strobe is thrilled to present Starry Night, an exhibition featuring ten stellar works by Olivia DiVecchia, Andrew Foster, Nick Fusaro, eri king, Jule Korneffel, Justin Lieberman, Paulina Nolte, Ben Pritchard, Alexandro Segade and Johanna Strobel. The exhibition will be on view from December 9th to December 18th, 2022, with an opening on Friday, December 9th, from 6–9PM.

A black hole is anything but empty space. It’s a great amount of matter packed into a tiny area - a star ten times as massive as the sun packed into a sphere with the diameter of New York City. *
There is no gazing in the abyss of a black hole. Black holes are invisible. Their gravity is so strong, not even light can escape.

A black hole that passes through a cloud of interstellar matter, draws that matter inward in a process of accretion. Nick Fusaro’s set of bocce balls forms a constellation of nine silvery planets on the floor. They are not cast tin, but hand forged from thousands of square feet of densely compressed aluminum foil.

A black hole is defined by the appearance of an event horizon through which light and matter can only pass inwards.
The window in Olivia DiVecchia photograph “A kind of idealist trap” is a boundary of no escape, beyond which a black mass is expanding, seeping through the corners of the frame.This dark fluid, „Phantom Energy“, bursts into existence in Paulina Nolte’s delicate charcoal and pencil drawing summoning the end of the universe in acceleration,

Black holes can’t be directly observed. Their presence can only be detected by their effect on other matter nearby.
Even when it gets dark Jule Korneffel continues to paint without electric light to not let it interfere with the wavelength of the colors created by subtle layers of pigments. In a process of accumulation Ben Pritchard’s thick impastos form dense relief-like structures, whose shadow play interlocks with geometric figures drawn on the surface.
Applying layer and layers of urethan and silvery aluminum dust over fiberglass screen mesh, “Graft” a painting from Andrew Foster‘s “transitory dust” series becomes a feathery reflective topography. eri king’s sculpture entitled „new wave“ transforms material and energy through individual handmade threads of clay accumulated into a dense undulating wave form that explores meditation, labor, process and craft.

Black holes and the rays they emit have a dramatic influence on what surrounds them, devouring stars, spurring and stalling the growth of new stars.
One manicured hand in Johanna Strobel’s sliding aluminum panel paintings “spilling, slipping” sprinkles sand which slips through the fingers of the other.

When a star reaches the event horizon, time stops. The star is an object frozen in collapse.
With its splitting diagonal trajectories Justin Lieberman’s “sunburst”, a comic book collage of “gutters”, the negative space which divides up the panels on the page, pulls towards and collapses into the center.
But seen from inside a black hole time stretches to infinity.

Alexandro Segade’s “The Context” drawings illustrate a vastness that extends past the boundaries of different art forms and ways of being. “The Context is Crisis” references a panel from the DC Comic Crisis on Infinite Earths.

The only visible Starry Night in Manhattan is on view at MoMA either locked up or surrounded by the lights of cell phone cameras. Outside the building and looking up light pollution and smog make all stars and possible other worlds invisible.
Only the night stares back.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!


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* https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/black-holes

Olivia DiVecchia (b. 1987 in Argyle, Texas) is an artist working across drawing, sculpture, photography, video, sound and text. DiVecchia’s often recursive practice is interested in developing systems whose logics are followed through multiple points of translation and mutation. She received a BFA in studio art from Southern Methodist University in 2010 and an MFA in studio art from Hunter College in 2020. Her work has been exhibited in both Dallas and New York, most recently in NOTHNG OF THE MONTH CLUB, an exhibition ‘under the sign’ of Ray Johnson at Off Paradise (NY, 2021) and Some Kind of Mind Thing also at Off Paradise (NY, 2022). She was an artist in residence at Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency (Jan/Feb 2022). She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Andrew Foster (b. 1982 in Los Angeles, CA) works through the manipulation of light, surface, near-defunct-technologies, found objects and traditional painting materials. His recent works absurdly set out to imagine a reconciliation - one where the slick, sterile nature of contemporary objects and conditions might offer a soft retreat. Foster received a BFA in Art from Art Center College of Design (2004 Pasadena, CA) and an MFA in Painting from Hunter College (2020 New York City). From 2004 to 2016, Foster taught studio and plien air painting privately and at Otis College of Art and Design. Past exhibitions include Sisyphus Lounge (2020 NY) at 205 Hudson Street Gallery, Zen Arcade (2019, NY) at The Lobby, Gray Day at Roberts & Tilton (2010, Los Angeles, curator Noah Davis), Paradox Maintenance Technicians (2013, Torrance, CA) at the Torrance Art Museum.

