NYAB Event - castaneda/reiman "Sculptures of Paintings of Places We’ve Never Been"

castaneda/reiman "Sculptures of Paintings of Places We’ve Never Been"

DCKT Contemporary

This event has ended.

castaneda/reiman here unite their mutual fascination with found landscapes and their ongoing concern with the relationship between the natural landscape and the desire for its representation in domestic spaces. At first glance, the installation appears to include these traditional landscape paintings. However, upon closer inspection, the installation is revealed as a collection of ersatz replicas constructed from plywood panels, drywall mud and other materials commonly found on construction sites - a methodology that has been consistently associated with castaneda/reiman’s art-making practice throughout their nearly twenty year collaboration.

These replicas use the landscape imagery literally and conceptually as a foundation by printing them directly on the drywall surface. Just as landscape paintings function in domestic spaces as stand-ins or reminders of places or horizons, the representations in the installation serve as stand-ins for the paintings themselves. In the greater installation, oak hardwood details serve as symbols of how elements of the natural world are placed into the service of interior domestic landscapes. Units of stacked drywall are framed in oak, subtly and ambiguously suggesting the fabrication of a home or the framing of a painting.

These most recent sculptures and objects demonstrate a fundamental shift in castaneda/reiman's process. While still considering the architectural environment, their concerns have moved from the rigid structures that support a space to the residuum of materials reflected in those spaces. Through these sculptures, they rebuild and reinterpret the subjects of their collection into awkward and informal depictions of landscape collage.

castaneda/reiman are collaborative artists who live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area.