Ward Shelley and Alex Schweder Present Fifth Collaborative Installation with Borgesian Parodies

Artist Ward Shelley and architect Alex Schweder have unveiled their fifth collaborative project, featuring drawings, paintings, and an installation that employs Borgesian parodies of organizational systems. The work emerges from Shelley's period of artistic hibernation, which he has earned through previous endeavors. A parallel is drawn to Julian Schnabel's film 'Basquiat,' where the title character, representing East Village's flameout ethos, assists an installer at Mary Boone Gallery. In that scene, a mediocre character portrayed by Willem Dafoe advises Basquiat about stable employment, to which Basquiat responds with ambitions to exhibit in those same spaces. The collaboration continues Shelley and Schweder's exploration of architectural and artistic intersections through conceptual frameworks.