20 March 2007

Sculpture March 2007

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Galerie Kamm, Berlin MOT, London See Line, Los Angeles Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne Black & White Gallery, Williamsburg Mary Mary, Glasgow Next from re-title.com         sign up!

Galerie Kamm, Berlin GUILLAUME LEBLON : THE PERSONAL EFFECTS OF SURYAVARMAN VII The work of Guillaume Leblon consistently interrogates the interrelation between the internal and the external and between form and content. His objects and installations are paradoxical reconstructions from both life and art. In the exhibition The personal effects of Suryavarman VII, the artist’s precise choice of material and his equally precise use of it, functions as a means to circumscribe that which is no longer visible and inaccessible. The exhibition’s guideline is the title of a book by the Swedish writer Stig Dagerman: Our need for consolation is insatiable. The impossibility to succeed in reaching an aim is the tune pervading the entire exhibition. Several of the works on display were created through a process of physical transformation effected by heat. Like an alchemist, Guillaume Leblon exposes his materials to a chain of alterations in order to find the elixir of life – and demonstrates simultaneously the failure of such attempt. Right in the middle of the room, a wall of bricks has been erected, some of which have the shape of letters and formulate the sentence notre besoin de consolation est impossible a rassasier – the French translation of Our need for consolation is insatiable. Fog seeps through the walls of the room, together with the loss of certainty that the separation between inside and outside exists. Carrying the title Landscape, the work turns architecture into nature and allows the exterior to penetrate a built space. Continuing one’s way through the exhibition, the visitor encounters a conglomeration of metal shelves, which might once have served as storage for someone’s personal belongings. Having been exposed to extreme heat, the shelves are now twisted and covered with a patina of smut and blaze. In their transformed state, they serve no other aim but to visualize heat through their form and colour. Adjacent to the shelves, the fragile glass cast of a head, that of Suryavarmann VII, is lying on its side. In its transparency it becomes an image of that which is undescribable, i.e. the contents of what is carried in the mind – in this, the sculpture loses its representative capacity. Only one work, contact, seems to have restored its functioning: it is a pair of used shoes, whose worn-out soles have been reconstructed meticulously and have regained their original shape. However, if one were to wear these shoes, the mended soles would break. Having been repaired with polyester coating, Guillaume Leblon demonstrates once again that they too are not made to reach the destination. Image: Guillaume Leblon “Landscape”, 2003 wall, fog machine, size variable and “Notre besoin de consolation est impossible a rassasier”, 2007 bricks, 168 x 311 x 24 exhibition view Galerie Kamm, Berlin Courtesy Galerie Kamm, Berlin Photo Jens Ziehe Gallery website Read on... Galerie Kamm, Berlin

MOT, London The Receivers : Simon Bedwell Some loosely connected coincidences.. In 1970 Bryan Ferry loses his job teaching ceramics at a girls school, for staging impromptu record-listening sessions. In December 1971 Roxy Music play a try-out gig at the Friends of the Tate Gallery Xmas show in London. In December 2006 Simon Bedwell tells Chris Hammond that he would like his work to have the decadence of an early Roxy Music album cover. In January 2007 Bedwell shows The Furnishers at White Columns, New York. On returning to London he has a strong urge to learn ceramics. In March 2007 Bedwell shows his latest work, The Receivers, at MOT, London Two slightly relevant quotes.. “Are you customised or ready-made? Heavy metal trick or treat? Only seventeen/On the level trash is neat/Caught the flavour want it all/Bet you know the trash I mean. Row your features into magazines/Slips are lower trash is in..” Trash (Bryan Ferry 1979). “Bedwell’s installation juxtaposes thrift store furniture and ornaments, an overhead-projected image, détourned posters, and monochromatic and abstract paintings (that often take the form of modular temporary screens.) In his works Bedwell often collides conflicting aesthetics and visual languages, which variously include soft-porn imagery, the popular gothic (often in the form of horror movie posters), institutional and bureaucratic architecture(s), advertising, modernist painting, and sardonic sloganeering. Seen together, Bedwell’s interventions establish a complex narrative that both engages with and confuses contemporary political and social mores. With a deft humor his work both conflates and disrupts issues of class, race, sexual politics and art.” White Columns press release, (M. Higgs 2007) Some background information.. Simon Bedwell lives and works in London, UK and is represented by MOT International. Recent solo exhibitions and projects include: The Furnishers, White Columns, New York (2007), The Researchers (Byam Shaw School of Art gallery); Gents: A Melodrama with 2 Acts, Platform, London; The Adverts, Ritter/Zamet at Rental Gallery, Los Angeles; Simon Bedwell, Ritter/Zamet (2005). Recent group shows include Bring The War Home, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York; (2006); Post No Bills, White Columns, New York (2005); Becks Futures 5, ICA, London; Galleon and other stories, Saatchi Gallery, London (both 2004.) Bedwell was a founding member of the now defunct artists collective BANK, probably the most important contributor to the London art scene in the 1990s. Image: The Receivers Simon Bedwell, 2007 spray paint on found poster courtesy MOT International Gallery website Read on...MOT, London

