Tim Thyzel
dal 4/5/2005 al 4/6/2005
Segnalato da
4/5/2005
Tim Thyzel
Cynthia Broan Gallery, New York
Slots & Dots. An exhibition of new sculptural works. The artist utilizes the slotwall and pegboard commonly seen in low-end retail stores to create a series of sculptures which reflect on formal aspects of art and architecture as well as issues of merchandising and consumer appeal.
Slots & Dots
Cynthia Broan Gallery is delighted to announce Slots & Dots, an exhibition of new sculptural works by Tim Thyzel. This is the gallery's first show in our new location, located at 546 West 29th St. Designed by the Architects of Lot-ek, the former garage has been transformed into a uniquely versatile exhibition space featuring floating walls and a billboard-style facade. Almost two years after leaving 14th Street, the gallery has re-emerged on Chelsea's northern front, kicking off with a show that places us squarely at the intersection of Art and Commerce.
Slots & Dots, sculptor Tim Thyzel's third solo show with the gallery, utilizes the slotwall and pegboard commonly seen in low-end retail stores to create a series of sculptures which reflect on formal aspects of art and architecture as well as issues of merchandising and consumer appeal. Also known as MDF (medium density fiberboard), slotwall accommodates hardware such as hooks and shelving for interchangeable retail display. Several of the works shown include these hooks to add both texture and context to the work. The crisp white laminate, punctuated with lines and holes, transcends its usual application to construct a series of towers and stacks, which are both elegant and humorous. The show includes a replica of I.M. Pei's Bank of China skyscraper, a group of boxes perched atop the tiptoed legs seen in stocking departments, and a cage
of beach balls held inaccessible within a slatwall tower. Other towers bend and slump, or bristle with hooks. A group of pegboard boxes containing lights are installed in a dark room as a nocturnal urban landscape.
Tim Thyzel's playful use of everyday materials reveals the overlooked aesthetic value of the stuff our world is built of, as well as the power of even the most common materials to define the environments they are used to construct. His previous series Tiled (2002) used ceramic tiles and bathroom fixtures to create gleaming cubes and columns, which evoked the perceived purity of private space while demonstrating the formal purity of the material, and it's replication of the graph-paper sketch. Although Thyzel is first attracted to the aesthetic and constructive nature of low-brow building materials, he does not attempt to remove the meaning, instead adding sly humor to encourage social, environmental, and historical inquiry while celebrating an urge to build that is as innate as a child's impulse to stack blocks.
LOT-EK has brilliantly designed the exhibition space as band of wallspace along the original raw interior, the line continuing throughout the suspended units used for reception, video room and storage. The units glide on a framework of steel tracks, allowing us to reconfigure the space for each exhibition. The exterior of the garage also remains intact behind a skin of printed vinyl mesh commonly used for billboards. Hidden upstairs behind the screen is a unique lightbox studio with rooftop patio.
Image: Hooked, 2004 - Pegboard with hooks
Cynthia Broan gallery
546 W 29th St.
NYC 10001