Nick Fusaro (b. 1989, New Jersey) is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He is a Hunter College MFA Candidate and received his BFA in Sculpture from Pratt Institute in 2012. His sculptural practice combines humble materials, collections, and iteration to emphasize the effects of memory on lived experience. Fusaro also studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2011 and is the founder of Three Four Three Four, an artist-run gallery in Brooklyn, NY.

eri king is an interdisciplinary artist working in various modes such as installation, sculpture, textiles, painting, drawing, video, sound, and performance. She draws on the vast reservoir of the banal, unnoticed, and repetitive actions to increase the visibility and perceived value of these overlooked aspects and rituals of lived experience. Her conceptual framework examines the complex and nuanced connections of seemingly disparate subjects and cultural narratives as a way to unpack the associations and perspectives of established American customs.
King received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and Art History at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada in 2011, and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting at Hunter College in 2018. She currently works and lives in New York, NY. She is half of the collaborative art duo, Eridan, with NY-based artist, Daniel Greer.
She was a co-founder and co-curator of artist-run spaces 5th Wall Gallery and Project Space in the Emergency Arts, Las Vegas from 2011-2014. She has had solo exhibitions at Winchester Cultural Center Gallery, Las Vegas, NV (2013), Miranda Kuo Gallery, New York, NY (2016), Shiro Oni Studio, Gunma, Japan (2017) and Catskills Gallery, New York, NY (2021) and has participated in a variety of group exhibitions such as Spring/Break Art Show, NYC (2021), Financial Time’s Global Boardroom, UK (2020), London Biennale in Nevada (2012 and 2020), Every Woman Biennial, NYC (2019), and Rise Up, NYC (2017) to name a few. Her work is in the permanent collection at The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, Las Vegas.

Jule Korneffel, born in Germany, graduated from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2008 as Meisterschüler under Tal R. Since 2015 Korneffel has been based in New York City where she received an M.F.A. from Hunter College in 2018. After, she quickly gained attention for emotional but reductive paintings: recent solo shows include Phase Patterns at ltd los angeles, Here comes trouble (2019) and Here comes the night (2022) at Spencer Brownstone in NYC, Mini Me Mary in Dialogue with Mary Heilmann (2019) and Snippets from the Met (2022) at Albada Jelgersma Gallery in Amsterdam, All that kale at Claas Reiss Gallery in London. Most recently her work was featured on Platform Art (backed by David Zwirner) and again selected as part of their Anniversary Capsule in July 2022.
Some selected recent press and writings are John Yau’s reviews "Color Is the Carrier of Emotion" and “The Pleasure of Slow Looking” in Hyperallergic (2019, 2022), "The Ongoing Present Moment of Making: Jule Korneffel" Interviewed by Hannah Bruckmüller in BOMB Magazine (2021), Terry R. Myers’ essay on occasion of her show at Claas Reiss (2020/2021), Brooklyn Rail / Artseen “Jule Korneffel: Here comes the night” by Andrew L. Shea (2022), and featured as Spotlight on Platform Art (backed by David Zwirner) as part of their first anniversary selection.

Justin Lieberman (born Gainesville, Florida) is a multimedia artist living and working in Munich, Germany. His work has been widely exhibited in the US and internationally.

Paulina Nolte (*1992) studied at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich. Her work threads together a range of mediums, often ending as a performative piece. Her last solo show Persimone at Kunstpavillon in Munich was based on a soundpiece of hers, initially streamed by PlusX on Radio Cashmere and then released on New York tape label Decontrol. In 2022 she exhibited with artist Maria VMier in the two person show In Praise of the Dancing Bodies at Galerie Françoise Heitsch, created Desert of Unrest a performative piece for Ruine München at Lenbachhaus in 2020 and was invited to perform for Intimacy Quarterly at Blitz Club in 2022.

Ben Pritchard was born and raised in Detroit, attended the New York Studio School and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, graduating in 2009. He has been working in Brooklyn and Detroit since.
"A lot of the ambition in the painting is towards a personal architecture or structure that can communicate deeply to anyone. In the studio I am involved in working and dreaming and responding and conceptualizing these structures and spaces. The image and the qualities specific to them arrive as a result of this process. If you are quiet enough and pay attention, the paintings emerge."

Alexandro Segade is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and co-founder of the performance collective My Barbarian, based in Southern California.

Johanna Strobel is an interdisciplinary artist, working across installation, sculpture, painting video and VR. She holds degrees in Information Science and Mathematics from the University of Regensburg, Germany and graduated in 2017 in Painting and Graphics from the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, Germany with honors as Meisterschülerin of Gregor Hildebrandt. In 2020 she received an MFA in New Genres from Hunter College New York.
Johanna’s work was shown in exhibitions in Germany, Italy, Taiwan and the US, including Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Museum Guunzenhauser, Chemnitz, Kunstverein Munich, Institute for Modern Art Nuremberg, Bethanien, Berlin, Nappe Arsenale, Venice, and NARS Foundation, Brooklyn. She received the studio funding scholarship and the Debutant Prize of the Bavarian State as well as several project grants among others by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Steiner Foundation, Stiftung Kunstfonds Neustart Kultur and the German Artist Alliance (BBK). In 2019 her work was shown in a solo exhibition at the Municipal Gallery Cordonhaus Cham.