Lucas Michael “Transcriptions”

FIERMAN

[Image: Lucas Michael "Transcription 0625" (2018) india ink and graphite on canvas 60 x 43 in.]

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FIERMAN presents Transcriptions, a solo exhibition by Argentinian-born New York based artist Lucas Michael. It is his first solo exhibition with the gallery, following his inclusion in the 2019 group show Circus of Books. Michael is known for his conceptual explorations into systems and regimes of power and the ways language and symbols can be used as both agents of repression and subversive code. The work on view, all titled Transcriptions, emerge from his ongoing interest in the book form and specifically reference the Rorschach inkblot. Like much of his work, the new paintings are abstract: in his own words, Michael uses abstraction “as a form of drag,” to mask he personal and the contextual, the histrionic, the psycho-sexual, and the socio-historical in the guise of visual universality.

Michael’s new paintings are comprised of India ink on raw, un-stretched canvas. The technique is simultaneously controlled and aleatory, akin to automatic writing; he is using an ink-coated string pulled between folds of the canvas, not fully knowing the visual form until after the marks have been made. They are semi-symmetrical and in varying tonalities of black based on the density of the ink. Their relation to the Rorschach test is both formal and conceptual, recalling the psychological and diagnostic nature of the original. The paintings are an extension of an earlier project in which Michael obscured the pages of pseudo-scientific racist and homophobic books with abstract ink blots. Visually the compositions are both micro and macroscopic, calling to mind both the cosmos and the contents of a single cell.

Alongside the Transcriptions Michael will be exhibiting selections from a series of black and white ink-on-paper drawings. The technique is similar to the paintings, though the forms all resemble a faceless human head, reifying the inscrutability of the human mind in opposition to external forces attempting to codify, define, and as such oppress marginalized groups.

Lucas Michael (b. 1965, Argentina) received his B.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design, and lives and works in New York City. His practice spans video, photography, drawing, sculpture and installation. His work has been exhibited at The Hammer Museum and Getty Center in Los Angeles; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Bahia Blanca, Argentina; S.M.A.K. Museum, Gent, Belgium; Leslie Lohman Museum, Apexart and White Columns in New York City, among others. His work has been written about in Artforum, Frieze, Interview, Tema Celeste among many others.