Dylan Stone's project to reconstruct in miniature the photographs of Eugene Atget taken at the turn of the Twentieth Century was first inspired by a piece done by Sherrie Levine at Paula Cooper Gallery in 1997, where Levine appropriated Atgets photographs and exhibited them in delicate walnut frames. Taken with the sentimentality of this installation Stone decided to once again reinvent Atgets interiors.
Sherrie Levine by Dylan Stone
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery is pleased to present Sherrie Levine By Dylan
Stone; the exhibition will open on October 17 and run through November 18,
2002.
Dylan Stones project to reconstruct in miniature the photographs of
Eugene Atget taken at the turn of the Twentieth Century was first inspired
by a piece done by Sherrie Levine at Paula Cooper Gallery in 1997, where
Levine appropriated Atgets photographs and exhibited them in delicate
walnut frames. Taken with the sentimentality of this installation Stone
decided to once again reinvent Atgets interiors. Using Atgets original
book titled Intérieurs Parisiens Début du Vingtième Siècle Artistiques
Pittoresques et Bourgeois, Stone set out to reassemble these interiors
within the confines of a shoebox. While the boxes vary in shape and size,
each interior measures exactly 8 inches high and depicts in three
dimensions the exact contents of Atget's photographs down to the smallest
inlay of wood. Stone brings these black and white photographs to life by
using bits of vividly colored paper he has collected since his childhood.
The artist has titled each of his boxes, once completed, exactly as Atget
titled his photographs. The interiors are identified by the owner of the
apartments profession; thus protecting the owners identity while
alluding to his or her social stature. Void of human form, these empty
spaces serve as a pedestal for the objects of both the wealthy and the
working class, signifying the architectural and decorative style of the
era.
Ironically, for the past six months Stone has been living in London in a
mansion (decorated in the same 19th century style as Atgets Parisian
interiors) acting as caretaker for the estate while constructing his
shoeboxes. He describes how sentimental objects are shifted from room to
room within the house to make space for new gifts and art; the artist
directly parallels this pattern of rearranging to Atgets manipulation of
the interiors he was photographing. Stone embraces the absurdity of his
task. Yet he is compelled to continue, thereby elevating the romantic
over the sensible: reconstructing these antiquated objects in all their
glorious and desperate sentimentality.
This is not the first large project that Stone has taken on, nor is it the
first time he has demonstrated an interest in the architecture of 19th
century France. In 1998, Stone presented an installation titled Wont You
Come and See My Master Drawings where he built a full-scale French sitting
room, complete with decorative moldings and detailed mantle-pieces. In
2000, Stone presented a project at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, titled
Drugstore Photographs or a Trip Along the Yangtze River, where he
photographed every building on every block on the tip of Manhattan (below
14th Street) with a point and shoot camera. The entire project has since
been purchased and in the collection of the New York Public Library.
For more information please contact the gallery at:
212.243.3335 or email
Opening reception, Thursday October 17, 6 - 8 pm
Image: Drugstore Photographs or A Trip Along the Yangtze River, 1999
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery
526 W. 26th Street New York, NY 10001
T: 212.243.3335 F: 212.243.1059