WEAPONS

Opening June 11th from 6-8PM

June 11th - June 28th

Exhibition hours are Wednesday-Saturday, 11-6PM

154 E Broadway, Downstairs, NYC

Please visit Parent Company's gallery for access

I remember lying awake and hearing the crack crack crack — trying to count them but damn they’re fast. Then waiting for wailing and the red and blue lights. But I don’t feel safe. All night long up and wondering what I’d never hear or who it happened to. Nobody cared or wanted to tell, just try to forget everything happening. Rich Street was a bad place.

Knock knock. Who’s that? Concrete emptiness. Feeling so alone (and worse if not). Where some houses are empty or maybe not. Some had turned to ashes but a few pretty and big. Sorta place that makes you sad or mad, always wondering if everyone else was sad, also mad, and maybe afraid? Then I drifted to dreaming, thinking like a caveman. Wandering, hunting, feeding and giving. Sweet sharp spear so tender in care. Held it close beside a fire feeling warm and fed.

Now days I try not to read the latest terrible thing. Always something scary I don’t want to know, or sometimes I knew but try not to remember. Other times, “of course that’s a thing.” I never knew, but duh it’s true. Let’s get rid of every bad thing and who! Catch them in the act, that’s too late. We really just need everyone watched to make us feel safe! So stupid what we fight over, what’s to fight for? Not this place.

I knew a man who goes shooting for fun. His gun looks mean and breathes lead gas. He’s not worried so I said, “Guns are bad!” He said he’d keep me safe. From who? Later I don’t feel good and asked please. Make me feel something new. She made me apple pie and sent me off to play outside. Dancing in the yard with the girl next door. Rosie whispers, they’re always listening inside our house, inside our body, and who? Those hungry hungry piggies, they’re never full. Gosh such an appetite.

Remembering I was little and went to school, then sitting in class where we always drew. Lots of swords and guns, it was fun! Every day spent learning about bad stuff and who kept us safe. Wouldn’t it be cool to be one of them some day? Nothing or no one makes us safe these days. Just weapons and weapons falling down all around. Family, friends, don’t we all need one? Weapons weapons make us behave.

ro art services announces WEAPONS. Spent on the violent tools of anxious desires, the final installment of a 12 month series roaming NY, NY opens June 11th from 6-8 PM.

Ft. Kari Cholnoky giving altar to a machine of terror, Chris Meerdo’s code for the State’s techno-phalanx, David Leggett's black body politics in Americana’s just desert, Josh Reames targeting silhouettes of culture at range, Martha Poggioli’s reflections on a horn of surveillance, Josiah Ellner fantasizing of a sword to save us all, and Dom Smith as the tip of the spear in an exhibition on a subject in search of comfort, dominance, safety, and fear.

