Auto Correct
dal 7/8/2015 al 15/8/2015
Segnalato da
7/8/2015
Auto Correct
Derek Eller Gallery, New York
In this exhibition, new paintings by Despina Stokou, ambitious in scale and breadth, commingle with sculptures, furniture, ceramics and drawings by Peter Shire.
Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to
present an off-site exhibition in Los
Angeles, featuring new work by
Despina Stokou and Peter Shire.
Both Despina Stokou and Peter Shire
utilize strategies and language from
throughout the spectrum of taste.
Each borrow freely from popular
culture and art historical references
and in doing so work to subvert
expectations. In this exhibition, new
paintings by Stokou, ambitious in scale
and breadth, commingle with sculptures, furniture, ceramics and drawings by Shire.
Despina Stokou’s furiously energetic canvases layer text, collage, charcoal, and oil paint. These paintings
react with immediacy to the breakneck speed of our daily information consumption while maintaining an
inventive sensitivity to the history of expressive mark making. Her paintings incorporate sources as varied
as html code, song lyrics, blog posts, classical music compositions, and most recently emojis. While these
new emoji paintings are a slight departure from her earlier text based paintings, they continue a trajectory
of exploring contemporary vernacular. Reacting to the information in her periphery through densely
layered gestures, Stokou creates a new conversation about collapses of language as they relate to the
history of abstraction today.
Peter Shire’s practice consistently crosses boundaries of craft, design, traditional and contemporary
understandings of fine art. A founding member of the Memphis, the notorious design and architecture
collective based in Milan, he collaborated in each annual collection from 1981-88, contributing furniture,
metal work, and ceramic sculptures. He has since continued to create work that refuses to pick sides in
the fight between formal and functional. For this exhibition Shire has produced sculptures, drawings, a
cabinet, and topsy turvey ceramic cups. Reflecting an on-going involvement in public work, Russian
Utopianists: El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich and Jacques Tati. Modernist geometric abstraction combined
with a populous working class sympathy, industrial materials, and the language of commerce in our time,
creates a questioning of the values of the things around us.
In Auto Correct both Stokou and Shire confront implied hierarchies head on. Each artists work with
urgency towards a broader cultural context, one that reflects this duality; one where emojis,
Constructivism, mass produced objects and expressionism, and even the continuum of fine art languages
exist on a brightly colored, exuberantly level playing field.
Image: Despina Stokou | Peter Shire
Opening: Sat Aug 8 6pm
Derek Eller Gallery
615 West 27th Street, New York
Tue - Sat 11am to 6pm