NEW YORK, NY.- Di Donna announce their new exhibition From Above. Works by the following artists are on exhibition: Lynda Benglis, Frederic Church, Robert Delaunay, Richard Diebenkorn, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Edward Hopper, Damian Loeb, Robert Longo, René Magritte, Man Ray, Adam McEwen, Julie Mehretu, Kenneth Noland, Kour Pour, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Bosco Sodi, and Wayne Thiebaud.

From as far back as the 16th century artists such as Pieter Brueghel the Elder utilized what was to become known as the bird’s-eye view – merging both atmospheric perspective and a deep space that punctuates the pictorial plane both downward and outward. Artists have continued their fascination with this as the earth’s ever changing territories were charted and mapped. Centuries later, in the United States, the Hudson River School mythologized the rural landscape by exaggerating their vantage points and amplifying their scope. Parisians of the late 19th century were impressed by a radical new invention: that of aerial photography, offering documentarian views of their expansive new modern city from extreme altitudes never seen before.

From Above presents examples of when both modern and contemporary artists position their gaze, and, at times, their bodies, from a lofty vantage point, manifesting the world in all its sublime intensity, or simply focusing on what is literally below, be it commonplace or extraordinary. Whether working within the parameters of representation or abstraction, conceptual or the political, the artists in From Above, and as a result, the viewers, question how we fit into the world.

From Above greets gallery visitors with the unique ways in which artists have pictured views of the world around them, often from impossible vantage points. Whether framed in an atmospheric haze or in razor sharp detail, ethereal subjects such as cloudy skies or distant lands embody the artist’s subject, albeit political, emotive or sensorial. The artists selected often reject the role of faithful observer, opting for other strategies of picturing the world around them: that of simplification, intensification, rendering as graphic and using materials for their symbolic presence.