Andrew Kuo and Scott Reeder Open a Nightclub in a Gallery

In the back of the Marlborough Gallery in the Lower East Side, a miniature nightclub is coming to life. It's called Thinkers, and it's part of It Gets Beta, the new double exhibition from art world mainstays Andrew Kuo and Scott Reeder.

For It Gets Beta, the abstract, hand-painted charts of Kuo (read our interview with the artist here), which present colorful, graphical visualizations of mundane information like "Things I talk about" and "Things I lie about to keep you around," are set against Reeder's lists of "New kinds of music," and "Artists to Watch," a catalog of the last names of already-accomplished artists like Picasso and Warhol. The result, according to Marlborough, elevates the "flatfooted 'art' idea to a level of uncomfortable, humorous grandeur—at once reductive and overblown." The artists' sensibilities meet when it comes to the use of text in their works, with Kuo's mechanical prose complementing Reeder's deadpan poetry. It's sort of like an art world reimagining of The Odd Couple, except with a nightclub, neon sculptures, and abstract paintings.

"As artists with active public presences online, in video, and music performance, Reeder and Kuo are two artists who understand very well the mechanics and message of each medium and seek to streamline our experience within them while complicating our assumptions," the exhibition's press release explains. "With this crucial and shared skill, the artists are able to remind us of what is sad about funny, what is transcendent about the humdrum, and what is smart about dumb."

Installation views of It Gets Beta.

It Gets Beta will be on display at Marlborough Gallery's locations on 25th Street and on Broome Strreet from February 21, 2015, to March 28, 2015. Click here to learn more.

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