Art dealer Joel Mesler, of New York’s Feuer/Mesler, will take center stage as an artist in “The Estate of Joel Mesler: Fish People,” an exhibition organized by Cultural Counsel and Sotheby’s S|2 at the ever-popular Surf Lodge in Montauk, New York.
The show will consist of ten of Mesler’s recent works, paintings on raw linen that he has personally selected for inclusion. Each piece, he said in a statement, “responds to the cultural history of the sea, New York City’s annual migration to Long Island resort towns, and vacation-induced identity shifts.”
Mesler was a painter long before he was a dealer, and his work often has a humorous element to it. This is not his first public outing as an artist: He showed at the NADA New York art fair in 2016, again with Cultural Counsel. (artnet News critic Brian Boucher counted Mesler’s work among the fair’s highlights.)
“The reason I call it the estate is because I have made works in brief periods of time throughout my life, but I have always stopped because I fell back on art dealing,” Mesler explained of the show’s title in a phone conversation with artnet News.
It would seem his days moonlighting as a part-time artist may be in the past: In October, he is scheduled to show at Galerie Torri in Paris, coinciding with FIAC, while in December, San Francisco’s Capital Gallery is organizing an exhibition of his work timed to Art Basel in Miami Beach.
See more images of the exhibition below.
Joel Mesler, Untitled (I’m moonlighting), 2016. Courtesy of the Estate of Joel Mesler.
Joel Mesler, Untitled (L.A. – N.Y.), 2016. Courtesy of the Estate of Joel Mesler.
Joel Mesler, Untitled (Down and out in), 2016. Courtesy of the Estate of Joel Mesler.
“The Estate of Joel Mesler: Fish People” is on view at the Surf Lodge, 183 Edgemere Street, Montauk, July 21–July 28, 2016.