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23/2/2007

Oliver Herring

Max Protetch, New York

Solo show

Max Protetch gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by New York-based artist Oliver Herring. This exhibition expands Herring’s investigation into collaborative practices that incorporate photography, video, sculpture, performance, and social space. For this show, Herring has continued to collaborate with strangers and friends to produce sculptural works and videos. Continuing his project from his 2004 exhibition at the gallery, Herring has produced new life-size figures, sculpted from life and plastered with thousands of photographs. In an unusually intimate encounter between artist and model, Herring convinced his two subjects, Wade and Sheryl, one a stranger and one a longtime friend, to pose nude in his studio where they would be sculpted from polystyrene and photographed in extreme closeup, documenting every square inch of their bodies.

Departing from the literal, photo-realistic aspect of previous works, here Herring manipulates the contrast and saturation levels of the photographs. Asserting his subjective involvement in the process, Herring produced two Wades, thus enabling viewers to compare drastic differences between the irregularly cloned figures. With these new works, Herring also stripped the models of their clothing, directly addressing their nudity as a means of amplifying the intimacy of his experience with the subject. As a counterpoint to the figures, Herring will incorporate his Task performances — large-scale participatory events predominantly self-directed by participants — into the exhibition through photographs of his most recent event at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and an interactive blog that invites past participants and viewers to exchange ideas. The four past Task performances have been executed at museums and urban landmarks and were designed to create platforms for strangers from diverse backgrounds to interact with one another and express parts of their personality often left dormant.

The exhibition will also feature at least three new videos and a number of smaller photographic sculptures. A myriad of images shot during the process of making the works will also be shown; they are fragments and outtakes extracted from a multi-tiered creative process. In conceiving the exhibition, the artist identified the ideas of play, failure, and inclusiveness as key elements in working toward a more open process of art making. To achieve this, Herring has explored different strategies, ranging from intimate and private activities, or in the case of the Task performances, monumental interventions in public space.

Reception: saturday 24 february 2007

Max Protetch
511 W. 22end Street - New York
Free admission

stampa

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