Adam Baumgold Gallery presents an exhibition of recent paintings by Mark Kostabi from May 4 - June 10, 2006. These new paintings are distinguished by several complex multi-figured compositions, many of which are rigorously painted in black and white while others decisively employ a lush palette of contrasting warm and cool colors. Kostabi continues his investigation of themes such as alienation, loneliness, information overload, rampant technology, materialism, corporate aggression, artistic ambition, negotiation tricks, hypocrisy, meaningless worship, the mechanical production of art, the pressure to produce for the sake of production and the compartmentalization of the human soul.

Included in the exhibition is "La fiera della vanita," 2005 - a dark absurdist 21st century update of Velasquez' "Las Meninas," considered in some art historical quarters the greatest painting ever created. In Kostabi's grisaille version, dark atmospherically toned skyscrapers hover above a strange room of cute but sinister faceless beings, twittering and twirling like tops in a puzzling dance of electronic alienation. In the background a bike messenger with a laptop replaces the iconic silhouette in the doorway of the famous prequel. In the foreground a figure gestures to the viewer with finger to lips as if asking us to keep a secret that we don't know yet.

In "Chain of Desire," 2005, Kostabi bluntly critiques his own mythology by showing an artist with laptop sending instructions to a painting assistant who is chained to a giant penny. The laptop artist in "control" is seated above an accumulation of more valuable currency, but both figures are ultimately locked into the same tiny black and white world, making the miniature scale of this painting essential to its meaning.

In "Every Day Feels Like Halloween," 2005, a solitary artist in his sky-lit studio gazes at a blank canvas and notices that in his own shadow cast upon the canvas he wears a pointed hat which is not visible in the "real" world. Whether the pointed hat symbolizes a witch, a dunce, a party, Pinocchio's lies or an antennae for wisdom is left for the viewer to decide. But the message that art can make visible the invisible is crystal clear.

The titles for Kostabi’s paintings were born on Kostabi’s television game show, "Name That Painting," where noted art critics compete to title his paintings for cash awards, in an open, clever, and amusing twist on the relationship between artist and critic.

Mark Kostabi has had 160 solo exhibitions worldwide and 29 in New York. This is his second one person show at the Adam Baumgold Gallery. Kostabi's work is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., the National Gallery of Art in Rome and many others.

The gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 - 5:30 P.M. For additional information, please contact Adam Baumgold at (212)861-7338. A preview of the exhibition can be viewed at www.adambaumgoldgallery.com.

Consider The Alternative, 2005
Oil on canvas
51 1/4" x 39 3/8"

The Father of Our Country Brings Ketchup to the Prado, 2005
Oil on canvas
51 1/4"x 43 1/4"

The Fool Table, 2004
Oil on canvas
58 3/4"x 39"

The Plot to Sell Out the Q-Ball, 2004
Oil on canvas
58 3/4"x 39"

Everything You Learn You Burn,2005
Oil on canvas
47 1/4" x 23 1/2"

There's No Place Like Home, 2005
Oil on canvas
59 1/8"x 30 1/2"

Many Are Called But Few Are Chosen, 2005
Oil on canvas
51 1/8"x 39 1/2"

Deus Ex Machina, 2005
Oil on canvas
51 1/4"x 43 1/4"

Tra la terza e la quarta, 2005
Oil on canvas
50 3/4"x 39"

At Least I Hum Like Glenn Gould, 2005
Oil on canvas
23 5/8"x15 3/4"

Irony, 2005
Oil on canvas
39" x 27 1/2"

The Five Step Program, 2005
Oil on canvas
19 3/4" x 19 3/4"

Money Just Keeps Rolling In, 2005
Oil on canvas
23 1/2" x 15 3/4"

Every Day Feels Like Halloween, 2005
Oil on canvas
39 1/2" x 23 1/2"

Reflections on Grace, 2005
Oil on canvas
11 3/4"x 9 3/4"

Chain of Desire, 2005
Oil on canvas
9 3/4" x 11 3/4"

The Diner at 4am, 2005
Oil on canvas
9 3/4" x 11 3/4"