"Powders, a Phial and a Paper Book" Exhibition
Marlborough Chelsea
This event has ended.
Borrowed from Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the ingredients “powders, a phial and a paper book” are those used by the titular characters in their many physical transformations, though the specific nature of each is never further revealed. The objects and elements used by the artists in this exhibition have also undergone a myriad of transformations, while their processes maintain the same degree of ambiguity.
In Notice, 2010, Patrick Hill seemingly impales two slabs of Carrara marble with a small stack of ordinary envelopes. Ethan Greenbaum’s site-specific installation, Untitled, 2011, masks the cold, dense nature of concrete cinderblocks by playfully integrating multi-colored plasticine between each block. David Rodriguez Caballero similarly lightens the industrial character of aluminum in his subtle wall reliefs painted with brushed enamel surfaces, entitled 22.Mayo.2009, 01.Diciembre.2010 and 10.Enero.2010-A.
Orange Ramparts, 2006, a quintessential example of Jeff Elrod’s “Analog” paintings, is a meticulously rendered acrylic on canvas representation of a freeform drawing originally created by the artist using a rudimentary computer graphics program. Talia Chetrit’s suite of three silver gelatin prints share a similar technological aesthetic as she draws in space using an array of indistinct objects. In Limited from Unlimited, a work on paper from 1999 by the acclaimed contemporary Indian artist Alwar Balasubramaniam, fingerprints are subtly given unique character through the his use of velvet powder and silicon in the silkscreen process.
Vlatka Horvat’s Ladder, 2009 cleverly consists of one aluminum ladder, split in two, installed on opposite sides of the same gallery wall as if it is actively penetrating the wall. In Wall Slash II, 1988, an iconic work by Keith Sonnier included in the artist’s 1989 Hirshhorn Museum exhibition, a complex composition of neon lights and aluminum takes on an imposingly human form.
Seminal works by Martin Kline, Bruce Robbins, Victor Pasmore and Carl Andre will also be included in the exhibition. Kline’s monochromatic Epiphany, 2008 is a signature example of the artist’s encaustic reliefs where the material grows toward the center as if by an unseen gravitational pull. In the work of Bruce Robbins, gesturally rendered layers of gesso, enamel and acrylic highlight the formal elements of the varying media on which they’re applied. The signature paintings A Line from the Tune of Swanee River, 1987 and Untitled, 1988 by Victor Pasmore, a towering figure in the early years of British Abstract Art, demonstrate the artist’s innovative framing of an abstract composition using both canvas and wood. And Carl Andre’s Pentehearn from 1997 is an iconic example of a work composed of recontextualized
Media
Schedule
from March 03, 2011 to April 02, 2011