LAUREL FARRIN / WAYNE KOESTENBAUM
LEG UP

SEPTEMBER 8 - OCTOBER 20, 2023
OPENING SOON

EVENTS

OPENING RECEPTION
Friday, Sept 8, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm 
Wege Gallery 

LAUREL FARRIN & WAYNE KOESTENBAUM | CONVERSATION
Saturday, Sept 16, 10:00 am CT - 11:00 am CT
ONLINE / ZOOM
In conjunction with the Wege Gallery exhibition LEG UP, Laurel Farrin and Wayne Koestenbaum engage in conversation about their work and other playfully serious topics.
VIEW RECORDING

THE GROUP TICKLING EXPERIMENT | FILM SCREENING AND CONVERSATION WITH WAYNE KOESTENBAUM
Friday, Oct 13, 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Wege Center for the Arts | Ross Theater

In conjunction with the Wege Gallery exhibition LEG UP, artist/writer Wayne Koestenbaum will host a screening of his recent short films.

Wayne Koestenbaum, “Animate Avian Emblems at Midnight,” 2022. acrylic and acrylic marker on paper, 9” x 12”
Laurel Farrin, “Bluered Kiss,” 2023. acrylic on wood
Wayne Koestenbaum, “Blue Precipice-Gazing,” 2022. acrylic, watercolor, and acrylic marker on paper, 9” x 12”
Laurel Farrin, “Wheel of Fortune,” 2023. acrylic on wood

LEG UP brings together the work of artist Laurel Farrin and artist/writer Wayne Koestenbaum. Sharing a sense of figurative humor and a friskiness with material, their work in the exhibition encompasses paintings on wooden and cardboard shapes, film strips, and tablecloths. LEG UP also includes videos by the artists: Koestenbaum’s are cameraless hand-painted 16mm films, and Farrin’s improvisational videos capture found and assembled materials as they come to life. 

Many formal and quiet connections take place between the curly-haired artists’ works. Their deep affinity with the silent comedian Harpo Marx is a running theme throughout the exhibition. In LEG UP, Farrin and Koestenbaum nod to Harpo’s comedic leg routine, in which he hands over his leg to a perplexed Chico Marx (and others). In the exhibition, a “leg up” model poses in Koestenbaum’s portraits, while in Farrin’s work, thick painted lines take abrupt L-shaped turns like bent knees. Koestenbaum’s 2012 book The Anatomy of Harpo Marx has served as a manual for LEG UP, which celebrates gestures of colorful, free-form play, and which affirms the pleasures that arise from tactile, witty orneriness.