NYAB Event - Sylvan Lionni "Lost in America"

Sylvan Lionni "Lost in America"

Kansas

This event has ended.

KANSAS presents Lost in America, a solo exhibition of new work by Sylvan Lionni.

Sylvan Lionni reinterprets established hierarchies and dissolves cultural hegemony through appropriative techniques which deconstruct symbolic objects and their clichés. Familar icons are illuminated by a new vocabulary that serves to charter networks of analogy between lived and imagined form.

Lionni's hard-edged practice finds resource in social geometry - the means by which we order our daily lives in response to the quiet spatial and structural relationships that passively inform our thoughts, movements, and impulses. Fascinated by the overlooked details embedded in the American mundane, his latest body of work aims to qualify material, aesthetic, and conceptual properties within our revolving banality. A tidy pile of monochromatic laundry bags, a cheap, optical shower curtain, vibrant restaurant computer keypads, and glossy household printer paper are all visual moments the artist has transformed into man-made reproductions. The works in this exhibition translate the humdrum index of commercial manufacture into artifacts of our cultural gestalt.

The effects of Post-Fordism and pluralist modes of production have forced examination of the use/value relationship within contemporary art. Lionni removes the signifiers of culture's mass-production in an effort to slow down and embrace the currency of labor. He describes and depicts an American life framed by daily ritual and placid routine. Lionni belives this humble mode brands the idea of being Lost in America today.

Sylvan Lionni received his MFA from Bard College, NY and BFA from the School of Visual Arts, NY. His solo exhibitions include Freight + Volume, New York, NY; Rebecca Ibel Gallery, Columbus, OH; Fusebox, Washington, DC and Rome Arts, Brooklyn, NY. His work has been seen in such venues as Sue Scott Gallery, New York, NY; Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, GE; Stene Projects, Stockholm, SE; Zurcher Studios, New York, NY; MUMOK, Vienna, AU; The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR; The Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL; White Columns, New York, NY and David Castillo, Miami, FL among many others.

This is Sylvan Lionni's first solo show with KANSAS. He currently lives and works in Eugene, OR.