Westbeth Diamond Jubilee
Celebrating Productivity and Creativity Beyond the Age of 75.

Dates:
Sept 8 – Sept 29,2018
Opening Reception:
Sept 8, 5:30PM – 8PM
with Young Jazz Ensemble

Coinciding with the 50th Anniversary of Westbeth Artist Housing, a very special exhibit of the work of seven artists who have been actively creating beyond the age of 75 will open on Saturday, September 8th in the Westbeth Gallery. Entitled A Diamond Jubilee, this exhibition will feature a wide variety of art forms: abstract, figurative and impressionistic paintings, as well as masks, puppetry, embroidery, and photographs.

By the year 2050, experts predict that the segment of the population over the age of 60 will more than double, jumping from 900 million to 2.1 billion. Further complicating the situation, the United States Social Security Administration is running a deficit year in, year out. The only way they’ve been able to stay afloat is by eating into a reserve accumulated from surpluses of past years. However, that well is expected to dry up by 2034, and unless the age of retirement is increased, the SSA will only be able to pay out 79% of the need from the amount accumulated through taxes.

Jenny Tango may provide the solution. At 92 years old, she is renowned for her vitality, quick wit and lust for life, which she attributes, in part, to marrying a man 28 years her junior. Active since the 1970’s in the Feminist Movement, Tango is a figurative painter who often uses her own naked body in her portraits. By her own admission, she lives in a different world than most people and wouldn’t have it any other way: “If you conform to the middle class idea of [society], boy can you be boring. I mean look at Trump! He is the perfect example of someone who has more than everything, and as far as I’m concerned, he has nothing.”

Ralph Lee, a mask maker whose creations have appeared in everything from the Metropolitan Opera to Broadway to Saturday Night Live, is perhaps best known for founding the Village Halloween Parade, which today draws 60 thousand costumed participants and 2 million onlookers each year. He, too, believes that conformity is over-rated, especially since one of the great things about being human is the freedom of choose which mask to wear. Just as the widely popular television show RuPaul’s Drag Race promotes the idea that “We are all born naked and the rest is drag”, Ralph Lee explains, “In a lot of cultures, you become the deity when you’re wearing the mask. It allows you to behave in a lot of different ways, to use your body in a different way.”

Judy Lawne came up with the idea for A Diamond Jubilee shortly after she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. As a photographer, she considered the camera an extension of her body, and now must use a tripod to continue her work. She persists because she’s devoted to capturing, “a moment in time. There may be 60 to 100 pictures taken of any one [subject], but there’s only one that is really a moment in time. That’s what photography is: a moment in time that no other medium can capture. “

You are invited to attend the opening reception of A Diamond Jubilee on Saturday, September 8th from 5:30pm to 8pm. The show will run until September 29th in the Westbeth Gallery (55 Bethune Street, New York, NY 10014).

Featuring the work of:
Penny Jones, puppets and marionettes
Edith Isaac Rose, figurative paintings and embroidery
Robert Ludwig, abstract paintings
Jenny Tango, figurative painting
Judy Lawne, photography
Ralph Lee, masks and puppets
Bea Kreloff,figurative paintings and drawings.

More info:
Stanley Wlodyka
(646) 474-4275
wlodyka.stanley@gmail.com