NEW YORK, NY.- Dominique Lévy Gallery is presenting One Sun One Moon, the first New York City solo exhibition for artist Peter Regli.
Regli is best known for his ongoing project, Reality Hacking, a series of temporary and often anonymous actions and interventions in urban public spaces and the natural landscape. Initiated in the 1990s and spanning four continents, Reality Hacking consists of over 300 projects to date, which trace the threads of Surrealism, Land art, and Conceptual art, and rely upon the artists keen observation and wit. Resisting any specific style, medium, or material, Regli explores the poetics of banality and the sublimity of quotidian objects and remote or abandoned places. Reality Hacking projects are often itinerant, some following objects the artist sets on a journey, while others appear in isolated, unexpected landscapes where they may be encountered by unsuspecting viewers.
One Sun One Moon at Dominique Lévy presents Reality Hacking No. 240 (2007 present), an ensemble of sacred and totemic personages situated in animated pairs and groups. The shared medium of carved marble makes these venerated symbols and folkloric figures appear to have a family resemblance as they meet head-on in a cultural exchange between the East and the West.
Also on view in One Sun One Moon is a series of photographs taken by the artist during past Reality Hacking projects. For Regli, photographs are not merely records of completed projects, but also the sole documentation of his often subtle, even imperceptible, alterations to the everyday landscape. Some point to the eerie presence that persists in isolated, abandoned places, while others appear to be of nondescript locationsa small pond or an expanse of desert. The photographs on view at Dominique Lévy embody the peripatetic impulse at work in Reglis Reality Hacking, in which the artist designates unlikely sites as sacred for a moment, leaving only ephemeral traces.
One Sun One Moon is on view at Dominique Lévy Gallery through August 15, 2015. The exhibition is accompanied by an artists book published by the gallery and designed by An Art Service.