Robert Reynolds
dal 18/4/2005 al 12/5/2005
Segnalato da
18/4/2005
Robert Reynolds
Waschhaus Potsdam Gallery, Potsdam
I'm not here. The artist questions the role of religion in relation to advertising media and, more recently, the military role of the United States in relation to the Middle East; through his paintings, mixed media constructions, and neon signs, he presents words and images that function as icons of cultural difference.
I'm not here
Waschhaus Potsdam Gallery is pleased to present "I’m not here", an exhibition of new works by Robert Reynolds, curated by Robert C. Morgan. As a California-based artist who questions the role of religion in relation to advertising media and, more recently, the military role of the United States in relation to the Middle East, Robert Reynolds employs a variety of art-making strategies that clearly challenge various assumptions regarding sacrosanct attitudes and cultural biases. Through his paintings, mixed media constructions, and neon signs, Reynolds presents words and images that function as icons of cultural difference.
The intention behind Reynolds' installations is to underplay the sources of meaning shielded by common language. In this sense, his new work moves earlier conceptual strategies in art, employed by such early California artists as John Baldessari, Wallace Berman, Ed Kienholz, Douglas Huebler, and Edward Ruscha, into a linguistic territory that goes beyond the anti-aesthetic parables and paradoxes of the sixties and into a deconstruction of deceit on the level of current media practices.
As with these and other artists, who have worked in either a conceptual, assemblage, or a performative mode, through images of representation borrowed either directly or indirectly from popular culture, Reynolds is interested in applying ambiguities of signification in a way that is more directed toward issues of conflict and representation -- issues that, in fact, began more than twenty years ago in American art during the postmodernist eighties. In this sense, and within this continuing history, Reynolds’ attention to the commercial media as a source of commentary takes on a strange, but topical transposition of reality.
Reynolds sees the art of today as a kind of inversion where certain assumptions derived from the commercial media tend to mean the opposite of what they really are. This paradox is a manipulative one, but also a relevant one to tackle from the position of the artist. In this way, Reynolds contributes a more cogent understanding of present-day reality in conceptual, pictorial, and symbolic terms. “I’m Not Here†is as much about creating an absence as a presence, that is, finding out what is not really there.
More information on Reynolds' work can be found on http://www.roberthreynolds.com
Image: Desert wind, 2005 - oil on canvas
Press preview: Monday, April 18/05 - h.11 am
Opening reception: Tuesday, April 19/05 - h. 8 pm
Waschhaus Potsdam Gallery, Schiffbauergasse 1, Potsdam-Germany
Gallery hours: Tue-Fri 2-8 pm; Sun 12am-6pm