Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
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New York
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Gallery 1: UTA BARTH Tanya Bonakdar Gallery October 27 - December 22, 2011
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is pleased to present aremarkable group of new works by Uta Barth. As theartist's ninth solo exhibition with the gallery, thisshow will bring together two of Barth's latest seriesof color photographs within the main floor exhibition spaces.
Furthering her exploration of the atmospheric andincidental, Barth conceived her latest major body ofwork, ... and to draw a bright white line with light,on the occasion of her 2011 solo exhibition at the ArtInstitute of Chicago. This series is installed in themain gallery space as a sequence of diptych andtriptych paneled photographs that trace a growingribbon of light against the curtains of the artist'shome. Created over the course of a single afternoon,this project follows a distinct chronology thatdiverges from the circular nature of her earlierseries. Here, Barth captures glimpses of the ephemeral as it exists between two fixed points in time,beginning with the very first sliver of light thatsnakes across her textured curtains and culminating inlarge ribbons that fill the final frame. Despite thissequential ordering, however, these photographs do notinvite a linear narrative. Rather, they coalesce totransform observations as simple as a ray of afternoonsunlight into a lyrical description of the passage oftime, heightening our awareness of such subtletiesand, in turn, the process of looking itself.
Throughout the past two decades, Barth has made visualperception the subject of her work. Regarded for her"empty" images that border on painterly abstraction,the artist carefully renders blurred backgrounds,cropped frames and the natural qualities of light tocapture incidental and fleeting moments, those whichexist almost exclusively within our periphery. With adeliberate disregard for both the conventionalphotographic subject and point-and-shoot role of thecamera, Barth's work delicately deconstructsconventions of visual representation by calling ourattention to the limits of the human eye.
In her newest series, however, Barth no longer remainsthe mere observer. For the first time in her practice,she overtly manipulates her surroundings by drawingthe folds of her curtains in order to shape thegrowing line of sunlight into desired configurations.Similar to her 2010 series, ... to walk withoutdestination and to see only to see, Barth registersher presence by including the occasional glimpse ofher hand as it works to draw the line of light. Suchdetails lend a process-based, performative element tothis series that, ironically, aligns it neatly withthe artist's ongoing exploration of image making. Withevery tug of the curtain and new line of light, Barthcreates photographs in their most literal form - asdrawings of light.
The exhibition continues in the rear space of GalleryOne with Barth's partner project, Compositions ofLight on White. Set in dialogue with ... and to draw abright white line with light, these minimal worksfeature Mondrian-like grids of light and architectureas they appear within the setting of Barth's bedroom.Through a timely adjustment of her blinds, the artistprojects rectilinear patterns of light along a trio ofbuilt-in closet doors, producing complex works thatreconsider notions of peripheral space in relation tocomposition. Her sharp sense of geometric formalism isevident in the jarring juxtapositions she presentsbetween flat, painterly abstractions of light andabrupt shifts in volume and depth. An intentional slipin the margin of one photograph reveals the shadowlines of a deep set of drawers; in another, a distanthallway that suddenly flips the image into three-dimensional space. Barth harnesses these peripheraldetails as both the subject and departure point forthis series, a method to create composition and, atthe same time, challenge our very perception of it.
The artist continues these notions of space throughthe installation of these works within the reargallery. With the exception of her earliest Ground andField series, this is the only time Barth has renderedher photographs as individual, self-contained images.Each is mounted in a deep, floating frame that shepositions to create a thin shadow line around herworks as a way to "lock down" the image. Barth thenextends this plane of composition onto the surroundingwalls of the gallery by arranging her photographs inresponse to the room itself. She balances images ofvarious sizes and formats against one another as wellas architectural elements such as a doorway or aremote corner, re-articulating our experience of thespace through its quiet idiosyncrasies. As within manyof Barth's installations, her photographs become ameans, rather than merely an end, to her work. Theyare, as Barth herself affirms, "a mantra that allowsus to tune into the subtlest, most ephemeralinformation that I am trying to chase down." *
Uta Barth's work is represented in numerous museumcollections including the Whitney Museum of AmericanArt, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; TheSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and Bilbao,Spain; The Tate Modern, London; The Museum ofContemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of ContemporaryArt, Chicago; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art;The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and The Walker ArtCenter, Minneapolis, among others. Recent exhibitionsinclude Uta Barth: ... and to draw a bright white linewith light at the Art Institute of Chicago, 2011(solo); Magical Consciousness at Arnolfini, Bristol,UK, 2011 (group); Uta Barth at the Henry Art Gallery,University of Washington, Seattle, 2011 (solo) and TheArtist's Museum at The Museum of Contemporary Art, LosAngeles, 2010-2011 (group). In 2010, Gregory R. Miller& Co. (New York) released the artist's major monographpublication titled The Long Now. In 2012, Blind SpotBooks (New York) will publish a catalogue featuringBarth's work from this exhibition.
