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29/6/2006

Pose & Sculpture

Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York

John Armleder, Justin Beal, Trisha Donnelly, Isa Genzken, Julian Gothe, Wade Guyton, Rachel Harrison, Nathan Hylden, Liz Larner, Elfie Semotan, Andro Wekua, Heimo Zobernig

Curated by Daniel Baumann

Pose and sculpture are two terms that, in recent times, elicited nothing so much as derision and contempt: pose for being associated with phony social behavior and in authenticity; sculpture because it was juxtaposed with an anti-modernist practice. Freestanding sculpture was seen as a form of glorification, illusion, and hierarchy—a way to fetishize permanence rather than reflecting context, contingency, process, and the contemporary world. It wasn’t until early Constructivism and Minimal Art that new forms of sculpture were established. A process-oriented art, one that focused on the viewer and his actual experience of time and space, replaced the traditional face-to-face encounter that had dominated art for centuries. More recently, this important shift culminated in installation art, transforming an emancipatory gesture into a space for the event culture as a commodity.

It is for these reasons—not out of nostalgia or sentimentality—that this year's summer show at Casey Kaplan Gallery focuses on pose and sculpture, to introduce distance in a time obsessed with identification and immersion. Displayed in the gallery’s two spaces are sculptures by John Armleder, Justin Beal, Trisha Donnelly, Isa Genzken, Julian Gothe, Wade Guyton, Rachel Harrison, Nathan Hylden, Liz Larner, Andro Wekua, and Heimo Zobernig. On the walls hang portraits of artists, writers, actors, and musicians by the U.S.-Austrian photographer Elfie Semotan. The portraits reveal the ambiguous relationship between the model and the photographer—a relationship that becomes even more controversial when the artist is put into the role of the object and thus becomes “sculpture." In this way, pose becomes central not only as an elegant camouflage but as a virtuous expression of contempt. Now the freestanding sculptures don’t face a photographer, but the dubious history of sculpture itself—and, possibly, a skeptical spectator. Standing in front of us with the same self-consciousness that the subject needs posing in front of the camera, they demand the distance necessary to create space for reflection.

John Armleder, lives and works in Geneva, Switzerland
Justin Beal, lives and works in Los Angeles
Trisha Donnelly, lives and works in San Francisco
Isa Genzken, lives and works in Cologne, Germany
Julian Gothe, lives and works in Berlin, Germany
Wade Guyton, lives and works in New York
Rachel Harrison, lives and works in New York
Nathan Hylden, lives and works in Los Angeles
Liz Larner, lives and works in Los Angeles
Elfie Semotan, lives and works in New York and Vienna, Austria
Andro Wekua, lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland
Heimo Zobernig, lives and works in Vienna, Austria

Over the last eleven years some of the most vibrant exhibitions that have occurred at the gallery were the group shows organized by guest curators. These exhibitions have augmented the gallery’s program by introducing different groups of artists, fresh ideas/concepts, and alternative modes of installation.

Former guest curators have included:
Laurie Simmons, artist; Liam Gillick, artist; Daniel Birnbaum, Director of the Stadelschule Art Academy and Portikus Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany; Douglas Gordon, artist; Jens Hoffmann, Director of Exhibitions Institute of Contemporary Art, London, England; Nathan Carter, artist.

We are pleased to announce that Daniel Baumann will organize an exhibition at Casey Kaplan.

Daniel Baumann lives in Basel, Switzerland and is an art historian, freelance curator, and writer for Camera Austria, Kunst-Bulletin, Parkett, Tate etc., and Spike Art Quarterly. He is also the curator of the Adolf Wolfli-Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, Switzerland, and the curator of Nordtangente-Kunsttangente, a project for art in public spaces in Basel, Switzerland.

Baumann is the recipient of the 2006 Swiss Art Awards for best curator. He has organized exhibitions such as: “Tbilisi 2. Wednesday Calls the Future" (Tbilisi 2005); “Context Form Troy" Secession (Vienna 2003); “Love is a Battlefield" 27 Canal Street (New York 2003) (organized together with Mai-Thu Perret, Carissa Rodriguez and Fabrice Stroun); “Martin Kippenberger: The Autoportraits," Kunsthalle Basel (Basel1998) (organized together with Peter Pakesch); and “Martin Kippenberger: Respektive 1997-1976" Mamco (Geneva 1997).

Image: Trisha Donnelly, Untitle (rock), 2003

Opening: Friday, June 30th, 6-8 pm

Casey Kaplan Gallery
525 West 21ST Street New York, NY 10011
Gallery hours: Tuesday ­ Saturday 10-6 pm

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