Henry Krokatsis
23 Mar - 08 May 2010
HENRY KROKATSIS
March 23 - May 8, 2010
Galeria Leme presents a solo show by Henry Krokatsis. The artist rescues a wide range of rejected objects and bankrupt materials including wood, broken glass, found mirrors and used votive candles.
With these familiar materials, lifted from obscurity, Krokatsis creates new contexts and purposes, reinstating them in objects with altered value.
The central work on show is a huge floor piece titled 60/1, 1-60 that uses the elaborate parquet floor pattern from the dining room of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria.
However, instead of using the finest hard woods, this version is made using discarded materials found on the streets of London. Rejected off-cuts, discarded wardrobes, and broken kitchen units have been collected, dismantled and painstakingly cut into thousands of pieces, chamfered and laid in an intricate pattern, all by hand.
The work, at once both functional and subversive, references work as seemingly diverse as Carl Andre's minimalist floor works and the schizophrenic architecture of Karl Junker.
Also presented is a series of work constructed from found mirrors. These beveled mirrors were a common feature in English suburban homes between the 1920's and the 1960's, the birth of the 'modern' interior consigning them to the junk shop.
These have been retrieved, meticulously cut to fit into each other and wall hung to create a fractured surface, bringing them, awkwardly, into the realm of painting.
Presented in this way, rather than look into them, we look at them, their neutrality disappearing as one begins to compare the subtle differences in their surfaces, much as one examines the surface of a painting.
This work could be read, as the floor, as subscribing to a latter-day minimalist agenda, however, the schizophrenic coupling of this aesthetic and the material's history and status creates a nervous beauty, and a momentarily liberating disruption.
Krokatsis's liquification and reconfiguration of materials exposes the instability in how and where we choose to invest value, whilst manifesting a quiet faith in the obsolete.
Henry Krokatsis was born in London in 1965. Lives and works in London. Among his main shows there are the solos Goff and Rosenthal, New York , USA (2010), “New Works”, Galeria Leme, São Paulo (2008); “See Better Daze”, David Risley Gallery, London (2008); “New Acquisition”, New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK (2006); and the group shows “Reconstruction#3”, Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, UK (2008); “Interiors, Imoderni”, Miami (2007); “Scarecrow”, Averoff Foundation, Metsovo, Greece (2006); You’ll Never Know, Hayward Gallery National Touring Show, curated by Henry Krokatsis and Jeni Walwin (2006). His works are on several private and public collections, among them the New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK and the Government Art Collection U.K
March 23 - May 8, 2010
Galeria Leme presents a solo show by Henry Krokatsis. The artist rescues a wide range of rejected objects and bankrupt materials including wood, broken glass, found mirrors and used votive candles.
With these familiar materials, lifted from obscurity, Krokatsis creates new contexts and purposes, reinstating them in objects with altered value.
The central work on show is a huge floor piece titled 60/1, 1-60 that uses the elaborate parquet floor pattern from the dining room of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria.
However, instead of using the finest hard woods, this version is made using discarded materials found on the streets of London. Rejected off-cuts, discarded wardrobes, and broken kitchen units have been collected, dismantled and painstakingly cut into thousands of pieces, chamfered and laid in an intricate pattern, all by hand.
The work, at once both functional and subversive, references work as seemingly diverse as Carl Andre's minimalist floor works and the schizophrenic architecture of Karl Junker.
Also presented is a series of work constructed from found mirrors. These beveled mirrors were a common feature in English suburban homes between the 1920's and the 1960's, the birth of the 'modern' interior consigning them to the junk shop.
These have been retrieved, meticulously cut to fit into each other and wall hung to create a fractured surface, bringing them, awkwardly, into the realm of painting.
Presented in this way, rather than look into them, we look at them, their neutrality disappearing as one begins to compare the subtle differences in their surfaces, much as one examines the surface of a painting.
This work could be read, as the floor, as subscribing to a latter-day minimalist agenda, however, the schizophrenic coupling of this aesthetic and the material's history and status creates a nervous beauty, and a momentarily liberating disruption.
Krokatsis's liquification and reconfiguration of materials exposes the instability in how and where we choose to invest value, whilst manifesting a quiet faith in the obsolete.
Henry Krokatsis was born in London in 1965. Lives and works in London. Among his main shows there are the solos Goff and Rosenthal, New York , USA (2010), “New Works”, Galeria Leme, São Paulo (2008); “See Better Daze”, David Risley Gallery, London (2008); “New Acquisition”, New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK (2006); and the group shows “Reconstruction#3”, Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, UK (2008); “Interiors, Imoderni”, Miami (2007); “Scarecrow”, Averoff Foundation, Metsovo, Greece (2006); You’ll Never Know, Hayward Gallery National Touring Show, curated by Henry Krokatsis and Jeni Walwin (2006). His works are on several private and public collections, among them the New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK and the Government Art Collection U.K