“The young men and woman (that’s just one, designer/artist Dylan Kawahara) of the rotating Still House collective. Founded by artists Isaac Brest and Alex Perweiler, Still House’s collaborative structure isn’t so much about much protesting the fame-structure of the art market with anonymity as it is about encouraging collaboration and establishing a home base for a group of young like-minded artists. And young they are: the 12 artists in the current show at Lower East Side gallery RENTAL are almost all in their early 20s. Most are Los Angeles transplants to New York, and they’re remarkably savvy.

So what does a young artist look like today? Brendan Lynch shows a stand-out example in his untitled sculpture, comprising a rendition of Rodin’s The Thinker covered in a delicate tie-dye blanket, his beat-up Keds peeking out. In this show there’s plenty of homage to Still House’s elders, be they Rodin or contemporary artists working in image-conscious New York. There’s plenty of Oedipal strife, too: at the opening, Isaac Brest installed a replica of Julian Schnabel’s  roundly disliked pink house in the building’s small elevator. It was hastily dismembered by the hundreds of visitors to the opening, teenagers and collectors alike. [2]

“i really liked that one of the artist’s brothers who is not an artist did this to the gallery bathroom

and then a collector commissioned him to do it again for her down in florida because she loved the “piece”

i love when distinctions are absurd because they are and downtown i mean what is so romantic to me about that distinction?” [1]

ALL IMAGES OF WORK BY DYLAN LYNCH AND STILL HOUSE VIA MYSPACE.COM AND RENTAL GALLERY; TEXT BY KATHY GRAYSON [1] AND ALEX GARTENFELD [2]