Erna Hecey Gallery is very pleased to present the exhibition The Cult of Peronality, Portraits and Mass Culture. As the U.S presidential campaign kicks into high gear, the exhibition The Cult of Personality, Portraits and Mass Culture investigates the relationship between celebrity and political personas within the context of mass media. In focusing on portraiture, a genre which privileges the relative psychological interest of its subject, this exhibition attempts to locate the manner in (...)

"In the next months domestic political issues will be: a. As contentious as ever b. About the same with politicians still arguing c. Best ignored — as I do today" question from ConsumerConfidenceSurvey.com The consumer confidence index serves as a barometer of the nation’s collective (consumer) psyche, a monthly taking of the pulse that sheds light on the current mood and purchasing power of the American consumer. Responsible for roughly 75% of the economy, maintaining a regular (...)

“We never know where the consumer is going to be at any point in time, so we have to find a way to be everywhere. Ubiquity is the new exclusivity.” Linda Kaplan Thaler, Kaplan Thaler Group, New York ad agency Market Forces addresses the euphoric consumer culture of the last decade that manifested itself in a seeming overflow of goods and services and an explosion of luxury housing development that now dominates the urban landscape. The term is derived from laissez-faire economic (...)

“Someone said that Brecht wanted everybody to think alike. I want everybody to think alike. But Brecht wanted to do it through Communism, in a way. Russia is doing it under government. It’s happening here all by itself without being under a strict government; so if it’s working without trying, why can’t it work without being Communist? Everybody looks alike and acts alike, and we’re getting more and more that way.” Andy Warhol Unlike the crude forms of thought control and idolatry found in (...)

Engaged in regular pursuits of work and entertainment in the highly stimulating environment of today’s city, our response to the urban landscape is generally one of developing habits and routines. Often lost underneath the traces of our paths, which become well worn with repeated use, is an awareness of the physical spaces whose function is of little relevance to our immediate needs or whose function of which remains unknown. In the ever-expanding cityscape, which perpetually yields to the (...)

Offering artifacts of popular culture placed alongside the work of artists skeptical of America’s renewed devotion to its flag, the exhibition POP Patriotism addresses the implications of this recent trend. The explosion of patriotic fervor that first swept across the country last fall and winter, seemingly justified by the trauma caused by what occurred in September, has a less than wholesome side that appears to have little to do with a simple pride in one’s nationality. Focusing on the (...)

Nobodies Home is a group exhibition concerned with living space and alienation. The exhibition takes its cue from the current celebration of "lifestyle culture" so prevalent in today’s news and entertainment media, where an endless parade of magazine and television spots seems to reduce the image of life to one of Martha Stewart’s hypnotic discourses on domesticity. With television news offering tips on which supermarkets to avoid, and newspapers offering lengthy articles on how to find the (...)