By JRS
Last week marked Alexander Charriol’s first solo show in New York. “Human Flow” is a collecting of new paintings done by the LA-based artist as he reinvented himself, sequestered in the Hollywood Hills, and fighting for a look of fresh perspective. Fresh out of rehab and looking to make some new kick-ass art, Charriol packed a suitcase and split for LA, determined to come to New York and make a big splash.
Charriol says of his show, “It all started when I hit rock bottom, like two years ago. The city got to me. Not a “drug” problem, more of a “going-out” problem. It’s hard to stop once you start, when the wheel is turning. I decided I needed a fresh start, and my sister said I should go to rehab, so I did. After that, I went to LA. I didn’t know anyone, and I isolated myself in the Hills. I just dealt with my problems and changed my whole lifestyle. I didn’t bring any paintings from New York, so it was a fresh start. The first year or so, I spent experimenting. I had a couple of paintings from the past that I used to change direction. The show is called “Human Flow,” and it’s all about direction. It all started with crowds. I’m fascinated with them and their power. It’s about human interaction and joining force an believing. We all join forces. You can’t do it alone. I was also isolated in LA and I didn’t know anyone, so I started painting crowds.”
Charriol is a member of what I like to think of as a new school of painters: young and hungry Generation-Y artists who know what they want out of an exhibit, but don’t know who to speak to about how to get there, so they do it themselves. Entrepreneurs of the art world. Charriol procured his sprawling gallery space for the duration of his show through a relentless effort and multiple dealings with the listing broker. “I called her everyday and she finally met me at the space,” he tells me, sitting on the Victorian-esque furniture that offers the viewer a momentary lapse from the cultural bombardment. It’s a Monday afternoon, and we’re a mere three days from his opening. He gesticulates wildly around the space, a cigarette always in hand, directing his crew with last-minute curatorial direction. “I gave the broker a painting to get her on my side, and I got the space.”
It would be easy to sit back and observe his paintings, noting the influences stretched across the canvas—early Schnabel, late Basquiat—but it’s far more interesting to view these works with the mindset that the artist in question is at peace with who he is, and doesn’t care if you like it or not, though he does still want to sell art. “I’m laying it all out there, this is everything I have. I’ve put myself completely into this show. This is me.” Such blatant honesty is not usual for someone marking their new start in the art world; throughout the course of our time together I kept waiting for his boilerplate press release to be rattled off to me, intrinsic details of his show that had been fawned over for weeks prior. But it never came. In true grandiose fashion, Charriol sat and explained his work to me in what seemed like one breath. Wonderfully garrulous and passionate about his work, it made me want to root for the underdog. In “Human Flow,” Charriol represents the family name well, in true fashion that would make the family patriarch pleased that the name is still synonymous with excellence.
A particularly thoughtful business move on the artist’s behalf is teaming up with Kipton Cronkite, founder and president of KiptonArt, the “private establishment that culls fledgling artists and introduces them to the foremost administrators of the New York art world.” KiptonArt is extremely successful with guiding artists through their early show with incredible precision and grace.
The show will run through May 15.
The raw space as it was before Alexander Charriol and his crew turned it into...
The gallery as it stands now
