Pizza Party
Jordan Segal
September 7th - September 29th, 2024
Opening reception Friday, September 7th 6-9pm
Artist talk with Will Kaplan: Sunday September 22, 4pm
“Pizza party” -- a phrase that brings to mind raucous children’s celebrations, or a token of reluctant corporate reward. Eight slices, cut into sixteenths. Artist Jordan Segal has invited you to join his family and friends to dig in for an occasion of humor, tenderness and disgust. As a maker, Segal is equal parts absorbed child playing with slime, and weathered cynic making ugly objects for an ugly world.
Gathered around the table are acrylic portraits of Segal’s loved ones. Bright, synthetic hues and flesh tones jolt against each other in the back and foreground. Raw layers of striated and abraded textures render skin. Some faces lack features, with eerily eyeless smiles or no nose. Segal presents these figures to us, not as victims but as an interior view, a few folds of epidermis omitted. In sharing these people from the inside out, Segal extends his bond with his subjects between the sitter and us the viewer. They evoke the strangeness of having a body, of what it feels like to be an upright mass of meat.
But that revelation feels almost commonplace in the presence of the pizza. In these sculptures, Segal manifests that surreality of our fleshbound existence in a real touchable thing. As food, these objects exist in a state of immaculate transfiguration: both unchewed, yet in the midst of being digested. They sit before us, excised from our stomachs, just as our acids were converting the calories and proteins into energy and fat which would in turn become the tissues of our body; the same tissue pulsing from the canvases on the wall, microplastics included.
This pizza party encapsulates that indestructible chain of mass and energy, the cycle of consumer and consumed. The table is set. Please help yourself.
* ** The Parties hereby called Bob’sTM and Jordan Segal agree that during the term of this Agreement and within the scope of any events or services provided herein, there shall be no service, distribution, or provision of pizza in any form. This restriction applies to all food offerings and shall be strictly adhered to unless both Parties mutually agree in writing to amend this provision.
Jordan Segal was raised in New York City, a gritty environment that has profoundly influenced his work. He attended Bard College, graduating with a B.A. in Studio Art in 2014 and receiving the Studio Arts Award. Jordan now continues to live and work in New York City as an artist, curator, and educator. He has participated in numerous exhibitions across NYC in both traditional and experimental spaces, including Trestle Gallery, the New York Hall of Science, and Artcell. Recent residencies include ChaNorth and Ox-Bow’s Conversations in Practice Residency. His work has been featured in publications such as ShoutOut LA and Create! Magazine. Jordan has also curated for the Spring/Break Art Show in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
His highly experimental, material-based art practice revolves around the fragility and strength of the human body. Oscillating between painting, sculpture, and drawing, Jordan creates a textured world that is dark, humorous, and poignant.