Mike Paré: Black Light Folk Festival 2003

For his first New York solo exhibition, Mike Paré presents a series of new drawings and sculptures collectively entitled BLACK LIGHT FOLK FESTIVAL.

Seen through our post-9-11 frame of reference, 1960's radicalism comes across somewhat benignly, less a threat than just another subculture ripe for reminiscent commercialization by today's media. Events such as the Yippies' Pentagon Rising gathering of 1967, may come across today as impotent and folky, yet at the time Washington felt threatened enough to activate military forces to ensure that no chanting hippies should attempt to levitate any government structure. The counterculture were taking themselves just as seriously-with occultism and vibrations on their side, not even physical laws could stand in their way.

More than mere journalistic representations, Paré's new drawings and sculptures are tributes to this occult political radicalism and social tribalism of 1960s America, visually placing at odds the various interests of contemporary art-making through the filter of both art and political history. His large-scale graphite "portraits" of music festival crowds serve as both a critique and a celebration of the decade's idealists, our first authentic "youth culture." The work's loaded iconography-be-ins, long hair, Village life-is presented with calm objectivity as well as a fond sensitivity, as though the artist identifies personally with his subjects-observant viewers will note that each rendered character in the drawings is given a unique personality; personalities Paré no doubt gathered from his own childhood spent in the company of "musicians and blue collar hippies."

In a sculpture titled "The Weight Was So Heavy We Put It Down," Paré literally "puts down" the pure form of a glass wine jug by covering it with raw graphite marks. The marring of this representational vessel-a form familiar to the environments of his drawings-may be pessimistically seen as a comment on the counterculture's failure to "carry the weight," or at least to continue the struggle of the Movement. Yet, the initial energy of mark-making and creative action is celebrated.

In the paradox of his photorealist black and white methodology, Paré has created an anguished state that relates to the tension of the times. Through their lack of color, his representational images hint at a subjectivity separate from the "now." On the other hand, the photorealism technique is generally viewed as an attempt to approximate reality using formal (objective) methods-not what one has come to expect from historical recreations. And this is where Paré is coming from. The images of Black Light Folk Festival are not nostalgia. They are not concerned with hipness or status and thus are far from being opportunistic. Paré's vision is one of exploration and attention to past times and forgotten details. The glowing details that stand out when the black light comes on.

-Erik Bluhm, Los Angeles 2003
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A 1992 graduate of the California College of Arts and Crafts, Paré has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris and the Netherlands. In 1999 his work was selected for the Bay Area Now 2 show at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. He is a frequent contributor to K48 magazine and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
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The Folk Recital Series will feature various acoustic music performers each Sunday at 4pm throughout November. Performers will be announced on the afternoon of the event. Contact ATM for details.

ATM gallery is located at 170 Avenue B (between 10th & 11th st.)
www.atmgallery.com
Black Light Folk Festival
Mike Paré
Oct. 23rd -Nov.23rd 2003