This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.
Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited).
Summer in the City is a time for Fresh Air Kids, scrambling to stay cool, making sure to put on that sunscreen and water, water, water.
Notice that none of those are particularly Art-related.
That’s because most of the galleries are on short schedules, closed on Saturdays, or maybe the entire month of August, and the museums are gearing up for their new fall seasons. As a result, it was easy to miss a sleeper show up at David Zwirner’s 19th Street location- After Hours, mounted just east of the construction going on in their western gallery, which they apparently figured summer was a good time to get done. I’m glad I didn’t sleep on it. It’s a show of Art by the staff of David Zwirner’s galleries around the world. Very handsomely installed, it’s easy on the eyes and a number of pieces linger in the mind. “Easy” and “linger”…two words that go nicely with summer.
![](https://www.nighthawknyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/DSCF8919AffNH.jpg)
T. Dylan Moore, Self-Portrait, 2024, Casein on paper. Jasper Johns, has used this seemingly difficult medium to work with medium extensively, making me sit up and take notice of its possibilities- as T. Dylan Moore’s Self-Portrait does here (shot at an angle to minimize glare). Seen in After Hours, July 17, 2024. Pictures in this piece are thumbnails. Click any for full size.
I can hear some readers saying, “Man, it must be slow in NYC if he’s writing about a show by gallery staff members.” In reply I would remind readers that I first met Caslon Bevington in 2017 while she was working at David Zwirner. I have subsequently written about two of her solo shows.
![](https://www.nighthawknyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/IMG_7988AffNH.jpg)
Chase Barnes, Stateless Revision 1, Machine Vision, 2023, Multi-channel video installation on dual NEC monitors. Seen in After Hours, July 18, 2024.
The big takeaway from After Hours for me is that there are A LOT of talented folks working for David Zwirner. This is not the first rodeo for any number of them. Chase Barnes, for example, already has a PhotoBook published by Jason Koxvold’s renowned Gnomic Book. It shows me the track to working at a major gallery is F A S T. Being an Artist looks good on a resume for a gallery gig, and having shown or been published travels well by repute. It’s also got to be a real asset for said Art dealer to have such people on their staff in innumerable ways.
![](https://www.nighthawknyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/IMG_8307AffNH.jpg)
Lauren Ferrara, Absence, 2020, Found wood, recycled fabric, recycled paper, and recycled plastic bags, seen at After Hours, July 17, 2024.
In my experience, most people don’t give a second thought to staff members they encounter at an Art gallery. To work in a New York Gallery is an achievement in itself. A lot of people are drawn by the beauty and glamour of working with Art & Artists. That means there’s a lot of competition for these jobs. It serves to reason that an Artist seeking such employment would have an edge all other things being equal. And maybe that’s why the quality in After Hours was so high.
I was impressed with After Hours to the point that I saw it 4 times.The last two visits were because of Oji Haynes.
![](https://www.nighthawknyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/IMG_6901AffNH.jpg)
Kris Graves, the mastermind behind LOST IV taking a group portrait of 7 of the 10 Artist/Authors included in the set. From left, Oji Haynes, Richard Renaldi, Melody Melamed, Peter Baker, Tracy Dong, Melissa Alcena and Yoav Horesh. Seen at the LOST IV Book Release, Printed Matter, July 11, 2024.
I met Mr. Haynes at the Kris Graves Project’s 10-volume LOST IV book release at Printed Matter. So taken with his PhotoBook, Anthem, was I that I took the bold step (for me) of walking over and telling him. We proceeded to have a remarkable conversation during which we discovered a shared passion for Art book collecting, with any number of overlapping Artists, from Robert Rauschenberg to Gordon Parks and Jeff Wall. He also revealed it was his first PhotoBook, consisting of an overview of his Photography to date, and he had been reluctant to do it. Luckily, Kris Graves managed to convince him that now was indeed the time and the results are one of the strongest books (in my view) in the set. No mean feat in fast company.
![](https://www.nighthawknyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2024_Anthem_22Aff.jpg)
A spread from Anthem. Mr. Haynes told me he had originally envisioned the right-hand Photo as the cover. *- Kris Graves Projects Photo.
Then, he told me he had moved on in his practice and was now creating Sculptural pieces, and one of them was included in After Hours! Ahhh…he, too, is a David Zwirner staffer. I went back to the show on a mission.
![](https://www.nighthawknyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/IMG_7771AffNH3.jpg)
Oji Haynes, Scriptures, 2024, String lights, cement, inkjet photo, diamond dust, and mixed media on fabric couch. Seen in After Hours, July 17, 2024.
Tucked nicely into a corner at the far end of a large gallery, his piece, Scriptures, 2024, couldn’t be more different, yet similar, to his Photography. His book consists of intimate moments, most, but not all, including people- singly, in paris or small groups. Scriptures is intimate, as well, in a different way. Though I continue to ponder it, I had a few initial reactions.
First, it struck me as a collection of things people might find buried if they took apart a couch they’d had for a long time. Things that might fall out if you lifted it up from one end. Second, it gave me a feeling somewhat reminiscent to looking at Kerry James Marshall’s Souvenir II, a work that memorializes memories.
![](https://www.nighthawknyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/KJM-Souvenir-II-1997-scaled.jpg)
Kerry James Marshall, Souvenir II, 1997, Acrylic, collage, and glitter on unstreteched canvas banner. *-Renaissance Society Photo.
Then, I thought I’d love to see it hung between Mr. Marshall’s piece and Robert Rauschenberg’s revolutionary Bed. Rauschenberg mounted a bed on a wall. Mr. Haynes has mounted a couch on the two walls of a corner.
![](https://www.nighthawknyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/L1121847AffNH.jpg)
Robert Rauschenberg, Bed, 1955, Oil and pencil on pillow, quilt, and sheet on wood supports. The first work to take a piece of everyday household furniture and reenvision it. Of this work, Sarah Sze said, “That kind of intimacy is very specific to Rauschenberg. A willingness to be tender, to be intimate, to share a kind of a very interior urgency. An urgency to share a kind of interior self publicly1.” Her words resonated with me while seeing Scriptures. Seen at MoMA during Robert Rauschenberg Among Friends, August 5, 2017.
![](https://www.nighthawknyc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/IMG_6906AffNH2.jpg)
Oji Haynes holding a copy of his first PhotoBook, Anthem, at the LOST IV Book Release, Printed Matter, July 11.2024.
The definitions of “scriptures’ in the American Heritage Dictionary are- “1. A sacred writing or book. 2- A passage from such a writing or book. 3- The writings collected as the Bible.” Taking those as a point of context, tilts things to the “sacred,” and what’s sacred for whosever items these are. In one sense, it’s a time capsule of hopes, dreams, achievements, memories, simultaneously revealing the passage of time. Auspicious, indeed. Mr. Haynes was not on hand when I went back to After Hours. He told me he had to go install work in a show in San Francisco.
With work like Scriptures hot on the heels of a just-released auspicious first PhotoBook Anthem, Oji Haynes has already reached another new plateau. I’ll be among those watching with interest where he, and his Art, goes next.
So, Beware: That Art gallery staff member you see or speak to on your next visit may well be an Artist whose work you’ll be going to see one day soon. It’s happened to me. More than once.
*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Summer in the City” by John Sebastian and Lovin’ Spoonful from 1966. This vintage video could have been shot here this week-
NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for 9 years, during which 330 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate by PayPal below to allow me to continue. Thank you, Kenn.
You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.
Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.
For “short takes,” my ongoing “Visual Diary” series, and outtakes from my pieces, be sure to follow @nighthawk_nyc on Instagram!