Maximilian Toth
One of us,
One of us
February 22 – March 15, 2014
Opening reception: Saturday, February 22, 6-8PM
Fredericks & Freiser is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Maximilian Toth. This exhibition will include large-scale paintings, drawings, and wall drawings. In his fourth show at the gallery, Toth offers a revamped portrayal of suburban adolescence as he engages art historical traditions of staging the ordinary as heroic, mighty and powerful.
Toth draws inspiration from the quotidian scenes of 17th and 18th century genre paintings as he elevates the contemporary content of his works from the mundane to the monumental. His simultaneously sketchy and painterly figures suggest a process: a fast rendering of a moment by which the raw physicality of a line and the subtle brilliance of the colors suggest an overarching narrative, of which we are only glimpsing a single scene.
Culling stylistic and compositional references from the likes of Poussin and Gericault, Toth captures quotidian activities in an epic light. He also subverts this influence through his graphic linearity and his portrayal of a suburban folklore conflated to the grandiose scale of The Raft of the Medusa. He further explores and extends his Dazed and Confused-meets-The Odyssey-type narrative that connects all of his pieces. That is, a tale of tribal attachment, adolescent naiveté, and the ritual celebration of imminent adulthood.
About the Artist
Maximilian Toth (b. 1978) received his MFA from Yale in 2006. Toth has had solo exhibitions in New York, Minneapolis and Australia as well as numerous group shows including the Wadsworth Athenaeum, CT; Dallas Contemporary, TX; and Prospect New Orleans, LA.
Fredericks & Freiser is located at 536 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011. We are open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 6pm. For more information, please contact us by phone (212) 633 6555 or email: info@fredericksfreisergallery.com, and visit us online at www.fredericksfreisergallery.com