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14/11/2003

Urban Baroque

Plane Space, New York

Curated by Lisa Ivorian Gray

Plane Space is delighted to present Urban Baroque, an exhibition by guest curator Lisa Ivorian Gray. On exhibition are new artworks by Ian Dawson, Anya Gallaccio and Drew Lowenstein, as well as rarely exhibited work by Steve McQueen. Using a range of different media, each artist looks at the urban environment as a point of departure to reveal a nature that has been used and socialized to such an extent that it is laden with unfixed meanings and not immediately identifiable. The artwork on view in Urban Baroque is as unpredictable and uncertain as the transformative city from which it has evolved.

Ian Dawson (British b. 1969) used a blowtorch to sculpt Assmann ICB 300, 2003, out of a large plastic conical industrial storage container, typically used to hold food produce in factories. The item was ordered over the Internet from an industrial supply company, and then melted and transformed by Dawson into an exuberant and elaborate sculpture. The anthropomorphic shape of Assmann ICB300 is all at once humorous and demanding of awe: a fossil of some ancient and bizarre creature.

Anya Gallaccio (British b. 1963) has created a site- specific sculpture, which mirrors the dimensions of the gallery's old fire station doors. Employing repetition and a minimalist grid, she has placed hundreds of gerbera flowers behind glass. Gallaccio has described the gerbera as a readymade, "grown in factories they are all virtually identical". Typically found at the corner Deli in any city rather than in "true nature" itself, the gerbera is often the flower of children's storybooks; the likeness children draw when they clumsily transfer the floral shape to paper. However, over the course of the exhibition, as the gerberas transform and decay in their contained abundance, they surpass cliché, and open themselves up to a multiplicity of meanings and implications.

Harlem based artist Drew Lowenstein (American b. 1961), by way of large-scale paintings on raw unprimed canvases, exhibits elaborate details of graffiti, architecture, and Dr. Seuss like draughtsmanship. Evocative of the city landscape, these paintings illustrate a dense overlapping of time and movement. Like the energy and the constant hum of urban life, Lowenstein's paintings mesmerize and become strangely hypnotic, as our eyes try to make sense of the artist's delicate balance of color and obscure mystical markings.

Steve McQueen (British b. 1969) exhibits Barrage, 2000 a series of photographs depicting the cloths or rugs used by Paris street cleaners to redirect excess water. These objects take on different meanings, such as fetishized references to the human body. Some are seemingly incongruous, bright in color and splendid against the dirty street, while others are either tightly rolled or decadently sprawled. Barrage exhibits the literalism of minimalist sculpture, while also drawing our attention to the symbolism endemic to the chosen represented material.

An independent curator and producer, Lisa Ivorian Gray received her Masters in Post-War and Contemporary Art from Sotheby's, Manchester University in 1997. She has commissioned artworks and curated corporate art collections for Artwise, London, and produced limited edition artworks with artists such as Tom Friedman, Julie Mehretu, Jim Hodges and Olafur Eliasson for the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Urban Baroque is her curatorial debut in New York City.

Ian Dawson exhibits internationally, and has recently had a solo exhibition with James Cohan Gallery, New York, and at Grand Arts in Kansas City, Missouri. The artist is represented by both James Cohan Gallery and Modern Art, London. Anya Gallaccio also exhibits internationally, and has been short listed for the Turner prize award 2003. Recent solo exhibitions include those at Ikon, Birmingham and a sculpture commission for Tate Britain, London. Gallaccio is represented by Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York. A graduate of Bard College, New York, Drew Lowenstein recently had an exhibition of drawings at Solomon Projects, Atlanta. Winner of the 1999 Turner Prize, Steve McQueen recently staged a one-time performance at Tate Britain, and had solo exhibitions at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Art Institute of Chicago. McQueen is represented by Marian Goodman Gallery.

Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment

Opening Reception: Saturday, November 15th, 6-8 p.m.

Plane Space
102 Charles Street
New York
tel 917 6061268
fax 917 6061265

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