Enchafed Flood (detail), 2019, Vinyl composite tile, 81.5" x 41.375". Photo courtesy of Will Howcroft for Praise Shadows Art Gallery.
Lovers, Muggers, and Theives
PRESENTED BY PRAISE SHADOWS GALLERY
FEBRUARY 4 - MARCH 7 2021
After a career spanning decades with museums, galleries, and cultural institutions around the world, Boston-native Duke Riley will have his first solo exhibition in his hometown. Lovers, Muggers, and Thieves opens on February 4, 2021 at Praise Shadows Art Gallery and will present drawings, mosaics, and video by Riley, who is now based in Brooklyn, NY. The show will also feature the premiere of original scrimshaws made from found discarded plastic, and after their debut at Praise Shadows, they will be on view as part of a major U.S. museum exhibition in 2022.
The only previous time Riley’s work has been exhibited in Boston was in 1996, when Bernard Toale Gallery included him in a group show. Since then, he has garnered international acclaim, not to mention front-page articles in The New York Times, for his monumental public art performances and projects including Creative Time’s Fly By Night in 2016, Those About To Die Salute You at the Queens Museum in 2009, as well as for his solo exhibitions at MOCA Cleveland, Pioneer Works, and many more.
Riley has also created a new work specifically for his homecoming: a large-scale mosaic depicting the Great Molasses Flood, also known as the 1919 Boston Molasses Disaster. On January 15, 1919, the accidental explosion of a storage tank at a molasses factory on the North End of Boston unleashed 2.3 million gallons of scorching hot molasses into crowded city streets. The wave gushed at an estimated 35 miles per hour, killing 21 people and sweeping some victims into Boston Harbor. For decades, the area still smelled of molasses on hot days. Riley’s work depicts the cataclysm and near-biblical tumult of this incident in vast tile work that recalls the color and lines of his trademark ink-on-paper drawings.