SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.- The Henry Art Gallery presents Axel Lieber: Release, North Galleries, through April 17, 2005. Lieber’s sculptural works are inspired by objects within our habitual domestic environments: furniture, food, and clothing, to name a few. His works are often concerned with the contrast between inside and outside, creating fullness where one expects emptiness and vice versa. Skin is made a solid structure while robust scaffolding appears to be a delicate fragment. Lieber strips structure bare and makes visible by creating new structures and manipulating our perception of the familiar.

The exhibition will feature two of Axel Lieber’s monumental Release sculptures, first exhibited at Basel’s Art Unlimited in 2003. These hanging structures are composed of the many components of a model house for a train set - walls, doors, window frames, etc - but significantly enlarged and rearranged to appear as if exploding. Lieber will be in residence at the museum for approximately two weeks, creating a new work in the Open Studio format to exhibit alongside Release.

Lieber was born in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1960 and remained there until 1994 when he relocated to Sweden and began teaching sculpture at the Art Academy of Malmö. He has exhibited extensively in European galleries and museums. This is Lieber’s first exhibition in the Pacific Northwest. He was previously included in exhibitions at the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco and in “Artists Imagine Architecture” at the ICA in Boston.

Axel Lieber is organized for the Henry Art Gallery by Assistant Curator Pamela Meredith. Support for this exhibition has been provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, The Boeing Company, and donors to the Henry Art Gallery Contemporary Art Fund. In-kind support provided by the Grand Hyatt Seattle. Special funding provided by IASPIS, Sweden.