NinaJohnson

Charley Friedman at OMI

May 21st, 2016

Omi’s summer gallery exhibition Looking at the Sun, an extensive exhibition of works by multimedia artist Charley Friedman, opens Saturday June 18 with a reception and artist talk in Omi’s Benenson Center. Looking at the Sun features prints, drawings, and Science Project, a mechanical sculpture of whirling beach balls. The gallery exhibition playfully extends out into the fields, where Friedman has crafted a gang of more than 75 mischevious bronze squirrels for the Fields Sculpture Park. The piece is now a permanent acquisition of Omi.

Charley Friedman is a multi-disciplinary artist whose body of work explores themes of self-identity and how we perceive and categorize ourselves and those around us. His language is generally playful and investigative, using variety of media including performance, sculpture, photography and drawing. In the gallery, Omi presents Looking at the Sun an expansive exhibition of Friedman’s sculptures, drawings and prints. The gallery exhibition playfully extends out into the fields, where Friedman has crafted a gang of over 70 mischievous bronze squirrels for The Fields Sculpture Park.

The role “character” is essential to Friedman’s work. The artist explores impersonating characters himself, an excersie through which he often investigates his heritage, as evident in the photograph Chasid in the Woods (2015).

Friedman writes: “The themes in my new body of work reflect my preoccupations with how individuals, nations and cultures form and transmit ideas and values. How we perceive each other and ourselves and how we invent systems to categorize our own egocentric worldview.”

Charley Friedman is a Pollock-Krasner grant recipient, two-time Rema Hort nominee, and Smack Mellon “Hot Picks” artist. Friedman has exhibited and performed at numerous galleries and institutions including PS1/MoMA, The Queens Museum, Gallery Diet, The Fabric Workshop, Volta NYC, Pulse Miami, Barbara Mathes Gallery, Jack Tilton Gallery and Lehman College. Selected publications include: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Miami Herald, Art Info, GQ Italia, Salon, Art Info, El Nuevo Herald, Flavorpill.com. Mr. Friedman is in the collections of: The Brooklyn Museum, New York Public Library, Stanford University, Sheldon Museum of Art, Karen and Robert Duncan, Gordman Collection and Goldman Collection, to name a few. In the fall of 2014, his work appeared on Louis CK’s television show “Louie”. He received his Masters of Fine Arts from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University (1996) in addition to The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1995).