The Frog Show
Organized by Reilly Davidson
Real Pain, New York
August 7 — September 4, 2021
Lately I’ve been seeing them everywhere. Stuffed toys in windows, antiques on shelves, preserved in museums or else a green car, a weird aberration on the sidewalk, a woman crouching to retie her shoe. I guess it’s all about when looking becomes seeing, opening oneself up to being touched by the world. A therapist once told me that love is a mystery to be lived rather than a problem to be solved. Allowing things to be anomalous, ineffable. Frogs operate simultaneously as good luck and plague vessels. Kermit bemoans “it ain’t easy being green,” Pepe is stolen and abused by vicious trolls, and “the frog is dead and buried” after Michigan J. Frog’s demotion at Warner Bros. There’s nothing particularly comforting about the frog, with its slimy shell and throaty wails. Nevertheless, having eyes opened up to the ever-present green beings has been a delight and a challenge. The specter of unknowing becomes a chance for discovery, change, communion. A frog is a feeling.
—Reilly Davidson
Muscle Definition
CPM, Baltimore
July 24 — September 4, 2021
Every culture has its version of the ideal body—a place where aesthetics and politics merge and the power of a place can be expressed symbolically. Muscle Definition is a group exhibition that brings together a selection of paintings, sculptures, photographs, and works on paper, that present a spectrum of visions and attitudes about the body and its representation.
Participating artists include: Richard Baker, Stephanie Barber, Janet Bruhn, G.G. Derviz, Graham Durward, Jillian Dy, Bernard Gilardi, Clarity Haynes, Melissa Hopson, Anthony Iacono, E’wao Kagoshima, Mike Linskie, Clifford Owens, Michael Pellew, Ada Pinkston, Genesis P-Orridge, Irina Rozovsky, Vlad Smolkin, Jennifer Sullivan, Henry Taylor, Noi Volkov, Eric Wesley.
There will also be a selection of historical works, including: an engraving from Buffon’s “Histoire Naturelle” (1778), an 18th Century Italian ink drawing, a Russian chromo-lithographic war cartoon (1914), a Tibetan Medical Thangka painting (mid 20th c), and a signed gelatin silver print of Cal Ripken Jr. (1980’s).
Muscles are elastic string-like fibers, holding the body together. To build muscles, we tear them with purpose so the strings grow back bigger and stronger. It takes around 43 muscles to smile and 17 muscles to cry. Some muscles can be seen from a distance, while others are subtle and hidden.
The impulse for this exhibition arrived when the world went into lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic. Over this period of isolation, there has been a strong sense both of our innate need for contact, and the capacity of government to control and manage that need. As this mass loneliness thaws, bodies become powerful magnets for other bodies and there is acuteness to how we embrace and interact with each other.
The heart’s muscles circulate blood through the body with pristine regularity. As we slowly step back into the public sphere, perhaps a greater awareness and embrace of our natural rhythms can inspire a new and healthier relationship to the body, and in the ways we represent and impose power on and through the body.
Press:
Frieze
magic passed life
Mike Linskie and Lucia Love
darkZone, New Jersey
February 1, 2021
This place changes a little each time I come back to it. Even through a mask, the dust can find a way to settle into the back of your nostrils. The light has shifted, and the air has a frenetic energy in it. There’s a leak in the crawlspace in the far back corner, which has collected in a pool and traveled down the gentle slope of the retaining wall all the way to the opposite corner. The space seems to be salivating, maybe in expectation of my arrival, or maybe in the anticipation of being one step closer to an impending finality. Or is it bleeding? What will its scabs look like? This peculiar codependence has done damage to us both. Visit by visit, wounds are inflicted, moved passed, and brushed over. How will we heal together?
The infection once contained to the living-room crawlspace has spilled into the main area of the basement. The topography of this landscape is self-organizing. Every stack or tower is the result of years of sorting these objects by their sturdiness and weight. This implemented logic exhibits a form of problem solving. If this subterranean entity has any sort of intelligence, then it can feel and likely communicate to each respective compartment of its whole. The distress signal being emitted by the crawlspace over the distance to the red floored room has unsettled the intermittent zone where the majority of the memories lie.
When I made my way back to the redroom, I found a makeshift couch compiled of cushions and pillows waiting on the floor for me. Each component of the striped couch appeared to be taken from a different piece of furniture which either no longer exists or whose main hub is buried in the basement’s dense inventory. In the absence of their main support, they’ve found each other, and have made something different. The new couch faces the far, heater clad wall in this perennially empty room. This pale environment has been a place to breath and to think through the baggage, and now there is a place to sit while you do.
