Artist: Anthony Iacono
Exhibition title: After Hours
Venue: Marinaro, New York, US
Date: November 16, 2018 – January 13, 2019
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Marinaro, New York
Marinaro Gallery is pleased to present After Hours, Anthony Iacono’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Iacono makes clean, graphic collages from hand-cut painted shapes that are assembled to articulate figures and objects. The show also includes a new series of collaged watercolors on the lower level. In both series of work, he elicits a humorous eroticism out of the hard-edged forms of figures, housewares, and food.
The 2008 documentary “Married to the Eiffel Tower” follows Erika Eiffel (maiden name Labrie) and her intimate relationship to the landmark. With a semi-sensationalist tone, the documentary introduces the concept of objectophilia, a sexual orientation directed at inanimate objects. In a pivotal scene, Eiffel caresses and mounts the cold steel frame of her beloved.
Iacono’s isolated figures also perform suggestive and unnerving gestures with objects. Against dark, cool backgrounds, Iacono crops clothed and semi-nude figures into torsos, backsides, busts, and feet. He perverts the objects’ function from their original PG-rated utilitarianism to tools for bodily pain and pleasure. Gerbera daisies sprout from an orifice, a clothespin pinches a nipple, and a breast- like lemon is juiced on a dress shoe. The specific combinations of body parts and objects evoke a fetishist’s search for gratification in otherwise innocent objects. Through his use of high-contrast gradients to define forms, Iacono imagines a hard light illuminating these nighttime activities.
-Milano Chow
Anthony Iacono was born in 1987 in Nyack, New York. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013 and was a resident artist at LMCC Workspace in 2018. Iacono is represented by P.P.O.W.
Gallery where he had solo exhibitions in 2015 and 2018. He has been included in group shows at Jack Hanley Gallery, 106 Green, and Rockaway Topless. His work has been featured in New York Magazine, The Village Voice, and New American Paintings. In 2017 he was a recipient of the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship Award.
Anthony Iacono, After Hours, 2018, exhibition view, Marinaro, New York
Anthony Iacono, After Hours, 2018, exhibition view, Marinaro, New York
Anthony Iacono, After Hours, 2018, exhibition view, Marinaro, New York
Anthony Iacono, After Hours, 2018, exhibition view, Marinaro, New York
Anthony Iacono, After Hours, 2018, exhibition view, Marinaro, New York
Anthony Iacono, Apple, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Clothespin, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Boot, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Pit, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, After Hours, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Centerpiece, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Bird of Paradise, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Shoe Tie, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Belt, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Umbrella, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Study for Cap, 2018, Acrylic on cut and collaged paper, 10 x 7.5 inches, 25.4 x 19.1 cm, Framed: 12 x 9.5 inches
Anthony Iacono, Daybreak, 2018, watercolor on collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Shirt, 2018, watercolor on collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Smoke, 2018, watercolor on collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Corduroy, 2018, watercolor on collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Juice, 2018, watercolor on collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Pit, 2018, watercolor on collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Sword Swallower, 2018, watercolor on collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
Anthony Iacono, Cap, 2018, watercolor on collaged paper, 24 x 18 inches, 61 x 45.7 cm, Framed: 28 x 22 inches
