NEW YORK, NY.- Marc Straus celebrates the summer with a group exhibition highlighting a number of their gallery artists. Taking its title from a new minimal sculpture by Jong Oh, this selection of works reflect the depth of their program and look to the year ahead.
In Gallery 1, Sam Jinks’ life-like sculpture, Mother and Child (2010), has an astonishing level of technical proficiency and yet evokes deep empathy and understanding. Sam will have his first show in the US with the gallery in January 2015. Jong Oh’s minimal sculpture, Xigue-Xigue (2014), employs a minimalistic practice using string, weights, dowels, plexiglas and graphite lines in fragile compositions. They explore our perception of space. Indonesian artist, Entang Wiharso’s grand metal sculpture, Double Happiness #2 (2013), is informed by popular iconography of political, social and historical realities, and cultural myths. Marc Straus will present the artist’s first solo show in the US September 8, 2014. Florian Schmidt’s* paintings grounded in minimal abstraction while using baring surface textures. They synthesize the lineage of Barnett Newman and Brice Marden with the three-dimensional aspects of Europeans like Imi Knoebel. John Newsom’s blush, dense oil painting, Sweet Nectar (2011-2013), densely painted oil capture a luxurious moment of life while reminding us that it is fleeting.
In the viewing room, Charles Hinman’s Sugilite (2013) is a shaped hard-edge minimal painting which as we move is perceived differently: new colors, new facets, new forms, new shadows, as the work is constantly reinvented.
In Gallery 2, is Jeffrey Gibson’s Shield No.15 (2013). repurposes the traditional ironing board, a symbol of the home and the gendered role within it. Gibson mounts it on the wall, replacing its traditional protective cover with painted rawhide – transforming the domestic object into a Shield. Paul Pretzer's painting reflects his deep observations of the history of classical painting; Velazquez, Goya, Munch, and even Cézanne's are his starting point but then his work has a surfeit of add characters and objects. Ulf Puder looks ahead to the series which will be presented in October 2014. His masterly paintings of architectural structures are devoid of human life and hover between abstraction and representation. This painting of an airport, Morgenstimmung (2013), is the artist,s first work inspired by the city of New York. Marin Majić’s Baba Roga (2012), presents a vision of unsettling idyll. An adoring mother bids her son farewell, but at second glance it is revealed that their relationship is charged. Majić’s extraordinary mastery of painting holds the viewer enrapt despite the unsettling subject matter. Living in the Kingdom's First Time Come (2014) by British sculptor Chris Jones is a motorcycle constructed from materials most have come to disregard due to the rise of the internet and technology – books, magazines, atlases, and encyclopedias. With these soft materials, the artist spawns sculptures that tell a story.
In Gallery 3, are new paintings by Spanish painter Antonio Santin in which he continues the themes of women in lavish settings and highly stylized Eastern rugs. These paintings evolve from striking pictorial motifs. At first glance they seem photo-realistic, but closer inspection reveals they are lush sculptured layers of paint.
*Florian Schmidt is represented by Galerie Andreas Huber in Vienna.
This exhibition is on view July 8 – August 22, 2014. The gallery hours in August will vary.
