VIEW: FOURTEEN / HOOKING UP
On 6 September 2008, the Mary Boone Gallery will open at its Chelsea location VIEW: FOURTEEN / HOOKING UP, an exhibition curated by Klaus Kertess. Artists in the exhibition include ALEXANDRA BIRCKEN, BARRY LE VA, ADAM MC EWEN, ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, MICHAEL EDWARD SMITH, KEITH SONNIER, AL TAYLOR, JASON TOMME, and CY TWOMBLY.
A wood stick, a metal coat hanger, a telephone directory accidentally mauled by car tires, a cigarette butt, a wad of chewing gum, a rambling length of string, a volute shell picked up on the beach, an old electric fan – these are some of the materials and objects engaged by the nine artists in this exhibition to casually hook up with others of their kind or with unlike materials of equally humble origin to conjoin in unexpected unions. The kind of pared down combinative play and ad hoc coupling seen in the exhibition have roots in the history of modernist collage and assemblage, from Cubism to the oxymoronic exploits of the Dadaists and Surrealists – and more specifically to Robert Rauschenberg’s extraordinary Combines begun in 1954, in which he might transform a stray tie or sock or tin can into a stunning diva performing in a high or low visual blockbuster.
Rauschenberg and his close friend Cy Twombly are the elders in this exhibition and are joined by members of several succeeding generations of artists who, like them, seem to revel in transforming ordinary tasks and materials into assemblages of challenging wonder.
The exhibition, at 541 West 24 Street, will run through 25 October 2008. Please contact the Gallery if we can be of further assistance, or visit our website www.maryboonegallery.com.
