Rick Lowe, Untitled, 2018, paint marker on collaged paper, 6 × 12 ft. Courtesy of the Artist and Storage_.
Colby Chamberlain on “Storage_”
Artforum
February 2021
When I visited the exhibition in October, Chuke explained that his program would focus on women and artists of color whose work plumbed historical memory and whose practice moved between the studio and sites of pedagogy or community organizing. In both respects, Lowe’s Untitled, 2018, is paradigmatic. The twelve-foot-wide painting is layered with references to Project Row Houses and its historical antecedents. A lattice of black lines the artist made by tracing the edges of dominoes—a reference to a popular Third Ward pastime—lies over bright swaths of orange and yellow acrylic, which in turn partially occlude photographs of shotgun-style residences constructed through PRH’s urban-development initiatives and an advertisement for the iconic performance I Like America and America Likes Me, 1974, by Joseph Beuys, whose concept of “social sculpture” Lowe cites as a significant influence.
A number of the artists in “Storage_” will present solo exhibitions and public conversations at the space throughout 2021. A sculptor who has worked both for galleries and as an arts educator for Studio in a School, Foster Pride, and the Rikers Island jail complex, Chuke is also planning a mentoring program for teenagers, Application Readiness Technique (ART). The relative dearth of support for social practice in New York derives in part from the assumption that community outreach and commercial dealing are incompatible. Storage aims to counter this misconception through its programming and, for now, its founder’s sweat equity. “These galleries making six figures in sales each month,” Chuke told me, “they could be doing more—we are open to partnering on this endeavor.” – Colby Chamberlain