Below 14th St

Debut Exhibit
October 6 & 7, 2013, NYC


Below 14th Street represents the culmination of two years of creative exploration, and shows where in the East Village The Black Soft collected the materials that make up the twenty-four pieces in their debut exhibition. Using discarded materials – windows, screens, canvases, and doors – the collection captures a rich cosmology, manifesting in phonetic works of art. In today’s paradigm of obsessive consumption and waste, where the fetishized comodification of culture and the hyper-inflated art market surges unabated, there appears at times to be little space for genuine human expression. From this tension, rises The Black Soft – the interdisciplinary duo of Joseph Topmiller and Chase Coughlin, whose boundless creative tentacles permeate contemporary cultural expression across music, fashion, performance and fine art.

Speaking from a vision driven by creativity in response to necessity, theirs is a universe of fluctuating contradictions. Through pulsating characters – their freakishly captivating progeny that quasi-stylistically echo Basquiat’s eclectic and graphic naivete, the charged psychological drama of Francis Bacon, and the crisp sexuality of Robert Mapplethorpe – The Black Soft play and destroy, push and tease the constructed psychic and physical boundaries of the flesh and mind.

Below 14th Street is an expression of The Black Soft’s seminal explorations into identity, sexuality, metaphysics, ritual, and the seemingly endless neuroses of the human condition. Ciphering a distinct, exquisite dichotomy of refined aesthetic and visceral scream The Black Soft embraces the schizophrenia of this generation.

Curator: Saulo Madrid
Exhibition Designers: Saulo Madrid & The Black Soft
Artists: Joseph Topmiller & Chase Coughlin
Producers: Michael Kogan, Omen PR & The Black Soft
Curatorial Assistant: Adrienne Johnson