John Connelly Presents is pleased to announce the opening of An Erotics, a solo exhibition in the Tunnel Room of works by Molly Zuckerman-Hartung. Consisting of a selection of abstract paintings on canvas, this exhibition impresses on the viewer a deep romanticism for painting. There are strikingly visible appropriations of historical hallmarks in Zuckerman's stylistic technique. An essential element of her body of work thus far is a calculated jest with the idea of the importance of an artist's visible style. In fact Zuckerman-Hartung pursues categorically different, sometimes opposed, paths of painting at the same time. Without any true context outside of themselves, her paintings shoulder the weight of art history, especially abstraction.

RK: Many contemporary painters rely on a singular and immediately identifiable style. You avoid this. Why?

MZ: Style is the way you hold your cigarette or pronounce your r's. Style emerges out of a myriad of decisions rather like an odor emanating from a pile of clothing.

I read Derrida before I read Plato, so even notions of linearity and one-way-ness in history are somewhat malleable to me. A way to contextualize myself and my actions. I was searching for language. Painting offers a long, rich tradition of meaningful language. As Nietzsche has written, the danger is if we use that history to the detriment of life. To me, life comes first.

Molly Zuckerman-Hartung (b. 1975) received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007. She recently had a solo show at Rowley Kennerk in Chicago. This will be her first solo show in New York City.