Gyz La Rivière solo exhibition at the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery – SUNY Old Westbury

Wed, Feb 19 - Thu, Mar 13  2025

Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY Old Westbury

Address: Campus Center, Wenwood Dr, Glen Head, NY 11545

The Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY Old Westbury is pleased to present a solo exhibition by the Rotterdam-based artist and filmmaker Gyz La Rivière (The Netherlands, b. 1976). Metropolitan Synonyms is his first major solo exhibition in New York. The exhibition presents some of La Riviere’s most recent works, some developed during his residency program in New York, comprising collection-based conceptual installation, a series of collage works that reflect housing issues in New York, various readymade sculptural works and screenprints, as well as feature-length films that address transformation within urban society and visual culture. La Rivière, who has a penchant for collection, is influenced by mass media, consumerism, and the political awareness of 1980s youth and street culture. He examines the multilayered meaning of metropolitan places and time, influx and interconnectedness of cultures, and, in particular, his deep interest in his home, the harbor city of Rotterdam, and its relationship to the world.

Highlights of the exhibition include Lee Towers—New York (2023-ongoing), an installation of eighty-one copies of the vinyl album New York (1982) by Rotterdammer Lee Towers, the Netherlands’ favorite mainstream singer. La Rivière collected the albums from second hand record shops just prior to his arrival in New York. The identical album jackets displayed in grid format hark back to Warholian repetition strategies. Capitalism (2024) is a found-object work consisting of ten child’s wooden alphabet blocks that La Rivière playfully subverts into something sinister. For NYC Protest Boxes (2024), La Rivière altered about forty packaging boxes from such items as Legos, Monopoly, Peppa Pig toys, and video games. The boxes are connected by the theme of building and housing. La Rivière edits the packaging with handwritten and hand-cut protest slogans, such as “Affordable Housing … Coming Soon” on top of the text of the video game “Grand Theft Auto.” This humorous irony critiques the unaffordable housing situation in NYC, a manifestation of late-stage capitalism.

The exhibition also showcases La Rivière’s films. New Neapolis (2020, 106 min.) shows an idealized fictional European city that might arise from four harbor cities—Rotterdam, Liverpool, Naples, and Marseille—forging an alliance. La Rivière shows how these cities are related by their sailor towns of quays and alleys, migrant workers, urban decay, and poverty amid a lively informal economy. He also shows the frantic attempts to clean all of this up with urban renewal and gentrification. La Rivière raises the question of what such an urban alliance might teach us and what forms of brotherhood and solidarity a future Europe might experience.

La Rivière’s newest film, Videotheek Marco (2025, 96 min.), tells the story of the owners of the last video rental stores in the Benelux countries, and more broadly, the history of family- run video rental stores in The Netherlands. The first Dutch video rental chain was founded in Rotterdam, where video rental stores have historically held significance for their communities, and in particular for people from migrant backgrounds, as these were shops where anyone could rent films, TV shows, and football matches from their countries of origin. The film is an ode to the video store as a window into our society and a microcosm of street culture.

The public reception for Gyz La Rivière: Metropolitan Synonyms is scheduled for Wednesday, February 19 th , from 4:00 to 7:00 pm. The artist will attend the reception. The exhibition is organized by Amelie A. Wallace Gallery Director Hyewon Yi.

About the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery

Formally dedicated on May 22, 1979, the Gallery is named for the late Amelie Alexanderson Wallace in recognition of her unflagging support of the College and her personal commitment to the arts at Old Westbury. The Gallery exhibits Contemporary art by emerging and mid-career artists, as well as works by faculty and students of the Visual Arts Department. Public programs designed to accompany exhibitions comprise lectures and discussions led by artists and curators, as well as live performances and video presentations.

Gallery Hours

Mon, Wed: 10:00 am – 8:00 pm
Tues, Thurs: 9:00 am – 8:00 pm
Fri: 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Sat. 1:00 pm – 4:30 pm