Mike Ballou's Sculptural Improvisations at Pierogi Gallery Mark End of Williamsburg Era

Mike Ballou's exhibition "Mud and Toys" at Pierogi Gallery from January 8 to February 7, 2016 featured sculptures created from dog-chewed plastic toys transformed with clay and epoxy. The artist unified these forms with saturated pigments like cobalt blue and cadmium yellow, creating complex geo-figural-botanical puzzles. Works such as "Round" and "Other Way" displayed a quality of goofy calamity, with affinities to artists like Robert Rauschenberg and William Wegman. Ballou's approach emphasized crude improvisation, with sculptures perched on rough plaster ice floes or cantilevering off tables. The exhibition coincided with Pierogi's planned move to the Lower East Side, marking a symbolic closing for the Williamsburg art scene. Ballou's 2013 "Raw/Cooked" exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum had previously showcased his collaborative energies, including portrait dog masks and super 8 films with live bands. The artist's East Williamsburg compound remains intact amid surrounding luxury development, with crappy stucco inspiring the sculptures' jerry-rigged restlessness. John Phillip Abbott's work was simultaneously on view in the gallery's front space.