Brian Jungen
dal 19/3/2008 al 25/4/2008
Segnalato da
19/3/2008
Brian Jungen
Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York
Solo show
Casey Kaplan is pleased to announce the second solo exhibition of acclaimed
Canadian artist, Brian Jungen. A member of the Dane-Zaa (pronounced
dan-ney-za) Nation of Northern British Columbia, Jungen has temporarily
relocated from his home in Vancouver to live and work with his family on the
Doig River Indian reserve. Close to his birthplace of Fort St. John, the
reserve is located on the Western edge of the oil and gas territories that
stretch across Northern Alberta and Northeastern British Columbia. Inspired
by his recent experiences, Jungen presents a new body of work that continues
to explore cultural symbols of corruption, and question the developing
political and geographical landscape of Canada.
Jungen's works often begin as highly recognizable, fetishized consumables
associated with capitalism and Western culture: such as professional sports
paraphernalia, mass-produced domestic commodities, and expensive leather
goods. Chosen because of their color, material, and intended use, the
objects are deconstructed by hand, and then re-crafted into transformations
that imply cross-cultural, social, and political relationships. This
metamorphosis recalls Jungen¹s own observations of life on reserves, where
certain discarded objects are often converted or recycled into other usable
forms due to a lack of commercial and financial resources.
In this exhibition, the artist uses a standard five-gallon, red plastic
gasoline can as the basis of his sculpture. A necessary and ubiquitous
object, the jerrycan litters the landscape of Northern Canada; land that
is rich in petroleum fields, yet lacks an adequate number of fueling
stations. Presented on a pedestal, the singular tank stands alone at the
entrance to the gallery, just inside the plate glass façade, where sunlight
can shine through the thousands of tiny holes drilled in its skin. Based on
Jungen¹s observations of family members beading designs onto animal hides,
Jungen has meticulously created a pattern of countless dragonflies onto the
³non-green², petroleum-based plastic jug.
A new series of artworks in Galleries I and II are initially inspired by the
First Nation's traditional, communal practice of constructing garments for
ceremonial rituals. Cutting into strips various professional sports jerseys
from the NFL and NBA, Jungen weaves a sequence of artworks that are
reminiscent of stereotypical, Native American trade blankets. With the
identities of the jerseys and the brands of the teams literally stripped,
the blankets merge ceremonial histories, and re-contextualize the
fetishization of American sports gear. Hanging on the wall under the guise
of a traditional museological or ethnographic display, these works embody a
hybrid aesthetic that allegorically represents the present-day globalization
of culture.
In 2008, the artist will participate in group exhibitions including: Hard
Targets: Sport and Contemporary American Masculinity, at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, CA; NeoHooDoo: Art For a Forgotten Faith, The Menil
Collection, traveling from Houston, TX to PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Long
Island City, NY; and Revolutions Forms that Turn² the 16th Biennial of
Sydney, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bikargeiv, in Sydney, Australia. In 2005
2007, Brian Jungen's survey exhibition traveled to the Museum Villa Stuck,
Münich; the Witte de With, Rotterdam; the Musée d¹art contemporain de
Montreál, Montreál; the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver; and the New Museum
of Contemporary Art, New York. Other recent solo exhibitions include the
Tate Modern, London in 2006.
Casey Kaplan Gallery
525 West 21st Street - New York
Free admission