Press Release
Matt Connors' "Demonstration (red and blue)," is a free-standing artwork in two parts. Each part is placed in a different location within the Art Unlimited hall. Each part consists of a standard 6 meter high section of art fair wall, one side of which is painted. Against the painted section leans a slightly smaller section of standard construction-grade wall painted plain white. The effect is a thin line, or "frame," of color that changes with the movement of the viewer around the artwork.
The individual parts of the artwork -- a free-standing wall, a leaning wall, a painted side -- are immediately comprehensible. Their effect, however, is elusive: an ever-changing line of color at the edge, a void in the center. In a sense, the artwork is a grand gesture to demonstrate the margins; a theatricalization of the formal play that occurs in paintings. The result is to create counterpoints: doubt versus action, accident versus intention, periphery versus center. The placement of the two parts of Connors' artwork in two different locations in the Art Unlimited section slows down reception. A massive piece in a massive space is understood slowly and through the viewer's own movements within the hall.
An analog for the presentation at Unlimited is “A Bell Is a Cup,” the catalog for Matt Connors' recent solo exhibition at MOMA PS1. In addition to reproducing images and artworks from Connors' exhibitions over the last four years, the MOMA PS1 book is itself an artwork. “A Bell Is a Cup” explores the thin lines, or "frames," of color that result from overlays of different sized sheets of colored paper. The feeling of Connors' art, as MOMA PS1 curator Peter Eleey writes, is one of "pictures and things that, taken together, hold out models for ways of being in the world now, or existing in relations to one another, our histories, traditions and environment."
(Cherry and Martin archive)
Philip Martin gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11am-6pm and by appointment. For further information and images please contact the gallery at +310-559-0100 or info@philipmartingallery.com.
Philip Martin Gallery
2712 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
+310-559-0100
info@philipmartingallery.com
