Stefany Lazar and Yuu Takamizawa “Copies”

Stefany Lazar and Yuu Takamizawa “Copies”

King's Leap

This event has ended.

King’s Leap presents an exhibition of works by Stefany Lazar and Yuu Takamizawa, titled Copies.

Yuu Takamizawa presents three works in this exhibition that, in part, directly reference his most recent solo exhibition at imlabor, a gallery in Tokyo. In the original work, A bench for viewers to sit on during my show at imlabor 2x2x2, Takamizawa purchased a bench from an online auction for his show. The bench was displayed as a readymade in its original packaging, wrapped in cardboard and stretch film. Across from this work, six photographs of the bench taken from the original auction posting were matted together and framed.

In Untitled, here at King’s Leap, Takamizawa has made a replica of A bench for viewers to sit on during my show at imlabor 2x2x2. Takamizawa fabricated his own bench of the same size, packed it in cardboard that has been screen-printed using the image of the original cardboard of the previously existing piece, and wrapped the bench in stretch film. Finally, like in his solo show at imlabor, Takamizawa places six photographs of the original bench in a frame. This time, however, he himself has photographed the bench in the same manner as the auction photographs. In doing so, Takamizawa further complicates the experience of an artwork, obscuring its production, origin, and use from the audience.

Stefany Lazar displays 17 sculptures of various small sizes, which appear at first glance as banal consumer products. Last year, Lazar began frequenting an overstock retail store. Filtering through off-brand goods and ephemera, Lazar acquired pieces over several trips. She then methodically photographed each side of these objects, printing and mounting the images to scale on plexiglass boxes cut to their corresponding source material. The resultant sculptures present as exact copies of the objects she purchased. Each detail is remade: from custom plastic wrapping, to the bar code stickers that she photographed and placed on top. The final artworks de-emphasize their own craft; they suggest a mechanics of production and value that exists beneath all industrial objects, whether innocuous or refined.

Lazar and Takamizawa actively disrupt the traditional aesthetic experience, wherein their respective works consider the fraught nature of origin and scarcity. The audience must grapple with the doubt that is proposed by the double of an object as an artwork. In that doubt, we question what is fundamentally assumed within objects considered to be unique: an assumption that reinforces a logic of authorship and audience as given forms in relation and exchange.
Stefany Lazar (b. 1995 New York, NY) is an artist living in New York. Recent group exhibitions include ACOMPI (New York, NY), One Work - One Piece - One Week curated by Daisy Sanchez (New York, NY), and King’s Leap. Upcoming group exhibitions include 4649 (Tokyo, Japan).

Yuu Takamizawa (b. 1990, Tokyo, Japan) is an artist based in Tokyo, Japan. Recent group exhibitions include Maxwell Graham/Essex Street (New York, NY). Recent solo exhibitions include imlabor (Tokyo, Japan), and 4649 (Tokyo, Japan). He is also a director of the artist-run space 4649, in Tokyo, Japan.

Media

• Installation

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