Exhibition Dates:
January 12-February 23, 2024

Opening Reception:
Friday, January 12, 2024, 5:00-9:00pm

Artist Talk & Publication Launch:
Thursday, February 15 @ 6:00pm

Rivalry Projects is thrilled to present Joan Linder: Belly. The exhibition, her first with the gallery, will be on view from January 12 - February 23, 2024. Join us for the opening reception on Friday, January 12 from 5:00 - 9:00pm. We will be hosting an artist talk on Thursday, February 15, from 6:00-7:00pm.

Known for highly detailed pen and ink drawings, Linder’s practice is wide-ranging, with recent works considering the intimacy of domestic interiors; the strange, detached communication of Zoom meetings; capitalist consumption and impulsiveness fueled by companies like Amazon; or the ominous but nameless environmental sites for crypto currency mining. The works take many forms — life-sized scrolls, artist books, and larger-than-life renderings intended to envelope the eye — yet all are tender, inquisitive, and critical examinations of the subject matter at hand. 

Belly includes monumental and intimately sized oil paintings, produced between 1999 - 2001, of fleshy male bellies. Depicted standing proud, timid, or bent over in positions of vulnerability, Linder renders the figures as soft, dimpled, and imperfect against washy pastel colored backgrounds — a feminine counter to the hyper-masculine.

This body of work provides a glimpse into the power structures and gender politics of the late 1990s, in the art world and beyond. At the time of production, Linder worked in midtown Manhattan as a curator for a significant corporate art collection. Ensconced in this culture, she was interested in the daily manifestation of power in corporate America and the art world. This led to a series of paintings of men and machines, exploring tropes of masculinity, and aimed at poking and prodding embodiments of power. 

WORKS

INSTALLATION VIEWS

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Joan Linder (b. 1970) works with the traditional materials of a quill pen and ink to create large-scale drawings of figures, objects, and sites of meaning that explore the relationship between the observer and the observed. Often rendering her subjects in life-size, artworks examine a diversity of subject matter aiming to express the complexity and variety of contemporary life. 

Linder has exhibited at Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York, Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College, Davis Gallery, Hobart William Smith Colleges, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Queens Museum, Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (now Buffalo AKG), Omi International Art Center, Sun Valley Art Center, and Weatherspoon Art Museum, among others. She studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and holds a MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from Tufts University. Past awards and residencies include MacDowell, Yaddo, Smack Mellon, Ucross Foundation, Art Omi, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, plus a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant. Linder lives and works in Buffalo, NY and is a Professor of Art at the University of Buffalo.