Kari Cholnoky (b. 1988, Stamford, CT) holds an MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BA from Dartmouth College, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include Horizontal Loader, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York (2023); Impending Moreness, Julius Caesar Gallery, Chicago (2021); and Maw, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York (2021). Group exhibitions include Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2025); The Pit, Los Angeles (2025); CANADA, New York (2023); Rachel Uffner Gallery and Mrs. Gallery, New York (2021); Ceysson & Bénétière, New York (2020); and Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2019), among others. Cholnoky was recently a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Painting (2024), a MacDowell Fellow in Painting (2023), and attended the Worth Advisory Artist Residency in Bovina, NY (2019) and the Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL (2017). The artist’s work is held in the public collection of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. This is her third solo exhibition with the gallery. Josiah Ellner (b. 1996, Milwaukee) holds an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2023) and a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2019). His works have been exhibited across major cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, with shows at Julius Caesar, Patient info, Latitude Gallery, Tchotchke Gallery, and Lorin Gallery. He has received the Teaching Fellowship and Carrie Ellen Tuttle Fellowship from SAIC and was a resident artist at the Oxbow School of Art and more recently a resident at the Vermont Studio Center. David Leggett (b. 1980, Spring MA) is a visual artist living and working in Los Angeles. He received his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design (2003), and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007). He later attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2010) and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Artist-In-Residence program (2018). Leggett’s work has been featured in numerous publications including the NYTimes, Art21, and the book Black Futures (K. Drew, J. Wortham; 2020). He published an online daily drawing blog Coco River Fudge Street from 2010 to 2016. His work has been shown throughout the United States and internationally, including a solo show at Steve Turner Contemporary (2023) and group shows “Time of Our Lives” at The Mass in Tokyo, Japan (2024) and “Masterclass” at Secrist Beach Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. He is a recipient of the visual artist award from 3Arts Chicago (2009). Christopher Meerdo (b. 1981, Upper Peninsula, MI) is Assistant Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the Visual Arts at The Ohio State University, a joint appointment between the Department of Art and the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD). An artist and researcher who grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Šiauliai, Lithuania, Meerdo’s sculptural, image, and film work engages with data archives, computational processes, and digital forensics, often incorporating encrypted imagery, leaked documents, synthetic media, and machine-learning techniques. He has exhibited widely at institutions such as the Renaissance Society, the Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the National Gallery of Kosovo, and FOAM Fotographiemuseum Amsterdam. His time-based work has been screened at the Nightingale Cinema (Chicago), the Flat Earth Film Festival (Seyðisfjörður, Iceland), nodoCARACAS (Venezuela), the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Platform Centre (Winnipeg), and on DIS.art. Meerdo has participated in residencies at SÍM (Reykjavik), Skowhegan School Of Painting & Sculpture, the Jan van Eyck Academie (Maastricht), the Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), and the Banff Centre (Canada). He is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation award, The Hopper Prize, and the Silver Eye Fellowship 15 International Photography Award. His scholarship on artificial intelligence has appeared in DIAPHANES Magazine, Para-Educational Papers (University of Hamburg), and Techniques Journal. Martha Poggioli (b. 1988, Brisbane) is an Australian artist and educator living and working in the US and Paris. Receiving a BFA from Queensland University of Technology in 2009, Poggioli went on to achieve an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019. Her Solo and Two-Person exhibitions include Colorado Springs Fine Art Centre (Colorado), John Michael Kohler Arts Centre (Sheboygan, WI), AddsDonna (Chicago), Julius Caesar (Chicago), SPACES (Cleveland) and Extase (Chicago). Selected Group Exhibitions include Houston Centre for Contemporary Craft (Houston), ro art services (New York City & Chicago), John Michael Kohler Arts Centre (Sheboygan, WI), Soloway Gallery (Brooklyn), RainRain (New York City), Rochester Museum of Contemporary Art (NY), Haynes Court (Chicago), Winberg-Newton (Chicago), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center (Seattle), Rhona Hoffman Gallery (Chicago), MassArt Art Museum (Boston), Mütter Museum (Philadelphia, PA), Kunstgewerbemuseum (Dresden, DE), RMIT Design Hub (Melbourne), Wyndham Art Gallery (Melbourne). Residencies include Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Kohler Arts/Industry Residency, SPACES Artist-in Residence in partnership with Dittrick medical History Centre & think[box] at Case Western Reserve University, LeRoy Neiman Foundation Ox-Bow Fellowship, Australian Tapestry Workshop & NEWINC. Josh Reames (b. 1985, Dallas, TX) is an an artist living and working in Upstate New York. He received his MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and BFA from University of North Texas. Reames was artist-in-residence at Ox Bow (funded by Joan Mitchell Foundation), The Barn, East Hampton, NY and The Fountainhead, Miami, FL. Reames has exhibited in a number of galleries and institutions, including Elmhurst Museum of Art, Andrea Rosen Gallery, The Hole, Team Gallery, Josh Lilley Gallery, 356 Mission, Johannes Vogt Gallery, Monya Rowe, Galeria Annaruma, Andrew Rafacz, Bill Brady Gallery, Kwanhoon Gallery (Seoul), Koenig Gallerie (Berlin), Dittrich & Schlechtriem (Berlin), and Anonymous Gallery (Mexico City). Dom Smith (b. 1987) is an artist living and working in New York City. Born in Peoria Illinois and raised in Muscogee County, Georgia, Dom Smith attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received an MFA in Sculpture in 2014. His solo and two-person exhibitions include Junior Gallery (Chicago), Bo Bartlett Center Museum (Columbus, GA), HG (Chicago), and Adler Floyd (Chicago). Selected group exhibitions include HG (Chicago), Modern Life Fine Arts (NY), Emanuil Benaki (Athens, Greece), David Zwirner Gallery (NY), Julius Caesar (Chicago), Roots & Culture (Chicago), Museo Casa Blanca (San Juan), and Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (San Juan).