Alexandre da Cunha “Amazons”
CRG Gallery
This event has ended.
CRG Gallery announces Amazons, an exhibition of new work by Alexandre da Cunha, which will inaugurate the gallery’s new Lower East Side location. This show will mark the Brazilian born, London based artist’s second exhibition with CRG Gallery. The exhibition’s title references both the mythological female warriors as well as a region in Brazil. This will be da Cunha’s first exhibition to focus exclusively on wall works.
Amazons consists of commercially produced, printed beach towels mounted to stretchers with a collage of found fabrics applied. The found fabrics are place mats, sails, clothing (replete with use stains); t-shirts, raincoats, etc. In several towels there is an image of a quasi- naked figure with an animal (tiger, snake, horse). For the artist, these images reference goddesses of classic iconography found in historic painting. In other works, multiple towels with the same image are sewn together in a serial sequence and dyed with different tones.
These suggest a comparison to conventions of some contemporary “figure paintings” e.g. Alex Katz, Robert Rauschenberg, Sigmar Polke, Martin Kippenberger.
The object trouvés approach is fundamental to Alexandre da Cunha’s practice. Known everyday objects when removed from their familiar context take on a new significance. Beach towels simultaneously evoke the exotic and stereotypes (beach culture, tropical countries, tourism, etc.). Jens Hoffman wrote about da Cunha’s works as “tropical ready mades”, an association the artist likes.
Media
Schedule
from September 10, 2015 to October 25, 2015
Opening Reception on 2015-09-09 from 18:00 to 20:00