EDIFICE, COMPLEX, VISIONARY, STRUCTURE

January 6 – February 3, 2018

Sean Kelly is delighted to present Edifice, Complex, Visionary, Structure, a group exhibition featuring gallery artists who have addressed architectural themes in their work, either explicitly or indirectly, as reference and inspiration.

Architecture is both a concrete word and an intangible construct. An expression used to describe physical structures, reference the design of organic and man-made systems, and explain plastic concepts; it is at once flexible and immutable. We use the term literally to describe the random edifices that comprise our built environment and metaphorically to embody ideals and aspirations.

For instance, Candida Höfer and Alec Soth capture images of opulence and its opposite in their photographs of prestigious and functional architecture. Los Carpinteros, James Casebere, and Laurent Grasso envision fantastic and artificial worlds that exist in their imaginations. Jose Dávila and Iran do Espírito Santo use structural materials, including marble and glass, to construct their architectonic sculptures. And Antony Gormley considers the architecture of the human body as an adaptable set of forms to comprise abstract sculpture.

Documenting the passage of time, David Claerbout’s drawings for a film examine the slow decay of a thousand years brought upon by natural elements, while Peter Liversidge’s Polaroid diptychs focus on subtle atmospheric changes evoked in only a matter of minutes. Whether photographing the construction of a building complex in Berlin, like Frank Thiel, or fashioning a painting from fragments of paint peeled from the facades of buildings in Old Havana, as Diana Fonseca Quiñones does, each of the artists in this exhibition adopts a different language of architecture as the source for their creative vision.

Artists featured in this exhibition include Alejandro Campins, Los Carpinteros, James Casebere, David Claerbout, Jose Dávila, Iran do Espírito Santo, Diana Fonseca Quiñones, Antony Gormley, Laurent Grasso, Candida Höfer, Ilse D’Hollander, Joseph Kosuth, Peter Liversidge, Sam Moyer, Julião Sarmento, Alec Soth, Frank Thiel, and James White.