Lisa Coulson, Shoshana Dentz, Andy Diaz Hope, Thomas Doyle, Alessandra Exposito, Ken Fandell, Howard Fonda, Linda Ganjian, Tamara Gayer, Susan Graham, Susan Hamburger, Kimberley Hart, Krista Hoefle, James Hyde, Brian Jobe, Sarah Kabot, Marguerite Kahrl, Kim Keever, Sun K. Kwak, Jim Lee, Drew Leshko, Zane Lewis, Joan Linder, Holly Lynton, Giles Lyon, Virgil Marti, Yumiko Matsui, Christina Mazzalupo, Ryan McGinness, Adia Millett, Mark Mulroney, Russell Nachman, Rob Nadeau, Frank Olive, Coke Wisdom O’Neal, Soner Ön, Stas Orlovski, Eric Payson, Mia Pearlman, Paul Plante, Anne Polashenski, Don Porcella, Amy Pryor, David Rathman, Trevor Reese, Andrew Scott Ross, Laurel Roth, Kammy Roulner, AA Rucci, Carol Salmanson, Jason Severs, Rudy Shepherd, Jean Shin, Alyson Shotz, John Slaby, Joseph Smolinski, Zoe Sonenberg, Amy Stein, Lee Stoetzel, Julianne Swartz, Ann Tarantino, Craig Taylor, Dannielle Tegeder, Mary Temple, Austin Thomas, Leah Tinari, Kako Ueda, Carlo Vialu, Connie Walsh, Daniel Wiener, Dina Weiss, Dirk Westphal

Future Vision Banished to the Past

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF

How old does a building have to be before we appreciate its value? And when does its cultural importance trump practical considerations?

Those are the questions that instantly come to mind over the likely destruction of Kisho Kurokawa’s historic Nakagin Capsule Tower.

A rare built example of Japanese Metabolism, a movement whose fantastic urban visions became emblems of the country’s postwar cultural resurgence, the 1972 Capsule Tower is in a decrepit state. Its residents, tired of living in squalid, cramped conditions, voted two years ago to demolish it and are now searching for a developer to replace it with a bigger, more modern tower. That the building is still standing has more to do with the current financial malaise than with an understanding of its historical worth.

Yet for many of us who believe that the way we treat our cultural patrimony is a fair measure of how enlightened we are as a society, the building’s demolition would be a bitter loss. The Capsule Tower is not only gorgeous architecture; like all great buildings, it is the crystallization of a far-reaching cultural ideal. Its existence also stands as a powerful reminder of paths not taken, of the possibility of worlds shaped by different sets of values.

Founded by a loose-knit group of architects at the end of the 1950s, the Metabolist movement sought to create flexible urban models for a rapidly changing society. Floating cities. Cities inspired by oil platforms. Buildings that resembled strands of DNA. Such proposals reflected Japan’s transformation from a rural to a modern society. But they also reflected more universal trends, like social dislocation and the fragmentation of the traditional family, influencing generations of architects from London to Moscow.

Of the five members who made up the group, Kurokawa was the most glamorous. A photo taken in 1958 at a Moscow student conference, when he was just 24, shows him surrounded by fawning girls, signing autographs. Trim and handsome, often outfitted in elegantly tailored suits and a bow tie, he became a regular at Tokyo nightclubs. His Space Capsule Disco, opened in the 1960s, was a hot spot for young creative types.

The Nakagin Capsule Tower was completed as the movement’s influence was beginning to wane. Composed of 140 concrete pods plugged into two interconnected circulation cores, the structure was meant as a kind of bachelor hotel for businessmen working in the swanky Ginza neighborhood of Tokyo.

Inside, each apartment is as compact as a space capsule. A wall of appliances and cabinets is built into one side, including a kitchen stove, a refrigerator, a television and a tape deck. A bathroom unit, about the size of an airplane lavatory, is set into an opposite corner. A big porthole window dominates the far end of the room, with a bed tucked underneath.

Part of the design’s appeal is voyeuristic. The portholes evoke gigantic peepholes. Their enormous size, coupled with the small scale of the rooms, exposes the entire apartment to the city outside. Many of the midlevel units look directly onto an elevated freeway, so you are almost face to face with people in passing cars. (On my first visit there, a tenant told me that during rush hour, drivers stuck in traffic often point or wave at residents.)

But the project’s lasting importance has more to do with its structural innovations, and how they reflect the Metabolists’ views on the evolution of cities. Each of the concrete capsules was assembled in a factory, including details like carpeting and bathroom fixtures. They were then shipped to the site and bolted, one by one, onto the concrete and steel cores that housed the building’s elevators, stairs and mechanical systems.

Read the full article on the NYTimes here!