See Line, Los Angeles ZACHARY STADEL : HEAT AND DUST See Line Gallery presents Zachary Stadel’s first solo exhibition Heat and Dust. Stadel’s practice addresses the categorical boundaries between sculpture and drawing, sculpture and architectural models, and painting and printing. The works presented in Heat and Dust are part of a larger series that investigate the defining characteristics of and boundaries between painting and sculpture. Zachary Stadel’s choice of materials are familiar: canvas, wood, paint. But the forms they take gesture toward the undefined. Stadel collects bits of dried paint, canvas from previous works and saves unused paint from the studio where he works as an artist’s assistant, and then later incorporates these materials into his work. His amorphous collections of canvas and wood are covered in painterly strokes, their mass developed through long, patient accretion. Although it may not seem like it on the surface. Stadel has developed a practice of making work based on a reinterpretation of Kristeva’s theory of the abject. Using the abject not as a subject but as a method, to extend the categories that we might use to understand sculpture or painting. Creating ambiguity by exchanging the characteristics of one medium with another delays immediate recognition and understanding. Expectations are waylaid and cognitive divisions are breached, affecting what Kristeva described as the "uncertainty of structure and the uncertainty of identity.” Zachary Stadel graduated from the Art Center College of Design MFA program in the fall of 2004, where he studied under a Jacob K. Javits Graduate Fellowship. He has exhibited in several group shows, including the recent Darkness and Light at the Armory Northwest in Pasadena. Stadel has shown in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles image: Zachary Stadel Gossypol, 2007 acrylic on wood 22 x 12 x 8 inches Courtesy of See Line, Los Angeles Gallery website Read on...See Line, Los Angeles

Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne Gereon Krebber: Gewürm The objects by Gereon Krebber (born 1973, lives in London) deal with materiality and ambivalence. Materials like acrylic resin, timber, plaster and foil are used disregarding their original purpose and therefore valued in a new way. Contradictory links and unexpected relations detract the objects from the well- known and easily-recognized. The attraction of surfaces and materials stimulate him to provoke imaginations, puzzleling the given in an individual way and questioning its meaning. Krebber tries to examine the valuation of things and their relation. He explores conditions and constellations in which they can become something new. Entering the gallery the viewer is confronted by a tangled sling made of foil, timber and balloons. The wrapped cling film solidifies into a body, constantly being at the verge of losing its rigid structure. It grows into the shape of a monumental air spiral, absorbing its surroundings in blurred reflections and almost opening up an ideal reality. Further inside, the viewer encounters two devoured pieces made of electric cable reminiscent of a brain. Almost classically shaped resin sculptures meet a regiment of busts. These comic figures are at the same time animal-like and human. However they dismiss any classic representations. Sightless, they authentically only reference themselves and stare almost vindictively. Catalogue launch of Gereon Krebber: All that is solid melts into air - 13th April 2007. Image : Installation views Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne Gallery website Read on... Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne

