EXHIBITION

In Defense of Poesy

At one time the person born to be an Artist was the maudit, accursed. Making a living was hardly guaranteed. Somewhere along the way, a cult of art celebrity was born and suddenly, families encouraged their children to embrace the arts. In this new gold rush climate, it is increasingly rare to find talent devoted to original expression, making art for the sheer joy of creation. The Trops presents ā€˜In Defense of Poesy’ as a celebration of the human spirit blossoming in the ateliers of Paris.

25 rue Notre Dame de Nazareth

Paris, France 75003

14-21 AVRIL


Curated by:

Nemo Librizzi and Johnny Grizot


Featuring:

Esmael Bahrani, Roxane Depardieu , Gaadjika , Jay One, Genc Jakupi, Pharaoh Kakudji,

Krystofer Kimmel, Curtis Kulig, Mai Lucas, Apadola Nelson, Psyckoze, Hakim Sahiri, Charlotte Vitaioli


APRIL 14 – APRIL 21

Conscious Darkness: Richard Hambleton (Part 1)

By: Nemo Librizzi

He didn’t sign his name. He left a trail of inspired silhouettes in his footsteps for a signature and indeed we called him ā€œShadow Manā€

EXHIBITION

Closing Reception feat. Poetry Reading & Screening of STREET by Jamie Nares

SOCIAL REGISTER

Featuring:

Jamie Nares, Lee Quinones, John Newsom, Jim Jarmusch, Stefan Bondell,

Ryan McGinley, Lucien Smith and Raymond Pettibon 

Curated by Nemo Librizzi

Social Register is a survey of artists well-known on the downtown scene. Each one generally confined to the platform of their respective gallery, a pop up show has the unique opportunity to exhibit these leaders side by side, creating a powerful representation of ā€œwhat’s happening nowā€ on the New York scene. Curated by Nemo Librizzi for cutting edge cultural movement, The Trops, long-standing friendships with seminal talents grant rare access into the artist’s studio.

OCTOBER 2022

PERFORMANCE

N’AP BOULE

Location: Manero’s on Mulberry

Featured Performance: Sheila Anozier & Rufus Cappadocia

ā€œSak Paseā€ is a common Haitian Creole phrase that means ā€œWhat’s happening?” It is often used to greet friends, similar to how you would say ā€œwhat’s upā€ in English. The expected response is ā€œN’ap boule.ā€ N’ap boule is a contraction of ā€œnou ap bouleā€ from “Nous aprĆØs brĆ»ler,” literally meaning ā€œwe are burning” and representing the response ā€œwe’re good” or “we’re hanging out.ā€

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 3

EXHIBITION

Burnt Offering

ARMANDO NIN

SATURDAY JANUARY 14

As digital devices make us more connected, we somehow find ourselves isolated, our behaviors manipulated by an algorithm. How did we get here? Reflecting on our roots, there is a rediscovery of fire, the heat and light that enabled creative work to blossom. Gathering around the flames, we evolved culture, community, charcoal. Burnt Offering is a special one day exhibition presenting artworks by Armando Nin and performance by Kanami Kusajima, expressing contemporary art as an alchemy of fire and soot into fuel for the human spirit.

HOLIDAY EVENT

YALDA

DEC 21, 2022 (WINTER SOLSTICE)

Featured Performance:

Mehrnam Rastegari & Martin Shamoonpour

Originating in the pre-Zoroastrian tradition, Yalda, also referred to as Chelleh, celebrates the sunrise after the longest night of the year. Ancient Persians believed that evil forces were strongest on the longest and darkest night of the year. Every year, Iranian people celebrate Yalda night on the winter solstice by gathering together for eating, drinking and reading poetry through the night. In line with this tradition, The Trops hosted a Yalda evening of visual arts, performance arts, and poetry in the Heart of NYC.

EXHIBITION MAP

Ben Ruhe

South Beach Constallation, Miami Beach, FL

Heavens to Murgatroyd is a mapped exhibition of paintings by artist Benjamin Ruhe, presenting artwork across an assortment of real world gathering places. 

Integrating soulful whimsicality into his mixed media artworks, Ben Ruhe translates interdimensional beings and textures into his distinct figurative language.

