Fifth
Every few weeks I will be turning over the reigns at Atlas to an artist, curator or interested party to expand the reach of what this newsletter can provide. This week Michael Neff is your tour guide through a studio visit and exhibition installation of the artist Grayson Cox. And now, Michael Neff:
Since moving to New York eight years ago I have been visiting the studios of friends and artists whose work I am interested in. In particular I have been making prints with my friend Brad Ewing of Marginal Editions and have been documenting him at work on the press for many years. In January 2009 , we had approached David Kramer about doing an edition with us. We went to his studio to see what he was working on and talk about what the edition should be. I snapped a lone photo of a sculpture David had just completed for a show and uploaded it to my Flickr stream. It was one of those ah-ha! moments where I realized that I should be doing this every time I visited someone’s studio.
I visited my friend Grayson Cox’s studio in Bushwick last summer. It was hot and Grayson’s studio was tiny and packed. He showed me what he was working on and had recently completed. He had recent bleach-on-fabric screen prints, pointillist ink drawings, gray painted furniture and a shaped foam screen print from his series of hot tubs. Studio visits as an artist are a real treat. You get to see what people are up to without the pressure of either of you wanting something.
Grayson’s recent show at Gasser & Grunert in Chelsea was something I knew I wanted to photograph as soon as he told me about what he was planning: to install a continuous table top throughout the entire gallery, punctuated by openings where viewers could gather, socialize, and view the more typical pieces hung on the wall.
It sounded audacious and difficult and he really wanted to make it happen. I showed up each morning to document the slow progress as a team of artists and the architect, who helped Grayson with the plans and production, brought in the art and installed, sanded and painted what amounted to a massive table. The opening surprised me. People happily hunkered down and duck walked between the openings, gathering in great density in some, sitting on the floor against the wall. It was a free for all and it was a fantastic thing to see.
Grayson Cox
Grayson Cox is a New York City based artist working in a variety of media, from painting and printmaking, to photography and furniture-like wood construction. He was born in 1979 in Indianapolis, Indiana, received his BFA from Indiana Univeristy and spent two years living in Tokyo before moving to New York City in 2005. Cox finished his Masters of Fine Art from Columbia University in New York in 2010 and was awarded the Daisy Soros Prize to study in Salzburg that Summer.
Cox has exhibited in New York and internationally including, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Tel Aviv, Israel; The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Elizabeth Foundation, New York; The Fisher Landau Center for Art, Queens, New York; Gowanus Studio Space and St. Cecelia’s Parish in Brooklyn.
Solo exhibitions have been held at Gasser Grunert Gallery in New York, which have been reviewed in multiple publications including the Summer 2011 issue of Art in America, Artnet.com and Time Out New York.
Cox is currently an assistant professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
Michael Neff
Michael Neff is an artist, designer, and photographer living in Brooklyn, New York. He is known for The Night Shadow, an ongoing project in which he outlines shadows with chalk and photographs the result. Neff is co-founder and Editor in Chief of NSFW Magazine. He is also an alumnus of the Rhode Island School of design and currently serves as Co-President of the RISD NY alumni club.
ATLAS 
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