Tyson Reeder
SS24, Jun 6 – Jul 26, 2024

CANADA is pleased to present SS24, a solo exhibition by Tyson Reeder in our 61 Lispenard street space. Taking his cue from high fashion, Reeder presents a suite of paintings that catalog visionary looks for Spring/Summer 2024. Painted in thin layers of acrylic, the palette ranges from Day-Glo bright to dramatically dark. The images feel like punchy advertising posters, ready to be plastered on walls all over town. A grizzled skateboarding hippy, a beachcomber with a metal detector, and a woman with flowing chartreuse hair are just some of the characters in Reeder’s latest batch of dreamy paintings.

Reeder’s imaginary outfits revel in the absurdity of haute couture streetwear. He takes delight in little things like geometric leg tattoos, overstuffed puffer coats that look like sleeping bags, and jumpsuits with lobster patterns. The figures are too absorbed in their inscrutable activities and too confident in their coolness to wonder how they are perceived. Devoid of facial features, Reeder’s subjects are seen but do not see. They exist in solitude—strange scenes that unfold at odd hours of the day, outside the flow of reality. Reeder gets a lot of mileage out of escalators, the transference of choice for atriums, multiplexes and bus terminals. While the paintings allude to people moving through urban spaces, they are composed of moments of stillness.

Additionally, Reeder has given himself the odd task imagining what Alberto Giacometti’s angsty figures might wear. A suitably extruded figure trudges through a gale of unknowable psychic torment while wearing a polka dot suit with boot cut trousers. Reeder admires Sonia Delaunay’s bold use of patterning and color, which he employs to jazz up the sides of buildings or activate an avant-garde romper, suitable attire for a contestant on a futuristic game show or a laser tag player. Alex Katz is also a touchstone, less for his painting and more for his decades-long catalog of different fashion trends and hairstyles.

The subjects in SS24 seem like they want to have fun but don’t quite know how. Reeder finds new angles to explore desolate streets, empty boardwalks and grand boulevards, using fantastical settings to stage his strange and beautiful fashions. We are in good hands with Tyson Reeder, as he boldly defines the contours of what promises to be this season’s most important inflection point.

Tyson Reeder (b. 1974, Fairfax, VA) has had solo exhibitions at CANADA, New York; Daniel Reich Gallery, New York; Office Baroque, Brussels; and Green Gallery, Milwaukee . His work has also appeared in numerous group exhibitions at venues such as Tif Sigfrids, Athens, GA; BB&M Gallery, Seoul; Pace Gallery, New York; Acquavella, Palm Beach; Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York; Venus over Manhattan, Los Angeles; Peter Freeman Gallery, New York; Jack Hanley, San Francisco, among others. Reeder has co-organized many group exhibitions and projects, including Drunk vs. Stoned at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York; The Early Show at White Columns, New York; The Dark Fair at Swiss Institute, New York, and the Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany; and the 24-Hour Super Jam at CANADA, New York. Reeder performed at the Serpentine Pavilion, Serpentine Gallery, London, as part of the fashion collective George De George with Brian Belott, Jamian Juliano-Villani, and Billy Grant. Reeder’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum and Flash Art, among other publications. His paintings are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) and the Rubell Family Collection, Miami. Reeder lives and works in New York, NY.

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