SCOTT TEPLIN
“ALPHAVILLE”
May 1 - June 7, 2008

.......Adam Baumgold Gallery presents the exhibition “Alphaville” by Scott Teplin from May 1 through June 7, 2008. The exhibition features meticulously rendered pen and ink and watercolor drawings of fantastical rooms in which odd scale shifts, implausible situations, and strange juxtapositions of furnishings are the norm, as well as a series of artist’s drawn books.

.......The visitor to this exhibition becomes a present-day undercover detective Lemmy Caution, the protagonist of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 film, ALPHAVILLE, for which the show is titled after. Teplin has filtered the city of Alphaville through his own imagination and drawn a world devoid of people - only evidence of their domestic and work environments remain for exploration.

.......Godard filmed Alphaville when computers were in their infancy and not well understood by the public. As a result the film is haunted by Alpha 60 - a dictatorial talking computer that rules the city and forbids the concept of free individuals. Teplin's recreated Alphaville takes place in the present, where computers are not much more than an occasional laptop on a table and a few rooms set up for surveillance of other rooms in secret. Humor is always a prevalent thread in Teplin's work and he has used Lemmy Caution's name as an inspiration for weirdly overgrown indoor potted lemon trees that seem to devour the very wall that contains them - in the title piece of the show. Also featured in the exhibition are individually, vividly watercolored pen and ink drawings of each of the 26 letters of the alphabet, whose surreal rooms and environments follow the deductive structure of the letters. Another set of drawings focus on words and letters such as SLUMBER LORD and GRACIOUS HOST that become Teplin’s eccentric, isometrically spaced rooms.

.......The exhibition highlights Scott Teplin’s artist book(s) “Sinker Down and Out,” (2007) a Kafkaesque journey of a donut’s travels through the digestive path. "Sinker Down and Out" is a hand-drawn 'editioned' artist book. The first part is simply an artist book, similar to other tightly engineered volumes Teplin has created in the past, including maddeningly detailed pen drawings accompanied with strategically placed, scalpel-incised holes. Because artist books are notoriously difficult to exhibit, the second part of this project was born. It consists of one fully-bound book, identical to the original master copy, for each of the 21 page spreads in that master.

.......This is Scott Teplin’s third solo exhibition at the gallery. Teplin, 35, lives and works in New York City. His work has been included in exhibitions at P.S. 1 “Greater New York,” the Drawing Center “Winter Selections,” the Bronx Museum “Artists in the Marketplace,” and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, “Artists Books.” His work is included in the collections of the NY-MoMA, SF-MoMA, the Smithsonian Institution, the Walker Art Center, Harvard University, Yale University, the New York Public Library, the Progressive Insurance Co., as well as numerous other museum and public collections. The gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 - 5:30 PM. A preview of the exhibition can be seen at www.adambaumgoldgallery.com.

"A," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"B," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"C," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"D," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"G," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"H," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"I," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"J," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"K," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"L," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"M," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"N," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"O," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"P," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"Q," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"R," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"S," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"T," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"U," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"V," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"W," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"X," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"Y," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"

"Z," 2008
pen & ink and watercolor on paper
9" x 11"