Michael Rosenfeld Gallery is pleased to announce the group exhibition Body Beware: 18 American Artists on view from May 18 through July 27, 2007. Featured artists include Robert Arneson, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Federico Castellon, Beauford Delaney, Jared French, Jess, Lester Johnson, Henry Koerner, Walt Kuhn, Seymour Lipton, Alice Neel, Alfonso Ossorio, Dorothea Tanning, Pavel Tchelitchew, Bob Thompson, George Tooker, and Charles White.
Body Beware: 18 American Artists features one work by each of the eighteen artists. Works were selected for their disquieting representation of the human form in totality or in parts. Contorted, distorted, and fantastic bodies appear alone or with others in surreal environments and confrontational situations; nudes lay exposed while others appear in costume; faces haunt entire canvases and bodies exist compressed in tight spaces. Exhibition highlights include: a rare 1943 Jared French egg tempera on board of four ghostly figures entwined; a newly discovered Henry Koerner masterpiece, The Arcades (1950), depicting the bizarre on display at Coney Island's boardwalk; a haunting 1950 black ink drawing of two children by Charles White; and Robert Arneson’s Black and White Mask (1983), an unforgiving self-portrait in glazed ceramic.