Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
521 West 21st Street
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New York, NY
New York
North America
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Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is delighted to present Sundial, an exceptional group of new works that comprise Uta Barth�s seventh solo exhibition with the gallery.
Conceived as pictures of light, the photographs that make up Sundial trace the effect of the sun's movement as natural light falls and moves across the interior spaces of the artist's home over the course of the day, on different days throughout the year. These photographs were primarily taken at dusk, when the last play of light begins to erase itself and the illuminated world is put to rest, when objects are caught in beams of light and cast their quickly fading shadows on walls, ceilings and floors. The resulting images are still, silent and slow. They are occasionally interrupted by the drifting optical afterimages produced by prolonged staring into the light, inverted visions our eyes can see, yet the camera cannot, a place where logic begins to slip and unexpected associations are made.
Throughout her career, Barth has photographed exquisitely composed scenes of blurred backgrounds, fleeting glimpses and peripheral details. Often �empty� or without a central subject, Barth�s images highlight objects and views taken for granted in our daily lives, the ones that frame and contain our existence and are so familiar to us that they become almost invisible. In bringing to our attention scenes and objects that habitually go unnoticed, the subject of Barth�s photographs becomes the act of looking itself. Subverting the notion that the principal purpose of photography is to capture spectacle, the artist chooses instead to use the camera as a way of evoking the passage of time, the evanescence of memory, and the fallibility of the human eye.
In each new series Barth simultaneously expands and refines her investigation of the nature of vision, always pushing the camera to show us more about the way we see. Repetition and the serial accumulation of images plays an important role in her work. Whether photographs of the artist�s living room, as in her series �and of time, 1999, or the view looking out from a window in nowhere near, 2000, the use of a repeated subject allows both the artist and the viewer to explore the passage of time through the subtlest markers that might otherwise be ignored, such as the changing color of light, or the settling of dust from the air. Importantly, in �and of time and nowhere near, as well as the works that make up Sundial, Barth chooses to repeat pictures taken in her own house, a deliberate decision that challenges the convention of photography as a medium meant to document �events,� rather than life�s quiet meditative moments. While the work is calm and reflective, it is also full of visual excitement, examining not only the passage of time, but also the human eye�s own optics, and the phenomenon of visual memory. Creating images that go beyond what the camera can replicate, Barth includes panels in her pieces that resemble what is seen with eyes closed: the fleeting retinal afterimages that appear when the eye has exhausted itself looking at a single scene.
Uta Barth�s work has been exhibited widely by museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Guggenheim Museum, New York and Bilbao; The Tate Modern, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles; The Wexner Center and many others. A mid-career survey of her work was presented by the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle and the MCA in Houston. Uta Barth's work is currently included in Depth of Field: Modern Photography at the Metropolitan, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and through December 30th she is featured in Viewfinder, at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle. Her recent exhibitions include, Uta Barth: 2005-2006, Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2006, and she will be in the upcoming group show, Keeping Time, at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand in 2008.
Sundial will be on view through November 24, 2007, and will be the sole presentation of this new body of work in the United States.
Gallery 2
Took My Hands Off Your Eyes Too Soon Curated by Ryan GANDER
Comprised of sculpture, installation, performance, and works on paper, Took My Hands Off Your Eyes Too Soon deals with issues of trust and surprise between the artist and the viewer, exploring themes of expectation and timing, and the effect of both on the viewer's interaction with the work. Featuring a selection of pieces by Jesse Ash, Justin Beal, Alice Channer, Sean Edwards and Jack Strange, Took My Hands Off Your Eyes Too Soon is curated by Ryan Gander. Ryan explained the initial idea of the show as being �as much about the sound that is made when the works collide, as the specific terrain that five artists (who had not yet met) unwittingly share��
In the entryway Jesse Ash presents, �Review,� 2007, a fictional review of the exhibition, written before the opening of the show by the critic Michael Wilson. Subverting expectations about the logical progression of an exhibition (creation of work, opening of show, and subsequent review) Ash lightheartedly critiques the idea of the impartial or �official� account. Ash graduated from The Royal College of Art in London with an MA in painting, and is currently working toward a fine art PhD on the subject of rumor at Goldsmith�s College in London. His work was recently featured in The Courier�s Tragedy at The International 3, Manchester, 2007 (group).
Alice Channer�s pieces, the first of which is installed beside Ash�s �Review,� continue into the main gallery, and are made up of a series of seemingly disparate objects and images, which together suggest an aesthetic template for the everyday, be it through fashion, domestic interior, or architecture. For the opening Channer will incorporate a choreographic reference to Bridget Riley�s first visit to New York into the show, which she cryptically describes not as performance, but as �moving an object from one point to another.� Channer holds a BA from Goldmith's College and is currently getting her MA in sculpture at The Royal College of Art. Her recent solo exhibition That Make Up Some Things, was at Associates, London, in July of 2007, and she will be included in a group exhibition at Dicksmith Gallery, London, in the summer of 2008.
Justin Beal�s sculptures and wall works, crafted from plywood, fiberboard, glass and organic materials, make loose references to Modernist architecture, and the Memphis Design Collective, with repeating black and white shapes. This reference to Modernism extends to his table sculpture also�balancing a glass top on a base, with oranges sandwiched between, Beal�s unexpected incorporation of perishable materials highlights the transient ideals on which these designs were based. Beal lives and works in Los Angeles where he received his MFA from the University of Southern California. He has exhibited widely both domestically and abroad, and his recent exhibitions include In Practice, Sculpture Center, New York, 2007 (solo); and Petroliana, the 2007 Moscow Biennial (group).
Like Justin Beal, Sean Edwards investigates the effects of repetition, both literal and conceptual. Beginning with a clear pattern, he copies it again and again, exhausting it through continued use. Edwards' interest in the alchemy of the everyday results in works that are often byproducts, offcuts, or evidence of a processual perpetual practice. Edwards holds an MA in fine art from Slade School of Fine Art in London and his recent exhibitions include an offsite project with Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, 2007 (solo); Sean Edwards, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, 2007 (solo); and �picture books of the pyramids and her postcards of billy the kid�, Associates, London, 2007 (solo).
Repeated images briefly appear in Jack Strange�s �Stunt Double,� 2007, a series of slides projected onto the wall in the side gallery that show pairs of people in jackets that resemble one of the artist�s own. Playfulness and surprise are also thematically relevant in the unexpected relationships that Strange�s works portray. For the opening Strange will activate a sculptural element of the exhibition, donning an armor of marbled plasticine colors, �The Fiend,� 2007, will engage with �The Spinning Beach Ball of Death,� 2007, to demonstrate a true spectatorship of color theory. Recently graduated from Slade School of Fine Art in London, Strange has an upcoming exhibition in Nottingham at Moot Gallery, titled Stupidest Thing Alive.
