It’s a process of patience. JIM JOE, famous in that he is famously mostly reluctant to take a spotlight or showcase himself in public, made an entire project in public. Perhaps the most public place he could, at the New York Public Library, exploring two branches located on Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Street in their rich and vast resoruces of pictures they have in their archive. As the 2023 Picture Collection Artist Fellow, JIM JOE made all the works in this show, Practice in Public, now on view at Entrance, all inside the library. What is fascinating about this, even through his reinterpretations and reimagining imagery both obscure and iconic is the discipline in which JOE have himself. The limitations of only working at the library, only using found paper he scored in the library itself and utilizes the system of research and discovery, made him almost create a manual, pre-Internet Google Image search. As the gallery notes, “The exhibition features new works produced entirely within these historic buildings, including drawings, prints, rubbings, and sculptures created between 2023 and 2024.”Â
There is a brilliant first person narrative written on the Entrance site by Chanterelle Menashe Ribes, but what I was struck by seeing the show and hearing JIM JOE speak at the NYPL last week is the powerful practice of patience, and the dichotomy of a graffiti artist who works in public in private now working at the library and working privately in public. It’s two sides of the same coin, but its a fascinating exploration of creativity and the use of space. A graffiti artist looks at the city and finds where to place their work in context of the urban environment, and the library, the confluence of public and private interests, is also a place to explore and find a context for artwork. This is a must-see show by a truly, endlessly fascinating contemporary artist. —Evan Pricco
