Sylvan Lionni
Double Double, 2022
powder coat on steel
27h x 28w x 38d in / 58.6h x 71.1w x 96.5d cm

Terry Haggerty
Transparency Opacity, 2023
acrylic on canvas
24h x 31.5w / 60.7h x 80w cm

Derek Franklin
Constructing a World in A Predetermined State #28, 2025
oil on cast concrete
9.5h x 11.5w x 1.4d in / 24.1h x 29.2w x 3.5d cm

Peter Gronquist
Civil War, 2025
steel, chrome, american walnut
22.5h x 40w x 65.25d in / 57.2h x 101.6w x 165.7d cm

Jim Lee
Untitled (Father | Son), 2025
homemade tattoo ink, spray enamel on rubbed polyester and wood staples
18h x 20.25w in / 45.7h x 51.4w cm

Ethan Greenbaum
________, _________, __________, 2017
direct to substrate print, acrylic on carved burch
23.75h x 23.75w x 1d in / 60.3h x 60.3w x 2.5d cm

Frank Stella
Untitled, circa 1966
watercolor and graphite on paper, framed
22h x 17.3w in / 55.9h x 43.8 cm

"So Sweet... So Perverse"

DEREK FRANKLIN, ETHAN GREENBAUM, PETER GRONQUIST, TERRY HAGGERTY, JIM LEE, SYLVAN LIONNI, JESSICA SANDERS, FRANK STELLA

Curated by Steven Stewart

July 12 – August 30, 2025

So Sweet… So Perverse

 

Curated by Steven Stewart 

 

July 12 - August 30, 2025

 

Opening Reception: Saturday, July, 12 6 - 8:30 PM

 

Derek Franklin

Ethan Greenbaum

Peter Gronquist

Terry Haggerty

Jim Lee

Sylvan Lionni

Jessica Sanders

Frank Stella

 

A yawn is just a silent shout, and Minimalism has always yearned to yell into the void with a quiet voice. This revolutionary reductive language is like a vampire; it cannot be killed and will never die. The movement came to the fore on the heels of abstract expressionism in a desperate attempt to separate itself from the inward looking artist. So Sweet… So Perverse is wanting to explore the politics of aesthetics, and how deep meaning can be found in near absence. Frank Stella was exhausted by having his work be accused of cold intellectualism, when in fact it simply found a different kind of struggle, as if his lack of brushwork was somehow evidence of apathy or insincerity. Stella's stripes are the paths of brushstrokes, they lead only into painting. He was simply trying to find the right words to say the best things.This literal approach to art-making and the materials that facilitate it is what this exhibition strives to emphasize with panache.

 

Explosive gestures were not enough to keep the tastemaker’s attention any longer; this kinky formalism was the consequence, and a realistic way toward a then Greenburgian utopia. The forms their predecessors used became suddenly, hopelessly obsolete; “fiddling rustics” as the uncredited narrator of Emile de Antonio’s seminal documentary on post-war American painting explained . So Sweet… So perverse is perhaps a revisitation of these revolving values, even a remembrance or perhaps another reaction to an art world that is pivoting away from the tyranny of figuration that has reined over the last several years.

 

The works on view swerve playfully amongst the personal, the subversive and the political. Minimalism as an “ism” is a declaration, and remains to be so. It's not a fad but an ethos,  a way of making concrete sense of a convoluted world in the way art has always done. It is imperfectly perfect, a grid laid over a culture that is at best a mess, if not mostly interesting. Derek Franklin takes on cast-concrete, Jessica Sanders fondles wax, Michael Rey introduces a new series of ceramic works, Peter Gronquist built a bomb, Sylvan Lionni continues his indefatigable pursuit of challenging his super heroes, Jim Lee does the same and the rest do the rest. It's a congregation of weirdoes doing unexpected things in this unexpected new chapter of the art world while still vibrating from the influence of Frank Stella’s legacy. Everything leads back to the grid, please join us as we take on the matrix with fashionable eyewear.

 

Gallery hours are from 11am - 6pm Tuesday - Saturday and by appointment.

For more information or exhibition images, please contact steven@freightandvolume.com