Herd Thinner

By Lee Molloy

Eric Charest-Weinberg, a 25-year-old from Montreal, ambitiously opened his own gallery in Wynwood a little less than a year ago. To make a splash during Art Basel week he has brought in the big guns to curate his latest gallery show in the form of independent critic, and curatorial director of this year’s Scope Art Show Miami, David Hunt.

“You don’t really find a 25-year-old guy opening up their own gallery,” Hunt told The Lead, adding that what Charest-Weinberg lacked in experience “he was going to make up for in terms of energy, hard work and discipline.”

Herd Thinner is the 51st show that Hunt has curated. It is “a culmination of some of the ideas I have been working with over the past years,” he said.

“We are operating in the emotion economy,” Hunt explains, “which is much more abstract than the commodity-based economy.” When a visitor walks into the gallery the goal is not to have them blown away by a single piece but to feel the frequency, or amplitude, of the whole show as it resonates just below the surface, “similar to the level of a dog whistle,” he says.

The idea of the work in Herd Thinner is not to quote from pop culture but rather to incorporate the extreme past and the future at the same time, or as Hunt says, the “the galactic and the prehistoric.” In the future, the artists that separate from the pack will be those with the strongest communication skills that make the best use of signs and semiotics. “They will be treated with the level and respect that shamans were treated with in the past,” Hunt said.

The title of the show is derived from the idea that the artistic herd is thinned via the effectiveness of their communication, a concept that that is exemplified locally during art fair season.

“The gallery turns into a scrum,” Hunt says, “every artist is in competition with other artists based on how advanced their sign systems are.”

Preview reception with artists: Tuesday, Dec.1 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Artists: Slater Bradley, Suntek Chung, Richard Dupont, Martha Friedman, Sheree Hovsepian, Rashid Johnson, Simone Leigh, Fernando Mastrangelo, Raha Raissnia, Seher Shah, Erin Shirreff, Jeff Sonhouse and Outtara Watts. 

Charest-Weinberg Gallery is located at 250 N.W. 23rd St., Space 408, Miami. charest-weinberg.com. 305-292-0411

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