Red Grooms: In the Studio & The Bookstore
February 9 - May 25, 2008

Return of Red Grooms’ Bookstore and a New Exhibition that Traces His Creative Path

One of America’s major artists with a truly popular following, Red Grooms is returning to the Hudson River Museum thirty years after his creation of The Bookstore – a gem in the Museum’s permanent collection that has become an artistic emblem of Westchester County.

The worlds that inspire Grooms stretch from silent movies to dance halls to America’s urban canyons and first colonies.  Red Grooms grew up in Nashville and began his career as an actor. His sense of theater is integral to the multimedia experience he creates in sculpture, paintings, and films. Now a quintessential New York artist, Grooms shows the city’s people and their neighborhoods with both wit and acute comment.  His commentary has endeared The Bookstore to thousands since its installation at the Hudson River Museum in 1979.

True to the larger-than-life environmental sculptures that brought Pop Artist Grooms attention around the globe, The Bookstore deftly joins two favorite haunts for New York City book lovers—the lively and oldest secondhand bookshop in New York City, the Isaac Mendoza As the museum embarked on plans to construct a new lobby, shifting visitor flow throughout the building, plans were considered to relocate the piece to a new dedicated gallery. Grooms approved the major conservation efforts and changes to the work that included altering the position of the two entrances to fit the new gallery space, the creation of a new central island, which incorporated the original vinyl patrons, and the design for a new painted floor to replace the red wall-to-wall carpeting adapted from the original space. The conservation work was executed by Tom Burckhardt, who oversaw the re-installation.

Grooms has had scores of exhibitions over his career but In the Studio is the first to explore not only his triumphs, such as his most famous work Ruckus Manhattan, but also Grooms’ path to creativity. Grooms brings vision to visible reality with a happy combination of meticulous planning and preliminary studies in the form of miniature paper, clay and wood models, or maquettes. Among the models appearing the show In the Studio that have never been seen before are a miniature ticker tape parade featuring Mayor LaGaurdia; Peacable Kingdom; a large-scale model of dozens of different animals decorating a giant “tree of life;” Snake Charmer, part of a design for a proposed circus series; a model for the Iowa State Fair, featuring the famed “butter cow” and Flamenco Dancers, Grooms’ latest work that is now evolving into a design for a huge sculpture only to be imagined. Ranging from a few inches to nearly eight feet, the models are made quickly, the artist’s fingerprints still on them, others finished pieces. The most elaborate illuminate, play music, and move.

The exhibitions will be accompanied by a catalogue.

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Red Grooms, The Bookstore, 1978-79 - Restored by Tom Burckhardt, 2007-08 Mixed media installation, Hudson River Museum Purchase, 80.4.1

The Bookstore, Red Grooms’ dazzling installation, was created as a working gift shop for the Hudson River Museum in 1979.  After extensive conservation, this beloved Westchester landmark has been reinstalled in its own gallery.
The Bookstore incorporates many of the themes that run through Grooms’ best work: the marriage of art and commerce, the clash of high and low, colorful New York characters, and an inviting three-dimensional space that envelops and transports the viewer.
The Bookstore deftly joins two favorite haunts of New York City booklover – the lively, oldest secondhand bookshop in NYC, the Isaac Mendoza Book Company, and the patrician Morgan Library –into a work of art.
In terms of materials, The Bookstore was one of a limited number of pieces in which Grooms incorporated vinyl figures. Thefigures are painted from the inside, a technique inspired by medieval glass-painting techniques, and then are stuffed and sewn.
Tens of thousands of visitors passed through The Bookstore, embraced by its environment and it inevitably began to suffer ravages caused by its popularity. Plans were developed to restore the work and Grooms enthusiastically approved the conservation efforts and changes, which include altering the position of the two entrances to fit new gallery space, the creation of a central island that incorporated the original vinyl patrons, and the design of a painted floor. Grooms remains cautious of making too many changes to a piece that reflects a vision of New York in the 1970s, already passing into history. “An artist can overwork a thing – you can ruin the delicacy of a past moment very easily…I think it’s better to keep it like it was – primitive in that way.”