Andreas Jaeggi
Erica Snow
The works New York Zippers by artist Andreas Jaeggi are a linear series of somber unstretched canvases linked by dark plastic lines of zippers. The series continues the artist’s impressionistic documentation of European and American urban centers, familiar landmarks. These paintings are tied together and have the conceptual link of recording a site: New York. The dark canvases with loosely applied paint reveal an "impression." Images such as the Village Cigar Store exist as painted tourist snapshots. Unlike the ealier work, "New York Zippers" has a more limited palette and successfuly in captures a sense of urban existentialism. In New York, Jaeggi’s imagination heightens our orange-alert city to an unnatural level. Perhaps that is an impression that can serve us well in times of uncertainty.
Despite a failure to convincingly unify, the zippers themselves add an element of interest. Their presence invites the imagination to compose a number of possible frame solutions between the sutures. Zippers themselves denote naughtiness more than function (think of Jong’s zipless fuck). Zippers can evoke a smile of familiarity. The promise of what they may reveal. Jaeggi presents, therefore, a predictable style of painting bound with an erotic twist. The paintings are a reminder of our urban duties as perpetuators and monitors of multilayered culture.
