{"id":984,"date":"2011-08-11T20:42:09","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T01:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/?p=984"},"modified":"2012-02-12T20:52:17","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T01:52:17","slug":"matthew-ronay-between-the-worlds-at-andrea-rosen-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/11\/matthew-ronay-between-the-worlds-at-andrea-rosen-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Ronay, “Between the Worlds” at Andrea Rosen Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Matthew<\/a>
Matthew Ronay, 'Between the Worlds" installation view at Andrea Rosen Gallery, 2011.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Four years after Matthew Ronay overhauled his style from comic grotesque to soberly spiritual, his ambitious new installation feels like an apotheosis. Dramatically veiled behind a huge black curtain, an enchanted forest populated by birds of prey, totemic figures and fertility symbols invites pleasurable discovery and even a sense of wonder at the level of detail, imagination and effort involved. A lingering question remains, however, as to what you\u2019re supposed to do with this otherworldly space.<\/p>\n

Considering that Ronay\u2019s previous pieces have included sculptures of hamburgers alongside delicately arching penises with bites taken out of them, it\u2019s hard to believe that the artist is being entirely straight-faced here. In the gallery handout, he suggests that he wants to give gallerygoers an opportunity to transcend the quotidian by offering them a genuine spiritual experience. Yet with all the papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 volcanoes, trees made of Ikea-like prints, diminutive beings and the cutest owls this side of Disney lying about, they\u2019ll have to stop chuckling first.<\/p>\n

Abundant mushroom imagery (growing on felled trees, hanging in chains) suggests some sort of transport of the mind. But it\u2019s the commanding\u00a0Masculine Pillar<\/em>\u2014a robed column with a giant eyelike symbol\u2014that grabs attention by virtue of appearing to conceal someone inside, as it did on the show\u2019s opening night, when Ronay occupied it. Which is a reminder that while forests are classic settings for fantastical tales, characters are what make a story, so Ronay\u2019s installation feels a little hollow when it\u2019s empty. Without the presence of a person, the installation is like a stage set, and all the totems simply props with no ritual significance to add to their relevance. Thus, the piece\u2019s potential to achieve the artist\u2019s hoped-for transcendence is diminished.<\/p>\n

Originally published in Time Out New York, issue 823, August 4-10, 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four years after Matthew Ronay overhauled his style from comic grotesque to soberly spiritual, his ambitious new installation feels like an apotheosis. Dramatically veiled behind a huge black curtain, an enchanted forest populated by birds of prey, totemic figures and fertility symbols invites pleasurable discovery and even a sense of wonder at the level of … <\/p>\n

Read more “Matthew Ronay, “Between the Worlds” at Andrea Rosen Gallery”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[113,8,29,114,13,38,112,10,16],"class_list":["post-984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-andrea-rosen-gallery","tag-art","tag-art-criticism","tag-contemporary-art","tag-gallery","tag-installation","tag-matthew-ronay","tag-sculpture","tag-tour"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BDOD-fS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions\/987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}