"\ (Lean)" Exhibition

Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery

poster for "\ (Lean)" Exhibition

This event has ended.

Leaning an object against the wall is a gesture at once formal and critical. Jettisoning modernist sculpture’s vertical thrust, the leaning work serves as its own armature, a self-sufficient object that is both image and support.

Historically, the lean has destabilized the hegemony of the white cube and the artwork’s specialized status, engaging the space of the viewer. Robert Gober’s 1987 work Plywood , a meticulous re-creation of a plywood sheet, investigates the boundaries between “pure” materiality and artistic convention. Further subverting the relation between image and object are works by Susan Collis, Jay Heikes, and Adam McEwen. John McCracken’s near human-scale titled monoliths invade and reflect space, rendering them at once familiar and monumental. The casual lean of Richard Tuttle’s delicate and playfully handmade works heightens their intimacy. A poetic dialogue with the history of minimal sculpture is palpable in Roni Horn’s White Dickinson series and in works by Mary Heilmann, Sam Moyer, Mitzi Pederson , Gedi Sibony , Keith Sonnier, and Nick van Woert that reconsider everyday materials.
Retaining a trace of performative action within a static state, André Cadere’s Barres are designed to be carried and propped against the wall. Posing the artist as an object toppling over, Bas Jan Ader’s Broken Fall critiques the formalist grid. This humanizing transformation continues in Brendan Fowler’s assemblage and Matt Keegan’s monolithic drywall sheet, while leaning works by Matthew Day Jackson, Rashid Johnson and Nari Ward alchemically fuse personal and cultural history.

Bringing together works with historical import and contemporary relevance, \ (Lean) identifies the radical possibilities of this basic transformative act.

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