Jason Polan: Points of Interest

Jason Polan draws from life and with deft lines and a characteristically straightforward manner quickly captures a subject’s defining features. He is continually making drawings as part of ongoing projects that catalog the world and record an artistic engagement with his environment. The work is one part conceptualism, work made to document a transitory moment of artistic performance, and one part folk tradition—a useful craft employed to inventory items of value or interest. This melding of a rigorously intellectual conceptual art tradition with the artisanship of a commercial draftsman or street-corner caricaturist is what makes Polan’s work unique—his drawings have immediacy and appeal, like pop art re-invented. Polan’s drawing projects include Every Work of Art in the Museum of Modern Art, 132 Birds at The American Museum of Natural History,Favorite Things About New York (for Esopus Magazine, in which he responded to 100 reader-submitted favorites by heading out into the city and making drawings www.esopusmag.com) and his ongoing, impossible-to-complete, project “Every Person in New York” which can be seen at http://everypersoninnewyork.blogspot.com/

Polan’s exhibition at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller records an exploration he has made of the East Hampton area over the past few months and culminates with a week-long drawing project in the gallery during which he will produce drawings related to books, illustrations, and other items in the shop as well as to nearby “Points of Interest” from the East Hampton environs. Polan’s new book, entitled Points of Interest (East Hampton, NY), has been published by Glenn Horowitz Bookseller and will be released in conjunction with the show. There is also limited edition version of the book consisting of a signed and numbered copy accompanied by a “Point of Interest” signpost hand-painted by Polan as if to suggest that designating new things as points of interest can be taken up by viewers as an ongoing project of their own. The book and limited edition are available through Glenn Horowitz Bookseller and at www.abebooks.com.

For more information go to www.jasonpolan.com, or contact Glenn Horowitz Bookseller at 631-324-5511, or by email at info@GHbookseller.com.

To read a review of the Jason Polan, Points of Interest from the East Hampton Star, November 28, 2008, please click here for a PDF.

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