Esso Plan

05/15/2025

Jeff Bliumis and Andrés Serrano curated by

03/26/2025

Yehwan Song
Are We Still (Surfing)?
Pioneer Works

03/24/2025

Good taste:
Nel 1600 compare la figura dell’uomo di gusto, farcito di particolari inclinazioni, di raffinatezza e sensibilità. Fino a quel momento non esiste questa definizione, questo limite del buono e cattivo gusto. Chi guardava un’opera d’arte non s’interrogava sul modo d’interpretarla o sul suo valore estetico. Non vedeva, lo spettatore, una differenza sostanziale fra la decorazione, una marionetta, un monile, l’opera d’arte sacra, o gli elementi ornamentali che addobbavano le tavole dei principi o le canoniche dei preti. Passato questo confine del gusto si é cominciata, come per il galateo, la costruzione di flagranti differenze di casta, sociali e via cantando. Si è iniziato a suggerire l'esistenza di un gusto più o meno lecito, decoroso e adeguato rispetto a un gusto “cattivo”, malsano e disonesto. Così si é deciso (chi lo ha fatto si sa ma non si dice) che esiste un’arte più o meno alta ed una più o meno bassa. 300 anni dopo, Paul Valery scrive con sarcasmo “Le goût est fait de mille dégoûts"

02/15/2025

Mel Bochner passed away on February 12, and with him, another piece of our past has gone.

Jennifer and I first met him in 1999 at Esso for an exhibition I curated called "Scripta Manent". That show was a big deal for us—it was born from a dream list of artists I admired and hoped to bring together. One by one, they all answered my call and contributed a piece, showing up in person. Mel was the first one.

He walked in, looked around, and immediately told us the exact measurements of the walls - we made fun of him, as he was doing all those computations’ works—except our gallery was anything but straight. The crooked walls and uneven floors made it really difficult for him to install his piece, which he was to be painted directly on the wall. He wrestled with it, adjusted, recalculated, and finally there it was “Language is not transparent”.

At the time, our son Paolo had just been born. In those days, as Mel returned often to work on his piece, he became part of our little world. We cooked him lunch, and he would sit with us, holding Paolo as if he were the uncle he din't have.

Mel’s sharp mind, his wit, his history, his gentle presence—so deeply intertwined with our history—will be missed.

02/06/2025

I am pleased to highlight a new collaboration with Rossi & Rossi Gallery

Bologna-born painter Vittoria Chierici whom New York’s Esso Gallery has promoted for several years and dedicated many shows, unveils a captivating series at Rossi & Rossi Gallery's booth during ArteFiera, her hometown’s prestigious art fair.
Titled in homage to Giorgio Morandi, the works delve into the revered artist’s methodical practice, reimagined through Chierici’s contemporary lens. Fresh from their debut at the Museo Morandi, these pieces bridge past and present with striking ingenuity, creating a dialogue between permanence and play. A poetic homage to Morandi.

Crafted in acrylic and oil on wood panels, Chierici’s compositions are cleverly bisected: one half exudes the tactile and visual richness of traditional painting, while the other adopts a whimsical chalkboard aesthetic. The latter features fragments of Morandi’s writings and theoretical musings, rendered in fragile chalk—a medium designed to evolve. Here, Chierici invites viewers to transgress the usual boundaries of art: the text is not static but participatory, meant to be erased and rewritten by the audience. This interactive gesture transforms each piece into a living dialogue, where reverence for Morandi’s legacy collides with the spontaneity of collective creativity.

By merging durable mediums (oil, wood) with ephemeral chalk, Vittoria Chierici probes themes of impermanence and reinterpretation. How does art endure when its meaning is mutable? Can a master’s philosophy coexist with democratic reinvention? The series challenges the sanctity of the artist’s hand, offering a playful yet profound meditation on who “owns” creative discourse.

As these works return to Bologna—the city that shaped both Morandi and Chierici—they resonate with layered significance, inviting viewers to ponder the interplay between tradition and transformation.

10/30/2024

[II,4,2] Bisogna ormai che tu ti accorga una buona volta di quale cosmo sei parte; a quale governante del cosmo sottostai quale emanazione; e che vi è per te un limite circoscritto di tempo il quale, se non te ne servirai per darti aria pulita, disparirà e non vi sarà più un daccapo. / You must now realize once and for all what cosmos you are a part of; to which ruler of the cosmos you subordinate as emanation; and that there is a circumscribed limit of time for you, which, if you do not use it to give you clean air, will disappear and there will never be a new one.

07/16/2024

07/05/2024

Sal is coming! Esso Plan

05/12/2022

We miss you

03/28/2021

New Technology File System. The great Tommy!

HIGH FILES COLLECTIVEWHAT IF, IN AN UNCOMMON METEMPSICHOSIS, WE COULD CUT THE MAYA'S VEIL AND TROUGH OUR EYES, OBSERVE REALITY FROM OUTSIDE ? YOU? HOW WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE WORLD?

12/05/2020

Vincenzo Amato (NY); Franco Angeli (Riot 1968); Giovanni Anselmo (Particolare); John Baldessari (Throwing Three Balls in The Air…); Jay Batlle (Monopoly); Bernardo Bertolucci (Last Tango in Paris); Alighiero Boetti (Airplanes); Alberto Burri (Cretto); Vittoria Chierici (The School of Athens); Etto...

07/28/2020

Cascina Esso in Andes, NY - Opening 2020