Ciprian Muresan “All Images from a Book…”

Ciprian Muresan “All Images from a Book…”

David Nolan Gallery

This event has ended.

David Nolan Gallery presents All Images from a Book…, an exhibition of new work by Ciprian Muresan, the artist’s second solo show with the gallery. Bringing together a thematically interrelated group of works - albeit in characteristically diverse media - the exhibition will include a suite of recent drawings, a floor-bound sculpture, and a wall-mounted brass relief.

Muresan (b. 1977, Romania) is best known for his subtly subversive and darkly humorous work often touching on the failed ideals in the aftermath of Communist rule in Eastern Europe. In recent years, his conceptually oriented practice has involved drawing, printmaking, video, found-object sculpture and puppetry performance. In his newest body of work, the artist takes on the highly charged topic of artistic reproduction. For Muresan, the arena of reproduction is of particular significance, as it was through the study of printed copies of historical artworks - as opposed to first-hand encounters with the originals - that he resolved to become an artist. Moreover, in Romanian art schools the meticulous copying of classic paintings and sculptures remains at the cornerstone of an artistic education.

In a group of seven new works on paper, the artist continues his series of “Palimpsest” drawings, started in 2013, wherein every image from a given book or magazine is hand-rendered (with the aid of a light box) in overlapping layers of graphite pencil onto a single sheet of paper. One such drawing, All Images from a Book on Holbein (2017), comprises images from a monograph on the 16th century portraitist, Hans Holbein the Younger. On close inspection, intermittently decipherable images of famous historical figures come in and out of focus. Muresan’s approach to replication, however, is distinctly different from classic appropriation art, and has more in common with the musical practice of remixing - while certain elements are recycled, the end-product has an uncanny, diffuse relationship to its source material.

Work by the artist can be found in public collections worldwide, including Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Ludwig Museum, Budapest; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Tate Gallery, London. Muresan was recently selected to participate in VIVA ARTE VIVA, the 57th edition of the Venice Biennale exhibition, curated by Christine Macel (Chief Curator, Centre Pompidou, Paris) and is the recipient of the 2017 Drawing Prize awarded by the Daniel and Florence Guerlain Contemporary Art Foundation. Concurrent to his exhibition at David Nolan Gallery, Muresan is also participating in the first ever edition of the Kathmandu Triennale in Nepal.

Media

• Drawing
• Sculpture

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