Silas Shabelewska

Portrait of Helmut Newton, Monte-Carlo 1995, ed. #4 of 5, B&W Photography

1995-2006

This large photograph is UNIQUE. Only one was made in that large size. The photograph is a silver gelatin print mounted on disband and framed in a back wooden frame. The image in the living room shows the scale and size of the work (different image on the photo). THE MONTE-CARLO SERIES (1980), Early works from 1980, Executed in 2011. Shot in abandoned 19th century villas in and around Monaco and Monte-Carlo between 1980 and 1982, the photographs feature young women in the artist's intimate circle of friends playfully posing in eccentric vintage attire...

The project Pink Freud and the Pleasant Horizon stems from Andre von Morisse’s interest in the powerful influence of Freud, Darwin, and Christ on ideas about psychological, scientific and spiritual motors of human life and on popular culture since the 20th century. The exhibition at ART 3 focuses on the impact of Sigmund Freud theories on contemporary society. Von Morisse is particularly concerned with the moment when society ceased to treat shared responsibilities and values as fundaments of its organization, and became atomized by bringing needs of the individual to the fore. A pivotal figure in this transition was Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays (1891-1995). An American born in Vienna, he became the father of public relations. Bernays combined the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle with theories of crowd psychology to pioneer the PR industry's use of social sciences to design public persuasion campaigns. He developed techniques of manipulating public opinion while serving Woodrow Wilson during WWI and later worked for the biggest US companies. He was the one responsible for the 1920s smoking campaign targeted at women. Born in Norway in an artistic family and educated in the US, von Morisse turns his acute insight rooted in the European tradition of intellectual irony to examination of American visual and popular culture. His imagery combines cartoon aesthetics with surrealism and pop-art, employing icons of mass culture and history of art for a playful exploration of the consumerist era. ABOUT ANDRE VON MORISSE ANDRE VON MORISSE (Norwegian, b. 1966 in Oslo, Norway, lives and works in the US) Von Morisse is a conceptual painter, interested in exploring aspects of human psychology and how we interact with the world. With his work End of a New Dawn, reviewed by Jonathan Goodman in Art in America (Oct. 2005, p.180), he was the Winner of the Best New Contemporary Artists Award 2005 at the Kunstnerenes Hus Museum in Oslo, Norway. End of a New Dawn explores relationship between painting and photography “reversing" the traditional roles of the two mediums by using paintings as the starting point for an elaborate and intricate photographic process. Andre von Morisse was born in Oslo, Norway in 1966 and came to America in 1978. In 1990, he graduated cum laude from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA and moved to New York in 1991. His works were featured in many group shows in galleries and museums in the US: Kunstnerenes Hus Oslo, Norway; The Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC; Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL; Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI; Museum of Southwest Texas, Midland, TX ; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX. He had solo exhibitions with Silas Von Morisse Gallery (2016 & 2018), McKenzie Fine Art (2005 & 2003), and James Graham and Sons (2000, 1997) in New York, NY. His work was reviewed in: Artsy (2018), Artcritical (2018), Two Coats of Paint (2018), Artnet news (2017), The Vienna Psychoanalyst (2016), Photograph (2016), New York Times T Magazine (2014), ELLE Girl Japan (2014), Blouin Art Info (2014), Luxe Immo (2013), Art News (2007), The Morning News...