Review:
”Let’s Make Lots of Monet”
Press:
KubaParis
O Fluxo
Autre
Tzvetnik
Silicon Valet
Mike Linskie - The Estate of Robert J. Lang
CPM, New York
March 29 — May 5, 2018
CPM is proud to present Mike Linskie - The Estate of Robert J. Lang. This exhibition will run from March 29 – May 5, 2018, with an opening reception on Thursday, March 29, 6:30 – 8:30pm.
In 2015, Mike Linskie purchased a stack of over 300 drawings by a man named Robert J. Lang at a flea market next to an RV park in Jacksonville,Florida. Over the next several years, this collection of drawings and the real and imagined biography of Robert J. Lang began to intermingle with his own life and work. This exhibition presents Mike Linskie’s and Robert J. Lang’s drawings together—reflecting and informing each other.
I’m a very sick person
It is likely that Robert J. Lang’s drawings were made while spending months or years in a Florida hospital bed around the year 2004. Though it is unclear what kept him in the hospital for so long, Lang wrote notes on the back of the drawings that provide some insight into his life and circumstance:
- He was a veteran
- He had a family and friends: Mrs. Lang, John Lang, George, Luize’s son, Brian, Patterson, Karry (owner of truck), Sherrie, Kathy
- There are dozens of 1-800 numbers and notes for doctors and lawyers
- He may have suffered from lung cancer, specifically Mesothelioma
- May have needed false teeth
Lang’s obsessive drawings may have been a way to cope with pain or the prospect of death. Each millimeter of paper is densely covered with marker, pen, and glitter gel pens—manic patterns, and psychedelic swirling motifs. But they are more than just a way to pass time—each drawing is also signed and claimed as a finished work. The massive quantity of these finished drawings and the psychological weight of the context in which they were made begins to illuminate Lang’s mental state.
There is something hiding in plain site in both Mike Linskie’s and Robert J. Lang’s works. The fissure between how the drawings look and what they represent opens into a vast loneliness. The drawings are colorful, flamboyant, crafty, friendly, idiosyncratic—they are heavy.
Mike Linskie (Born 1987, New Jersey) lives and works in Queens, New York. He received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (2014) and a BA from Temple University (2010). Collecting is a major part of Linskie’s practice—he has collections of Celebrity autographs inscribed “To Mike,” finger obstruction photographs, Mexican Spider-Man marionettes, Carnival chalk, frog postcards, and quilts.
Morning Sand
Catbox Contemporary: Catelite, New York
January 20 — February 3, 2018
Catbox Contemporary is pleased to participate in, “The Big Short”, a curated survey of alternative gallery spaces at The Artist’s Institute (NY, NY). Participating venues include; 57 Cell, Custom Program, Essex Flowers, helper, Pay Fauxn, Plug Dumpster, Tête-à-Tête, and Water Mcbeer. The show is organized by Patrick Mohundro and Emily Janowick.
For the exhibit, Catbox Contemporary is launching a new satellite space, Catbox Catellite, which functions as an intermittent traveling version of the gallery. To inaugurate the new space, artist Mike Linskie has prepared an exhibition of new works, titled “Morning Sand”. For the show, Linskie utilizes the ephemeral nature of sand and the beach to externalize his interior life. The result is a set of contemplative and theatrical paintings, drawings and sculptures. This is Linskie’s second show with the gallery.
An opening will be held on Saturday, January 20th, 6-8 PM, in The Artist’s Institute’s basement, 132 E 65th St, (NY, NY). The Big Short is on display from January 20th to February 3rd, 2018.
Review:
artloversnewyork
Christmas in Hawaii
Catbox Contemporary, New York
January 22 – February 25, 2017
Cat Box Contemporary is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Mike Linskie, the artist’s first with the gallery, and his debut solo exhibition in New York.
“Christmas in Hawaii” spans Linskie’s repertoire of mediums including quilts, collages and photographs. Most of the show is of recent work but also includes never before seen photographs from early 2015.
A credit to Linskie’s work is its ability to charm the viewer at first with its “dumbness” or “wrongness” but then opens its emotional undercurrents of love, loneliness, and desire.
Mike Linskie (b. 1987, New Jersey) received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2014 and his B.A. from Temple Univesity in 2010. He currently lives and works in Ridgewood, NY. Recent group exhbitions include Happy Hour, Art Helix, Brooklyn, 2015, Quiltfest 2015, Jacksonville Convention Center, Jacksonville, Florida, 2015; Melbourne International Animation Festival, Flemington, Victoria, Australia, 2015; Exquisite Corpse, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA, 2014.
