Charles Sabba

Y Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition Charles Sabba: Parallel Avant Gardes (On Subversiveness and Criminality #1), the second solo show of Charles Sabba curated by Ryan Brown and Cecilia Jurado. Sabba’s work subverts the utilitarian practices, tools and materials used by the forces of authority, domination and suppression and transforms them into works of art that speak directly of human need for freedom from restrictive rules and boundaries that imprison the mind and spirit. Charles Sabba is an active lieutenant in the Police department of New Jersey. His entire life, physical, spiritual and mental is a drama between conflicting dualities. He personifies the conflict between authority vs. revolutionary spirit rules vs. freedom, morality vs. creativity and his artwork is a stage where these themes find unrestricted expression. In Sabba’s own words: “As a police lieutenant I have never in my life had to maintain such a high level of discipline. My life when I'm at my daily workplace is regimented, conformed, very conservative, disciplined, grey and colorless and burdened and bogged down by many, many laws, rules regulations and restrictive policies. I am a slave to an economic system and a prisoner to the restrictive boundaries of time (as are just about everyone in our country). When I enter my studio on my days off I step into the art world, which is now Actaeon's domain. It is here that I can live outside the restrictive rules and boundaries of society. I , as Actaeon, am exploring art and "entering " into the minds of artists that walked before me. I enter their works and there I can live free. There are no rules, no man made laws, no man made morals, norms of society, no hypocrisy, just unleashed psychological energy and mental prowess”. The exhibition features a large sculptural installation consisting of a tree mounted in the corner of the gallery, extending floor to ceiling that supports hundreds of bullets painted to look like bumblebees extending down on clear plastic line. The gunpowder has been removed and substituted with powdered pigments. We will also be presenting a large series of fingerprint drawings that feature themes such as stolen art (a subject Charlie is passionately and professionally involved), art and anarchism, and historical artists. Charlie Sabba uses official fingerprint cards from the department and mimics the normal process of applying fingerprint ink to the card. However, what would usually result in a personal record of arrest now explodes in playful and subversive imagery. There will also be a group of pastel drawings which were inspired from a performance which involves Charles as his alter ego – Actaeon, the legendary huntsman of Greek mythology, not a surprising relation, the hunter being hunted. About Charles Sabba work the curators stated: "No other artist we know of can speak of these issues with such integrity and honesty. Charlie represents the artist who doesn’t choose to make art but MUST make art as a life and death matter…. Above all what we find most compelling about Charlie’s work is the that fact that his approach to art and art making is one of absolute necessity and fulfills the highest potential of art – to liberate the mind of the oppressed, to empower the imagination, and to be free."

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Downtown, NY