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28/6/2011

Alisha Kerlin - Phoebe Washburn

Zach Feuer Gallery (new location), New York

ALISHA KERLIN
Perceptible by Comparison

In Gallery 2, Zach Feuer Gallery is pleased to present Perceptible by Comparison, an exhibition of paintings, with accompanying titles, and a photograph by Alisha Kerlin.

Kerlin's paintings are defined by their painterly, luminous, atmospheric grounds built from layers of color on which a single subject is rendered. The objects lean towards solitude - fallen trees, solitaire games, measuring tapes, circling vultures and dangling carrots - but the painterly periphery and titles point to the edge of a wider issue. The paintings enact, and are made sensitive to, assumed relationships between painter, painting and viewer through use of titles such as Two Unequal Players, With one's back to or up against the wall and In the distance she could see the clear blue sea.

Subject matter may be repeated from painting to painting but adjustments, including changes made to account for point of view and the supposed vanishing point, lead to works that embody an autonomous reading independent of the depicted objects. A measuring tape hovers above a watery situation in Riding into the Sunset, acting as a standard unit of comparison between the ground and the viewer's perceived distance from there (perhaps the horizon) to here. A carrot lure dangles from a stick in She hovered anxiously in the background, and a tree is frozen mid-fall in This Side Of, asking the philosophical question: can something exist without being perceived? The show title is inspired by a portrait of a pet shop lizard back-grounded by a grouping of the world's largest dinosaurs, proposing that one's perception is influenced by their comparative position.

Alisha Kerlin, born in 1981, received her MFA from Bard College and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

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PHOEBE WASHBURN
Nunderwater Nort Lab
in collaboration with Mary Boone Gallery

Zach Feuer Gallery, in collaboration with Mary Boone Gallery, is pleased to present two exhibitions by Phoebe Washburn: Nunderwater Nort Lab, a site-specific installation, at Zach Feuer Gallery and Temperatures in a Lab of Superior Specialness, an exhibition of new sculpture, at Mary Boone Gallery.

Phoebe Washburn's work explores generative systems based on absurd patterns of production often created by inefficiency. The rules that govern Washburn's systems of production inform her sculpture and installation formally as well as conceptually.

In Nunderwater Nort Lab, Washburn has devised a site and context specific installation that juxtaposes two seemingly unrelated activities - art and lunch. Lunch is a daily activity, often overlooked, that occasionally infiltrates the gallery art viewing experience. In this installation, visitors will smell lunch as well as observe it being made and eaten inside the installation. The main structure, composed of blocks of scrap wood that have been repurposed and then ordered from previous installations, contains observational 'worm holes' that extend into the structure from which visitors can glean, in addition to hear and smell, bits of the activities occurring inside. In Washburn's work, everyday objects and activities are reinterpreted to create appreciation for process and experience.

Washburn's titles often play on the sounds and meanings of words. In previous works, the subject was designated ORT, a gibberish word that played on the word art. In these works, viewers were encouraged to participate in the system; the system was open to outside influences. The key word in the new work is Nort. Although volunteers are integral to the system, the structure is neither open to the viewer nor involves the viewer's participation in the work. It is, instead, closed to external influences.

At Mary Boone Gallery, Washburn will present new sculpture. These works, like the installation, are composed of material that has been repurposed from previous installations including tables, wood, garden hose, painted rocks and dyed shells. Not only do these works address formal concerns, but as in the installations, create a delicate and precarious balancing act between process, production and product.

Phoebe Washburn was born in 1973 and received a MFA from the School of Visual Arts. Washburn has had exhibitions at the kestner gesellschaft in Hannover, 2008 Whitney Biennial in New York, Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Washburn lives and works in New York, NY.

Image: Alisha Kerlin

Opening reception: Wednesday, June 29, 6-8PM

Zach Feuer Gallery
548 West 22nd Street - New York
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10 - 6
free admission

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