Karim Rashid
dal 4/9/2002 al 5/10/2002
Segnalato da
4/9/2002
Karim Rashid
Sandra Gering Gallery, New York
Organomica
"If freedom were a form it would be a never-ending undulating boundless
biomorphic shape that is in perpetual motion. Form follows Fluid."
Sandra Gering Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by
Karim Rashid from 5 September through 5 October 2002. Included in the
exhibition will be a series of Mutablob sculptures, related digital
paintings, and limited edition ceramics.
Like the design objects that Karim is famous for, the sculptural objects in
his Mutablob series embody sensual minimalism and a digital aesthetic he
calls 'technorganic'. Their curvaceous, biomorphic forms and luscious
colors seduce the viewer. Presented as a linear series, the Mutablobs
recreate the evolution of a form from an embryonic stage, a liquid plastic
hermaphroditic evolution. The 30 sculptures are literally physical
manifestations of still frames of a computer-generated form that grows into
itself, an evolving mutation from a 3-d virtual world. At specific timed
stages of the evolution of the form the data is sent to a rapid-robotic
prototyping machine and each 3-d data is then built in plastic.
What seems like a viscous material grows and contorts, finally wrapping
back around. The varieties of forms created in the Mutablob series also
become compositional elements in four digital paintings. Each object is a
one-off and the data is destroyed so the object is never repeated a
concept coined by Karim in 1995 called Digital Craft, a method of using
digital production methods to create one-off objects.
Karim has a great love for inspiring neoteric things. He believes that the
new objects that shape our lives are transconceptual, multi-cultural
hybrids, objects and spaces that can exist anywhere in different contexts,
that are natural and synthetic, that are inspired through
telecommunications, information and behavior.
"Our physical world can captivate the energy and phenomena of this
contemporary universal softness of the digital age, the birth of new
industrial processes, new materials, and new design tools. Global markets
are new organic systems. I feel new culture demands new forms, new spaces,
new ways of living, material and style. Denying technology is denying our
present, our contemporary way of life, beauty, a belief in one's own
capacity and possibility of self-being."
The limited edition ceramics bring together Karim's recognizable,
contemporary sense of form and color with the traditional material of
ceramic, the result being objects of extraordinary elegance and beauty.
Produced one at a time by hand in Rome, they are limited editions of 9
each. As with Karim's 5 Senses ceramics previously shown at Sandra Gering
Gallery in 1999, these ceramics are functional vases and also exist as
purely aesthetic, sculptural objects. Karim's trademark organic forms are
first glazed in black and white and then further glazed in pure gold or
pure platinum. In some pieces, the interiors are painted with fluorescent,
cold-worked acrylic, presenting a beautiful contrast to the gold and
platinum exteriors. One of Karim's desires is to create objects (design or
fine art) that bring pleasure through visual seduction; the ceramics take
this to a new level, with forms, colors, and materials that are impossible
to resist.
One of the best known contemporary industrial designers globally, Karim
Rashid exhibits at Sandra Gering Gallery unique pieces that bridge the
worlds of sculpture, art, and design. In the past several years, Karim's
work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, and the Wexner Center for the Arts, Brooklyn Museum of Art,
and the Cooper-Hewitt, among others. This is his third solo exhibition at
Sandra Gering Gallery. Rashid's monograph I Want to Change the World was
published by Universe Publishing/Rizzoli in 2001.
Sandra Gering Gallery - 534 West 22nd Street, ground floor, NYC