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1/4/2010

Gabriel Vormstein / Jeff Burton

Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York

Gabriel Vormstein

Casey Kaplan is pleased to present a new body of work by German artist, Gabriel Vormstein. In his third exhibition at the gallery, Vormstein presents six portraits on newspaper of women appropriated from artworks by Austrian artist, Egon Schiele (1890 -1918).

Vormstein’s interest in exploring the relationship between figuration and abstraction began under the teachings of Andreas Slominski and Silvia Bächli at the Staatlichen Academy in Karlsruhe, where he graduated in 2001. Inspired by an adoration of art history, specifically symbolic, romantic gestures and Modernism, Vormstein looks to Schiele. The quality of line that caresses each female body resurrects the late, young artist. In this exhibition, the ground onto which the women take form and the medium that flows from their clothes, hair and makeup is where the drama unfolds.

Vormstein believes that it is important to re-examine the lessons of Modernism. By redrawing the figures, he is capturing the body as an abstract shape that can be filled with new choices of color and medium, in his case the ground of newspapers, particularly the mechanical text of the financial pages. For the past ten years, Vormstein has worked with newspaper and other transient, organic, and “poor” materials, reminiscent of Arte Povera. His paintings have catalogued days, moments in time, and fleeting histories through the text and images that adorn his chosen ‘canvases’.

The women portrayed in the portraits stand alone, psychologically charged and complex. Their fragility is mirrored in Vormstein’s choice relationship between figure and ground. Simultaneously, in contrast with the women’s graphic skin, watercolor and gouache flow freely in their inherent, transparent fluidity; blending foreground with back, hair with clothes and makeup to skin. Like protagonists in a story, new characters are revealed through Vormstein’s personal inflections. Informing one another the portraits resonate, transcending time.

Gabriel Vormstein (b. 1974 in Konstanz, Germany) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Recently, Vormstein had a solo exhibition, “Papyrus containing the spell top reserve its possessor,” at Meyer Riegger, Berlin, Germany, 2009. Group exhibitions include “Seltsam, so lose im Raum,” Kulturstiftung Schloss Agathenburg, Agathenburg, Germany, curated by Sabine Mila Kunz, through May 24, 2010; “Cargo Manifest,” Kunsthalle Autocenter, Berlin, Germany, 2009; “Berlin 2000,” PaceWildenstein, New York, New York, 2009; “Don Brown, Daniel Lergon, R.H.Quaytman, Gabriel Vormstein, Lawrence Weiner”, Almine Rech Gallery, Bruxelles, Belgium, 2009; “Fit to Print”, Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY, 2008; "Made in Germany“, Kestner Gesellschaft, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover, Germany, 2007; “Of Mice + Men: 4th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art”, curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni, and Ali Subotnick, Berlin, Germany, 2006. The artist was the recipient of the Graduiertenstipendium des Landes Baden-Württemberg Award in 2002 and is nominated for the 2009/2010 Sovereign European Art prize.

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Jeff Burton

Casey Kaplan is pleased to present a new series of photographs by Jeff Burton, Portraits, an inclusive look at his career photographing actors, models, filmmakers, and other diverse figures, including: Gore Vidal, Sasha Grey, Kenneth Anger, Danica Patrick, Vincent Gallo, Dasha Zhukova, and Morrissey.

Burton’s artwork continues to derive from his profession as a photographer. Previously, shooting stills in the adult film industry, Burton investigated its stage through a voyeuristic point of view. His works portrayed nuances between reality and fantasy, narrating the underlying drives of Los Angeles’ cultural environment, in an industry fabricating desires and expectations. Burton’s recent assignments, in such fields as fashion and celebrity portraiture, reveal that these contexts run on the same drives as the adult film industry. The stories his new works tell expand into a larger cultural arena, yet his investigations remain the psychosexual, the meeting of art and commerciality, and the rawness and refinement of physical desire and lust.

In these expanded arenas, Burton’s role is more of a director, but his viewpoint still realizes the periphery—a lack of direct eye contact and obstructed viewing through reflections in glass and mirrors, for example. In projects for Burton’s clientele (French Vogue, Cocky Boys, Tom Ford, Wrangler Europe, Vogue Hommes International, Naughty America, Colt Studio Group, Yves Saint Laurent, The New York Times, Hustler, Domus, Kris Van Assche, Vanity Fair, and Fantastic Man), he often acknowledges the cultural industries and their environments as a set (literally at times by shooting through its constructions as such), and his access to cultural producers and pop icons.

Through Burton’s gaze, iconic individuals and lesser-known talents share the same stage; a casual Diane Kruger stares out, at a removal, from the camera’s lens, Bret Easton Ellis is hidden by dark sunglasses and silhouetted by the LA skyline at dusk, and Ricky Martinez stands heroically in a wheat field, bare-chested and dressed as a cowboy. In addition, figures from Burton’s personal world and interests—a pregnant friend (who styles many of his fashion assignments) and his childhood obsession and crush, Stella Stevens—layer intimacy with more recognizable figures, as Chi Chi Larue, Joaquin Phoenix, Tom Ford, and Jeremy Renner.

Portraits foretells that Burton’s straddling of art and commerciality will continue to blur. The differences between the porn world and that of fashion, art, and other pop realms, are in many ways seamless, as they continue to be introduced, commingled, and cataloged into his artworks. As his rolodex grows (a precursor in a previous work-- Burton shot Hollywood super agent Sue Menger’s rolodex) Burton’s subjects become more peculiar, fascinating, wretched, or sweet, in respect to his or her company.

This exhibition is Jeff Burton’s seventh solo show with the gallery. Burton will be included in the upcoming exhibition, “I want to see how you see” at the Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany, opening later in April 2010. Recent exhibitions include: “Wall Rockets: Contemporary Artists and Ed Ruscha,” at the Flag Art Foundation and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; “Into Me/Out of Me,” at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, LIC, NY, which traveled to KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany and to MACRO (Museo d’Arte Contemporanea), Rome, Italy.

For further exhibition information please contact Loring Randolph
loring@caseykaplangallery.com

Image: Gabriel Vormstein

Opening Friday April 2, 6-8pm

Casey Kaplan Gallery
525 West 21st Street 212 - New York
Hours: Tue-Sat, 10AM – 6PM
free admission

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