Black & White Gallery, Williamsburg NATURE’S REVENGE Site-specific installation by REBECCA HERMAN AND MARK SHOFFNER Black & White Gallery // Williamsburg is very pleased to present NATURE’S REVENGE - new, large-scale sculptural installation by collaborating New York artists Rebecca Herman and Mark Shoffner. Herman and Shoffner’s sculptures, installations, and works in the public sphere consider iconic vernacular architecture of punishment and societal control, such as the pillory and the gallows. The indoor gallery features Cultivation, a pair of 10-foot tall hanging gallows grown with living vines. This evolving sculpture is trained on a slender modern frame into the familiar form of the gallows and noose, questioning whether a human need for punishment and revenge is natural or manmade, cultivated or untamed. Also in the indoor gallery is Stump/Block, a sculpture based on the tree stump as crude chopping block. This primitive site for execution is camouflaged and transformed to better fit into the white and pristine gallery setting. The outdoor gallery features Village Green, an interactive sculpture based on the public pillory or “stocks” used in early colonial America. A contemporary interpretation of the rituals of punishment and public shaming, Village Green is an eight-sided pillory, 12 feet in width, with three circles cut out of each side to allow voluntary insertion of one’s heads and hands. Up to eight people will face each other in the stocks, creating a communal- policing situation that suggests a makeshift, self- imposed jail and societal pressure for surveillance of one’s fellow citizens. This modern reincarnation of the pillory refers to American desires for an idealized yet highly restrained “village” community in which society’s rules are enforced in the public arena. The outdoor gallery also features Hunting Blind, two 12-foot tall triangular pieces that scale the high concrete walls. The imposing blinds use a naturalistic leaf pattern to mimic the forest and transpose the outdoor architecture used by hunters to this social urban setting. Visitors will be able to position themselves behind the blind for discreet viewing of the octagonal pillory. NATURE’S REVENGE will also include the 2005 video Broadcast Hut Network, which similarly explores non- pedigreed architecture. The video documents the artists’ series of site-specific sculptures of huts and satellite dishes built in rural Colorado, Iowa, Vermont, and Chiapas, Mexico. In this recent body of work presented in NATURE’S REVENGE, Herman and Shoffner draw on architecture not designed by architects and sculptural works designed by craftsmen and public officials, rather than artists. In previous series, Herman and Shoffner’s work has been inspired by animals’ instinctive means of survival and humans’ “animalistic” methods of adapting to challenges in their environments. Rebecca Herman and Mark Shoffner have collaborated on sculptures, videos, and installations since 1999. Their work has been exhibition at Sculpture Center, Exit Art, The Drawing Center, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and the d.u.m.b.o. arts under the bridge festival, and they have been artists-in- residence at the Catskill Center for Conservation & Development, Platte Clove, NY and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Rebecca Herman has an MFA from the Parsons School of Design (1998) and Mark Shoffner received an MFA from Queens College, CUNY (2000). Image : Village Green , 2007 Pillory: salvaged fir wood & hardware 5.5 (h) x 12 (d) ft Hunting Blinds: spray painted wood, leaf & vine stencil 11x4 ft Gallery website Read on... Black & White Gallery, Williamsburg

Mary Mary, Glasgow Nick Evans : Rational Slab Mary Mary is proud to present a solo show by Glasgow based artist, Nick Evans, his first at the gallery. Following a six month residency and solo show at Tate St.Ives, Evans will present new sculptural works for the exhibition. These new works seek to express a relationship between the dualities of idealism and materialism, the physical and cerebral, horizontal and vertical, the singular and multiple. In Evans’ works however these do not exist as independent states, but bleed into one another, communicating a condition that is both dependent on, and a critique of, the conditions and workings of hierarchical power. Nick Evans’ practice is built on the manipulation of processes familiar to the sculptural canon whilst challenging the traditions within it. By subverting the meaning of material and its construction/deconstruction, Evans explores the possibilities of form as a self conscious dialectical process. This self-consciousness opens avenues for critical readings, providing analytical channels or pathways through which the viewer may negotiate their understanding of the works. Born in 1976, Evans lives and works in Glasgow. Recent exhibitions include a solo show, ‘Abstract Machines,’ Tate St.ives, Cornwall (2006) and ‘Some Newer Formalisms,’ Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow (2005), Selected group shows include ‘Libertation de L’aesthetique,’ The Old Jail, Glasgow and Nick Evans – Tobias Buche, Mary Mary, Glasgow, both 2005. Nick Evans is represented by Mary Mary, Glasgow. Image: Nick Evans Figure Y 2006 Coloured polyester resin & fibreglass on metal stand 210 x 200 x 120 cms / 82 5/8 x 78 3/4 x 47 1/4 ins Courtesy: The Artist; Mary Mary, Glasgow; Tate St.Ives York Gallery website Read on...Mary Mary, Glasgow

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