JOE ZUCKER
On 8 January 2011, Mary Boone Gallery will open at both its Fifth Avenue and Chelsea locations “A Unified Theory”, simultaneous exhibitions of two distinct, yet related, series of paintings by JOE ZUCKER.
The Uptown gallery features a group of “Box” paintings” from 2002-2005. Here, Zucker has constructed a shallow wooden box in which the arrangement of compartments configures an angular depiction of a sailing ship, house, or volcano. Within each compartment, a single bright color of enamel has been poured and oscillated so that the paint laps up along the interior edges. A fitted lid for each box - its interior slicked with a monochrome shade of sky – completes a diptych in which ersatz Minimalism counters complex representation and process. This engagement of image and support, medium and subject, has been a recurring theme in Zucker’s diverse body of works since the late 1960s.
Sailboats, houses, and volcanos re-appear in a series of new paintings on view in Chelsea. The images coalesce on four-foot squares of gypsum that have been scored into a quarter-inch grid. The top layer of each module has been flaked off, forming an irregular topography of the porous surface. As in the Box paintings, each module acts as a receptacle for paint - in this case watercolor that is absorbed into the very body of the painting. These building blocks of images are, by the paintings’ titles, likened to particle physics and the mechanics of the universe: a Unified Theory.
Both of the exhibitions, Uptown at 745 Fifth Avenue and at 541 West 24 Street in Chelsea, will continue through 5 February 2011. Please contact Ron Warren at the Gallery for further assistance, or visit our website www.maryboonegallery.com.
