8th Floor
8th Floor was the first solo exhibition of visual art by Mayo Thompson. It took place from October 8 – November 7, 2015 at Greene Naftali gallery in New York City.[1]
Greene Naftali is pleased to present a solo exhibition of never before seen work by Mayo Thompson, the first exhibition exclusively devoted to his visual art. Since cofounding the formative avant-garde, psychedelic rock collaborative Red Krayola in 1966, Thompson has operated from a position of resistance and critical negativity, two themes outlined in the manifesto published on the occasion of the band’s participation in the 2012 Whitney Biennial. Overturning conventions of authorship and genre in favor of collaborative working models, Thompson has previously collaborated with conceptual art collective Art & Language and Albert Oehlen, among others. This exhibition will include a series of black and white line drawings from the early 1970s, new works on paper, and a sculpture that plays on Duck Rabbit, the classic visual illusion that illustrates two different ways of seeing.
Works
| Year | Title | Medium | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Regular Everything II | 174 Ink on paper drawings | Illustrations for unreleased book Regular Everything II |
| 1972 | Victims | Ink on paper | Appeared in Texas Observer, October 20, 1972 |
| 1972 | Constellation | Ink on paper | |
| 1972 | Ink on paper | ||
| 1972 | Ink on paper | ||
| 1972 | Ink on paper | ||
| 1972 | Death and the Lady | Ink on paper | Appeared in Texas Observer, May 12, 1972 |
| 1972 | Ink on paper | ||
| 1972 | Nice | Ink on paper | |
| 1972 | Ink on paper | ||
| 1972 | Man | Ink on paper | Appeared in Texas Observer, April 13, 1973 |
| 1972 | Woman | Ink on paper | Appeared in Texas Observer, April 13, 1973 |
| 2015 | Duck-Rabbit | Bronze | |
| 2015 | Duck-Rabbit | Bronze | |
| 2015 | Duck-Rabbit | Bronze | |
| 2015 | Duck-Rabbit | Bronze | |
| 2015 | Duck-Rabbit | Bronze | |
| 2015 | Tuscan landscape (after the Pollaiuolos) | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Interior | Colored pencil and charcoal on paper | |
| 2015 | Huntsman and dog (ghosts) | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Double Orange | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Untitled | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Two Hibiscuses | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Colored pencil on paper | |
| 2015 | Hibiscus | Colored pencil on paper |
Interpretations
Exhibition catalog
- Released in 2018[3]
Reviews
On a scale of 1 to 10… ten being the worst
May 2016
Kyle D. Thorne
[...] At Mayo Thompson’s show, 8th Floor, in 2015 at Greene Naftali in New York, I was struck by how much the individual works spoke to each other through the order in which you experienced them. When entering the show, the first few things encountered by the viewer were tables full of pen and ink drawings of everyday events. The next few pieces were on the back wall and they became progressively darker in subject matter. What came next were a series of bronze castings, and a large paper work that acted as a respite to the dark subject matter. These were followed by a group of drawings that then brought the exhibition to a close. Adapting this approach to my own studio practice, I began to consider not only the relationships within each piece, but also how decisions about one piece could influence or change the viewer's understanding of the other pieces. [...]