Crushing It

In her illustrious career as an award-winning creative director, Rochelle Udell worked with some of the best photographers, typographers, designers, and writers. Her latest fine art installment of “Everyday Objects” is now on view at the J.Pocker NY Showroom on East 63rd St. I attended yesterday’s cocktail reception featuring her Irving Penn inspired (she worked with him as Art Director at Vogue) collection of familiar objects namely beverage cans. I suggest that an equal homage belongs to Andy Warhol and that ubiquitous Campbell’s Soup can.

“I love the concept of elevating everyday objects,” Udell explained. Interestingly, the idea for the can art came about from an exercise device.  “My son got me this Fitbit,” she said as she showed me her wrist.  “I was walking around outside when I started to pick up cans.” And the rest is art history as the cans join Udell’s gold leaf collection of various chair art, as well as bundles of juxtaposed laundry.

Added to the larger than life photos are backgrounds that are either painted or Udell’s preferred medium of gold or silver leaf lending another luxe element to the common “cultural artifacts.” According to the J. Pocker literature “Whether they are chairs, cups or cans, they serve to help identify us and trigger our narratives.”

Rochell Udell

Udell who currently lives in Ossining and serves on the board of the Sing Sing Prison Museum has a formidable background in advertising, marketing and publishing which informs her work.  In her years at top magazines she made the Art Director rounds from Vogue to Harper’s Bazaar, GQ; Editor-in-chief at SELF creative director at Revlon; President and Creative Director of CRK, Calvin Klein, Inc to Founder and President of CondeNet.

– Laurel Marcus