Scott King: A Balloon for America, on display in our viewing room beginning September 3rd, 2013.

This series, which follows A Balloon for Britain, depicts brightly colored party balloons over found images of ten of the United States' poorest cities: Detroit, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Miami, St. Louis, El Paso, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Newark. King imagined himself as part of a government think-tank that has been given the task of reinvigorating these cities and 'creating happiness and hope and joy where there is none.' These works, initiated as public art proposals, are King's logical solution to the ineffectual ideas that governments implement when they deploy art in the hope of regenerating depressed areas. While this is a common tactic in the UK, for example Anish Kapoor's imposing sculptures in the post - industrial north of England, it is what is often referred to as a 'Band Aid Solution.'

Scott King, born 1969, currently lives and works in London. He has held solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis and Kunstverein Munich. Selected group exhibitions include: Intolerance/Normality, Grazer Kunstverein, Austria; Graphic Design: Now In Production, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Defamation of Character, PS1, New York; CRASH!, ICA, London; Keep Floors and Passages Clear, White Columns, New York; All That is Solid Melts into Air / Winston's Children, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and Multiplex: Directions in Art, 1970 to Now, works from the collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

"Interior Color Beauty", an exhibition of new works by Morgan Fisher, will open in the main gallery on Thursday, September 12th from 6-8 P.M.

For additional information visit the Bortolami Gallery website.