Good Naked (New York NY) is pleased to present:

THE HUNGER ARTIST / A 4-person exhibition of works by

Joshua Aster

Kristin Calabrese

Michael Haight

Aaron Johnson

PERFORMANCES

SATURDAY, MARCH 23RD / 7 P

SUNDAY, MARCH 24TH / 7 P

featuring Larry Cedar’s one-man staging of Franz Kafka’s The Hunger Artist (adapted by Howard Colyer).

2413 Hyperion Avenue / Los Angeles CA 90027

Open by appointment March 5 - 24, 2024

Good Naked (New York NY) is pleased to present THE HUNGER ARTIST, a four-person exhibition open March 5 - 24, 2024 with Larry Cedar performing a one-man adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Hunger Artist at 7pm on March 23rd and 24th. The paintings in this exhibition were selected in response to Howard Colyer’s stage adaptation of this text. According to Colyer, Kafka’s story was published posthumously and parallels eerily his life and dogma. For Kafka, Colyer states, “being a lean writer and lean man were inescapably connected in his mind.” An ascetic in sincerity and levity, Kafka writes The Hunger Artist, a first person account of a performer thrilled by a state of deprivation and charmed by the opportunity to reveal his strategies and pursuit. In a foil to this sort of retreat, the artists in this exhibition describe excess with abandon. Joshua Aster’s radiant paintings are filtered through a prismatic lens, tessellating outward to reveal and obscure their source as we squint and focus our vision on his larger frames. Kristin Calabrese and Aaron Johnson’s paintings illustrate gluttonous imagery more directly and suggest reference to a surrounding carnival that whirs around Kafka’s main character as he grasps for attention and awe from his audience. The eyes in Michael Haight’s portraits twist and turn as they present images of confrontation and radiate fields of movement and frenetic energy.

During performances at the end of the exhibition’s run, these paintings will set the stage for The Hunger Artist, played by Larry Cedar, to tell his tale, exposing his relationship to this craft and encouraging us to consider the stakes of martyring for one’s art.

THE HUNGER ARTIST will be on view March 5 - 24, 2024.