Jack Strange
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is pleased to present DeepDown, the gallery's second solo exhibition of work byBritish artist Jack Strange. The sculptures, drawings,collages and mixed media installations that composethe show seek to create a visual metaphor for theconsciousness that permeates the physical world, andStrange takes us on an Alice in Wonderland-likejourney in the process. Peeling back ourpreconceptions, Strange reveals the marvelous in the mundane.
In the entry space, U.S. $1, 5, 10, 20, 50, and $100bills have been cut and reassembled into quirkycreatures, evoking questions about value and thequantification of our world. We commonly encountersymbolic characters in everyday objects, but in theseworks and throughout the exhibition, Strange findssuch characters lurking in more obscure, unlikelyplaces. Given the minute scale of the currencycollages, the artist urges us to get close and bedrawn in. This act of drawing the viewer in iscontinued in Staring into Seeing, where the audienceis encouraged to put on headphones and followinstructions about how to stare at the blank whitewall. What feels like an exercise is meant to focusour attention on the act of seeing, including themechanism of the eyes and the involuntary actions ofour bodies.
In Consciousness Combi 1 and Consciousness Combi 2,Strange employs television monitors and vitrinesfilled with water to elegant, hypnotic, Op-Art effect.Refracted light gently bends around colored rods,brown elastic reminiscent of hair strands or twigsfloats or sinks in the water to create a visualdissonance within ordered lines of color. Strangelikens this to how a city or forest changes underdifferent light conditions, and how light affectsfeeling. It can furthermore be considered as ametaphor for the concept of consciousness.
In many works, Strange challenges thephenomenological, the idea that reality consists ofobjects and events as they are understood in humanconsciousness. He seeks to illustrate a subjectiveunderstanding of the world, be it human or otherwise. The artist projects character into vegetables andother inanimate objects to develop an alternate logicand structure, and to touch upon the oblique nature ofthese bodies and their alien aspects. In thisexhibition, thoughts and ideas are revealed to beemotional, even visceral.
Several pieces in the main gallery seem to illustratethe hidden world of vegetables: the growth cycles ofthese plants that we are confounded by, manipulate, orignore, and ultimately rely on. Beginning with aseries titled Metaphorical Vegetables, Strange takesthe tops of supermarket veggies and adheres them tothe wall. Cartoon drawings animate the objects, whichare fresh and edible on the first days of the exhibition, but shrivel and deteriorate by the show's end.
In Fennel, white neon bulbs which spell the word"FENNEL" emerge from the soil. In addition toillustrating Strange's fascination with the cycle oflife inherent in this everyday food item, the piecefurther demonstrates a humor inherent in much of thework. Strange is interested in humor as a form oflogic, and his works provide an experience of whatmight be termed the internal logic of absurdity - themoment between fright and comedy when we don't fullyrecognize and understand something.
Indeed, another work made from the artist's bloodentitled Unbelievably Real also investigates the ideaof humor as a bridge to understanding, and our abilityto cope with disbelief. In this emotionally chargedwork, Strange walks the line between the horrific andthe amazing with a medium so immediate and real that,disembodied and smeared on the wall, it becomessurreal. The artist likens this piece to hystericallaughter, which can overcome and transport us, for amoment, to the edge of insanity.
In the main gallery, Strange's interior world is madeexterior, as the artist pushes our perceived knowledgeand expands the potential of what is supposed to be.Objects of different shapes, sizes, and placementsinteract in a stage-like setting and exude a rhythmand pace. In What Would They Feel? and What Would TheyThink?, a pair of small clay heads and a pair ofenlarged cardboard fingers both watch monitors thatshow the other pair staring back. These works create adoubling or mirror effect while highlighting notionsof "the other." These works question the notion ofviewing, as seeing and feeling is expanded andcontracted. Also, by delving intoanthropomorphization, and creating characters out ofthe inanimate, Strange takes us to the edge of ourhuman understanding.
In three works using computer-animated cartoon seacreatures, repetition of words is used to create avisual effect. The artist began by compiling a list ofwords that attempt to describe everything - the entireuniverse and the full spectrum of consciousness.Whether action-oriented, emotional, or descriptive,the words together form an incoherent message.However, within the artificial vocalization, wherewords deconstruct and transmutate, something beyondthe literal implications of this wordplay registers inthe viewer, evoking a human connection to the cold,technological devices.
Based in London, Jack Strange's work was recentlyfeatured in the group shows The Shape We're In,Zabludowicz Collection, London; An action, event orother that occurs or happens again, One ThoresbyStreet, Trade Gallery, and Bonnington Gallery,Nottingham; Newspeak: British Art Now, SaatchiGallery, London; A Stranger's Window, NottinghamCastle Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham, U.K.; TheThought of Stuff, Royal Society of British Sculptors,London. His work will appear this year and next in theexhibition Outrageous Fortune: Artists remake theTarot, curated by Andrew Hunt at Queens Hall ArtsCentre, Hexham, U.K. traveling to Jersey Art CenterHeller, U.K., Mac, Birmingham, U.K. and HoldenGallery, Manchester, U.K. His work is in the publiccollections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York andthe Mora Art Foundation, Australia, among numerousother private collections.
