Blake Rayne
dal 16/9/2011 al 28/10/2011
Segnalato da
16/9/2011
Blake Rayne
Capitain Petzel, Berlin
Shade Subscription. His work investigates abstract painting in the context of conceptual art, concurrently balancing on the verge of chromatic reduction and ready-made. For this show, Rayne will be interacting with and relating to the space. I start with an orientation that would consider these terms, Painter and Painting, as 'signs,' that is they are 'fictions.' (B. R.)
Gisela Capitain and Friedrich Petzel are pleased to announce the first solo exhibition by Blake
Rayne at Capitain Petzel and the artist's first exhibition in Berlin. Rayne’s work has been
shown in several solo shows in New York, Miami, Paris and London since 1996 and in various
group exhibitions, most recently in the Kunsthall Bergen, Norway, in The Kitchen, New York
and at the Langen Foundation, Neuss.
"Rayne’s elegance is measured by his closeness to banality. There is another way to say
this: the controlled correspondences that Rayne orchestrates are, in Duchamp’s
coinage, infra-mince."
David Lewis, frieze 2008
The show at Capitain Petzel will be Rayne's largest solo exhibition to date. His work has won
praise among art critics in the U.S. and France, and is represented in many private and public
collections, among them the Museum of Modern Art, New York and FRAC Fonds Regional d'Art
Contemporain.
"My attitudes toward the medium of Painting, and my self-identification as a Painter, are
organized by a practice that works on and with the material conditions of Painting. I
start with an orientation that would consider these terms, Painter and Painting, as
“signs,” that is they are “fictions.” This posture maintains that painting is not defined by
any positivistic, static or ahistorical definition which would characterize painting as a
neutral form or purely visual /optic phenomenon. The sign “Painting” is to be
understood as a site that is continually being shaped by linguistic, institutional, and
physical relations."
Blake Rayne Statement
Blake Rayne’s work investigates abstract painting in the context of conceptual art,
concurrently balancing on the verge of chromatic reduction and ready-made. For the show in
Berlin, Rayne will be interacting with and relating to the space in which the works are shown.
The exhibition is currently being prepared in Rayne’s studio in New York, but will not take its
definitive shape before the artist travels to Berlin and finishes the concept in situ.
This conceptual approach with an emphasis on the context and perception of the art work is
typical for Rayne’s approach. In the catalogue text for the group exhibition System Analysis at
Langen Foundation 2011, in which Blake Rayne was included, the curator Christiane Maria
Schneider states this as a significant feature of the participating artists, who all reference
modern painting yet concurrently undermine the conventional way to view this:
"They analyze the system of art by exploring its rudiments and elements: coming to the
fore in lieu of motifs, image content, and iconographic references are technology,
production, and presentation. Hence attention is diverted, with the images and objects
serving as instruments for expanding the view to include the networks of which they
are a part."
Christiane Maria Schneider
Blake Rayne was born in Lewes, Delaware in 1969. He graduated from the California Institute
of the Arts in 1992. From 2003 to 2009 he was Director of Graduate Studies at Columbia
University School of the Arts. He lives and works in New York City.
Image: System Analysis installation view with Blake Rayne, Coutesy the artists and Langen Foundation
@ Langen Foundation 2011, Wolfgang Vollmer Fotografien, Cologne 2011
Press contact:
artpress – Ute Weingarten - Elisabethkirchstraße 15 - 10115 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 21961843 E-Mail: artpress@uteweingarten.de
Opening Saturday 17 September 2011, 6 to 8.30 p.m.
Capitain Petzel
Karl-Marx-Allee 45 - 10178 Berlin
Opening hours: Tuesday–Saturday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.