ROAD TO NOWHERE
SPRING/BREAK I BOOTH: C3, 10th Floor
A Project by Stephen Neidich
May 6 - 12th
75 Varick Street, New York City
May 6th, 12pm - 5pm | Collectors First Look + Press Preview
May 6th, 5pm - 8pm | Opening Night
May 7th, Noon - 7pm | VIP Preview Day
May 8th - 12th, Noon - 7pm | Public Show Days
ROAD TO NOWHERE
by Stephen Neidich
Curated by Julie McKim
Road to Nowhere carries many connotations depending on where one is situated in the global cultural landscape. For many Americans, it may evoke the ’90s-era Gen-X “Slacker Generation,” who were criticized for being on a road to nowhere. Or perhaps the phrase reminds one of the Modern Lovers’ ode to the open road, Road Runner, “Going faster miles per hour,” or maybe it brings to mind the stream-of-consciousness autobiographical prose of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Other cultural references include Henry Miller’s Air-Conditioned Nightmare, chronicling his Depression-era road trip across America—only to return from Paris dismayed by how little had changed both economically and culturally.
The list could go on, but the idea of a “Road to Nowhere,” an open road or endless highway, is distinctly American—woven into its music, literature, and national psyche. The road is both freedom and necessity, framed by a car-dependent infrastructure and a restless cultural identity. One could argue that the open road is synonymous with being American.
About the Work
Road to Nowhere is also the title of Stephen Neidich’s new series of print-based works. An interdisciplinary LA-based artist, Neidich uses print and paint to build large-scale canvases of intense, saturated color. Vibrant reds collide with deep oranges and yellows, creating an ember-like glow. Dark purples melt into intense pinks, making some canvases seem illuminated from within.
Neidich’s use of paint allows each piece to read differently. Some feel washed out; others trick the viewer into thinking the pigment was embedded rather than applied. Layered atop these fields are visuals that might be roads, train tracks, or bridge-like forms. On closer examination, they reveal fragments from Neidich’s earlier sculptural work—kinetic, rusted, bent metal blinds no longer serving their original function.
Those blinds once evoked the sanitized idealism of post-war American suburbia. Now, in print form, they’re stripped of that meaning—repositioned as abstracted symbols of failed structure, unfulfilled dreams, or perhaps reimagined pathways.
Conceptual Themes
This series leans into the immediacy of printmaking. The urgency of the medium gives each piece a raw, emotional edge. What appear to be escape routes—bridges, tracks, empty roads—are reappropriated from sculptures and turned into poetic, abstract visions of potential futures or dead ends.
These roads to nowhere feel both haunting and hopeful. Their intensity speaks to a desire for movement, escape, and change. At a time when grand gestures are oversaturated and co-opted, Neidich’s work offers something different: subtle yet pointed visual repetitions, acts of transformation, and questions of where we’re going—even if it’s nowhere in particular.
Tagline:
Road to Nowhere introduces a new series of print-based works by interdisciplinary LA-based artist Stephen Neidich. Neidich’s large-scale canvases feature deep, vibrant colors and leverage the immediacy of printmaking to explore distinctly American themes—such as the open road, endless highways, and the idea of “nowhere” as a space of potential possibility.