EXHIBITION

RAMBO

Paintings by Lance de los Reyes

Miami Beach, FL

Lance De Los Reyes (1977-2021) studied painting, performance, sculpture and video at the San Francisco Art Institute, later living and working in NYC.


His abstract works combine figurative and abstract forms, with influences of street art, colors, shapes, and poetry that communicate a mythological mindset in cryptic composition.

Photos of the Mind: An Interview with Jamie Nares (Part 1)

Working at the edge of painting, photography, music and film over the course of five decades, Jamie Nares has profoundly explored the relationships between memory, time, movement and thought. I spoke with Jamie about her childhood, her move to New York City in the 1970s, her multidisciplinary practice, and her generous vision of art and life.

EXHIBITION

MONOMANIA

Grear Patterson & Nick Farhi

curated by Nemo Librizzi

For everything Art has ever been, it’s amazing to see how every season, through the hand of each young visionary, it can be made new again. Particularly when the artist, with the weight of History crashing down, decides to limit themselves to the simplicity of a reserved color pallet or in the exploration of otherwise banal subject matter. With all the tricky techniques made available by successive waves of modernism and post-modernism, boldness relies on the singularity of expressing one’s own unique vision. But to then go at it as if one’s life depended on it, and still come across cool is the story of Nick Farhi and Grear Patterson, both of whom have only just embarked on promising careers. Painting while thinking and feeling. And in a time when social media tempts even the poet to flash cash, and show off clothes, shoes, or any eye-catching flummery, there is pure delight in hanging their paintings in bars, bodegas and old school neighborhood establishments in the first-ever dispersed ā€œconstellationā€ exhibit. As much passion as they put into their artworks, it was also thrilling to install, and watch it come to life on walls not accustomed to hosting high concept visuals.


Take a stroll through the streets with The Trops in Fort Greene, and share the cultural experience with a new kind of art scene.


July 2022


An Interview with Barron Claiborne (Part 1)
“I want to do my own thing. I don’t really care about doing other people’s thing.”

EXHIBITION:

ON MESSAGE OFF GRID

On Message Off Grid is an installation of Jona Cerwinske in New York City, presenting works created in situ, showcasing the gallery format as the ultimate studio visit as the artist creates additional works across the streetscapes of NYC. 

March 2022

COCO 144
One of the first ā€˜Writers’ of the late 1960s, COCO 144 embossed New York City subway cars, underground tunnels, and concrete walls with his spray-painted pen name—inspired by a popular Puerto Rican pet name and the street that he grew up on in Manhattan, 144th street. His art lives on, both literally and figuratively, throughout the hollows of New York City.

EXHIBITION:

MY NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER

Curated by Mike Malbon & Nemo Librizzi 

Featuring: Phase 2, Jon One, Futura, Rambo, Coco144, Tracy168 

Projection Photography by David Schmidlapp

In the wake of the Civil Rights movement, a generation of children took to the streets, and signed their names to the trains and walls of a crumbling New York City infrastructure. If unique autographs- like Coco 144- were a significant form of self-expression in their unadorned form, this group practice would undergo in time a transformation, what Phase 2 described as an ā€œevolution of styleā€ towards a convoluted new application of the alphabet Tracy 168 called ā€œwild styleā€. This innovative language dismissed as ā€œgraffitiā€ by the media was illegible to the outsider, and a creative call-to-arms for the initiate, a battle of letters and words Rammellzee dubbed ā€œIconoclast Panzerismā€. Finally, writers would eschew the signature altogether, and pure abstractions would serve as the artist’s calling card, beginning with Futura’s seminal non-representational ā€œbreak trainā€. The subway era was brought to a dramatic finale with the spontaneous compositions of Jon One, who would go on painting in the same vein to artworld acclaim overseas. And in the short, rich career of Lance De Los Reyes, this story is recapitulated from his first humble Rambo tags, to an abstract body of paintings famed for sophisticated color instinct and poetic impact. In this historical context, The Trops presents My Name is Writ in Water, a survey of abstractions curated by Mike Malbon and Nemo Librizzi.

Dec 2021 – Jan 2022