Balancing Acts
dal 25/10/2000 al 25/11/2000
Segnalato da
25/10/2000
Balancing Acts
Florence Lynch Gallery, New York
Florence Lynch Gallery is pleased to present Balancing Acts, an exhibition of recent embroidery, felt and origami by Christa Maiwald. The exhibition's title refers to the balance of opposing elements within Maiwald's work - the Subtle and the obvious, the Pop and the painterly, the innocent and the lewd.
Christa Maiwald
Florence Lynch Gallery is pleased to present Balancing Acts, an
exhibition of recent embroidery, felt and origami by Christa Maiwald.
The exhibition's title refers to the balance of opposing elements within
Maiwald's work - the Subtle and the obvious, the Pop and the painterly,
the innocent and the lewd. Nowhere is this more apparent than in her
recent embroidery and felt pieces. Hand sewn on cotton and linen
handkerchiefs, the embroideries are executed with a richly detailed
elegance reminiscent of early Christian mosaics, but the delicacy of
technique and materials is offset by images that are funny, mysterious,
even profane, such as anthropomorphic penises and naughty pubescent
girls. The felt pieces, constructed of cut and sewn images and words,
are more cartoon-like, and full of visual puns.
Work from the Artist's East/West series is included in the show.
Maiwald's longstanding fascination with Asian art and aesthetics is
offset by her compulsion to play with images, to put even the beautiful
in service of sometimes whimsical, sometimes mysterious, sometimes
perverse, ends. Her "Illuminations" consist of fifty brilliantly painted
gouaches on mylar that contrast modern with traditional Asia, and both
with the Contemporary West. Each has a short title painted on a strip of
origami paper affixed to the top of the work. The titles have the tone
of proverbs or fortune cookies - "Fleeting Moment in a Pondered Glance"
or "Capturing the Ghost of an Idea." But the titles - and the images -
are more elliptical than they at first seem. Tranquillity is offset by
violence or eroticism, poetry by humor, high fashion and contemporary
technology.
The shifts in style, content and materials in "Balancing Acts," like the
disjunctions within the individual works, typify Maiwald's career. She
has chosen to work in film, video, performance, painting, sculpture,
installation - whatever feels most appropriate to the idea at hand.
Within the past year her work was featured in group shows at the Parrish
Art Museum in Southampton, New York, and the Guild Hall Museum in East
Hampton, New York. The entire fifty "Illuminations" will be shown at
Spazio Consolo in Milan in March 2001.
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 26, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 11:00 to 6:00 p.m. For
further information and photographic material, please contact the gallery
at 967-7584.
Florence Lynch Gallery, 147 West 29th Street, New York 10001, USA
Tel. 967-7584 Fax 967-9264