NEW YORK, NY.- Tim Roda invited five other artists to join him in emulating the folly and viciousness of the Ancient Roman spectacle in which artists Doug Jeck, Chris Miller, Jacob Foran, John Byrd, Ryan Horvath joined the Roda family through August, working and living side by side in the gallery’s large, raw space. The artists suspended their normal studio practices to absorb each other’s approach to the theme, making works from found objects, clay, concrete, tape, and other non-precious materials. “Games of Antiquities” is an exercise to willingly submit to and vigorously explore the concept of the anachronism in contemporary visual culture.

Wielding Roda’s coliseum interpretation of Gasser Grunert Gallery as a starting point, they wove their work and methodology into a gladiatorial collaboration. The final exhibition consists of the artists’ installations and sculptures alongside Roda’s black and white photographs, that document the activities around his playful coliseum—think Roman gladiators in armor, racing chariot horses in the Circus Maximus—combined with present day social commentaries.

Tim Roda, a graduate of the University of Washington’s MFA program, is a New York based photographer. Roda has worked as an adjunct professor at NYU, Purchase College, and is now at Hofstra University. He received a Fulbright Scholarship for his work in 2008 to study in Italy, where Roda’s concept for the current exhibition was conceived. In staging his wife and three sons in his photographs, the intimacies and humor of family life are revealed as the true subjects of Roda’s work. He depicts metaphors of family history, memories, and traditions that resonate with his bloodthirsty audience.