Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project is pleased to present Jane Dickson’s Hot, Hot, Hot, a series of rarely seen and moody paintings of Times Square peep shows from the 1980s. Dickson’s history and legacy are rooted in Times Square. She worked and lived there from 1978 to 2008 documenting her daily lived experiences and observations as a young woman. In photos, drawings, and paintings that utilize unconventional industrial and domestic materials as surfaces—including carpet, sandpaper, and black plastic bags—she captured a time and place that was notoriously lawless, squalid, and vibrantly alive.
James Fuentes is pleased to present Jane Dickson, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air. The exhibition includes works spanning from the early 1980s to the present, each offering an important document of New York City.
Jane Dickson is known for her vivid depictions of Times Square’s nocturnal energy. Born in Chicago,
Dickson arrived to New York in 1977, and a year later began a job programming visuals for Times Square’s first digital billboard. She mostly worked the night shift and was responsible for the New Year’s Eve countdown, witness to upturned faces basking in the hallucinatory glow. Two years later she moved to an apartment on 43rd Street and 8th Avenue, where she lived and raised two children with her husband. From this vantage point Dickson observed Times Square after dark, absorbing the seductive haze and structured environment in which figures and shadows moved.
This exhibition will include paintings, drawings and prints from the book, many from the 1980s. The monograph features texts by Chris Kraus and Fab 5 Freddy along with an interview with the artist by Carlo McCormick.