Charles Spurrier's 2000 Feigen Contemporary Show Revisited Ahead of Brooklyn Opening

Charles Spurrier opens a show in Brooklyn at 490 Atlantic Avenue on May 4, 2019, alongside Jesse McCloskey, from 6-9pm. This prompts David Cohen to revisit his December 2000 article on Spurrier, originally published in the defunct Wburg magazine. Spurrier's second solo at Feigen Contemporary in New York that fall featured works like "Imitation of Prayer," which used 49 tree-shaped car fresheners to create an olfactory experience, and "Tongue Snatcher," with multicolored lightbulbs generating heat. His art blends metaphor and literality, employing materials from chewing gum to fingerprints, plastic beads, and collaged wallpaper. Spurrier, originally from the Mid-West, studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art and Yale, and lives in the East Village with a studio in Williamsburg near Pierogi 2000. His work is noted for its dualism, serving both conceptual and formal purposes, with a gaudy palette and baroque sensibility. Earlier pieces explored identity through mediums like dental records in chewing gum, compared to contemporaries like Tom Friedman and Janine Antoni. The 2000 show included "Course for Gratitude," a mosaic of adhesive tape cubes, and "Invitation of Now," with fingerprints on scotch tape forming a red orb. Feigen Contemporary has since relocated and renamed, with Cohen's writings archived on a hard drive.