New York is a city of icons. Heck, its logo (I ❤️NY, anyone?) is as synonymous with the city as it is instantly recognizable throughout the world. The Big Apple in recent years has picked up a few other symbolic signifiers along the way that have become just as representative of the city that never sleeps.
So much so, when Ghanaian palanquin artist Paa Joe teamed up with designer gallery Superhouse for ‘Celestial City’, the inaugural show in its new gallery space, what emerged from Paa’s studio could be classified as the new icons of New York (with some familiar favourites thrown in for good measure). There’s the ‘Statue of Liberty’, for one, and the golden NYC ‘Yellow Cab’, which Paa rendered into a 7.5ft-long hand-carved wood coffin, fully lined in green satin and Dutch Wax, replete with little accuracies like the car’s stick shift and windshield wipers (and of course, signage announcing the ‘Paa Joe x Jacob Art Academy’.) But perhaps it’s the ‘Hermès Birkin Bag’, or the ‘The New York Times’ with Paa’s portrait on it, too, that really hammer home that New York is a city of signs, symbols and metonyms.
'Celestial City' is a reimagined New York by Paa Joe at Superhouse
'They've got a lot of the great details in here,' says Superhouse founder, Stephen Markos, who built his gallery platform around overlooked historic practitioners and makers who blur the lines between art and function (aka furniture, sculpture and design). 'There’s this quality to the sculpture and the painting that is so playful, and really, really detailed in funny ways,' he explains.
But the humorous interpretation of New York is only furthered in sculptures like a 3ft-long ‘Rat’, brimming with a grin, avidly friendlier than nearly all sidewalk vermin, or the famous wired ‘Trash Can’, in which sits a thrown-out ‘Paa Joe’ pizza box –though the box itself is a cube. 'Paa’s studio doesn't necessarily engage with the Western world, and so a lot of these objects, they hadn't seen before when they were creating them,' explains Markos. That would explain the ‘Bagel’ sculpture, schmeared with cream cheese, but without its essential bialy (hole) in the middle.
Interestingly, when Markos introduced the ‘Trash Can’ at NADA NYC 2023, fair-goers thought the work itself was a functional waste bin – not a sculpture nor coffin – and Markos kept having to pull detritus out from the work.
Paa Joe
Paa and his studio, run by his son Jacob Tetteh-Ashong (both of whom, in full disclosure, this author counts as friends, having long written about and collected their works), have been working with Markos for over 18 months in a collaborative manner on this exhibition. Markos floated the idea to Paa and Jacob that a New York-inspired show could be an ideal kick-off to Superhouse’s new 1,500 sq ft home, in part because the gallery’s previous space was 200 sq ft vitrine in the Chinatown Mall, which posed some constraints in showing works of scale. For example, Paa’s 8ft-high ‘Heinz’ ketchup bottle simply wouldn’t have fit. Now, in the new gallery, it anchors the room.
The new gallery sits comfortably between the ever-expanding Tribeca arts district and 'old' Chinatown, and in fact, in a Walker Street building of its own legacy. The building used to house a very famous illegal poker ring, as well as counterfeit handbag manufacturers, all next door to fashion studios Proenza Schouler, Aesa Jewelry and Sally LaPointe. Now, Superhouse is reanimating its creative roots (along with art gallery, Off-Paradise), in a space that Markos says is, 'a little bit off the beaten path in this cool, tucked away place'. And what’s more New York than stumbling upon a secret find?
Paa Joe - 'Celestial City' is on view until 26 April 2024
120 Walker Street, 6R
New York, NY 10013
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