Nayland Blake
02 Feb - 08 Mar 2008
NAYLAND BLAKE
"What the Whiskey Said, What the Sun is Saying"
Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Nayland Blake: What the Whiskey Said, What the Sun is Saying, the next exhibition in his gallery at 523 West 24th Street. This will be the artist’s eighth solo exhibition at the Matthew Marks Gallery.
The exhibition draws on Blake’s work from the past three years and will include sculptures, paintings, drawings and photographs. The ten new sculptures are representative of the artist’s subtler, more expansive working method. Most are made up of humble materials gathered on his daily walks, and taken together they constitute a diary of his obsessions and sensibility. In contrast to the drawings, which continue to explore a personal narrative imbued with caustic humor, these delicate, small-scaled constructions avoid the symbolic in favor of the abstract. Composed of wire, felt, beads, wood and plastic, they reveal Blake’s enthusiasm for such artists as Joseph Cornell, Ree Morton and David Ireland.
Among the drawings are a group of thirty entitled Dailies. Made by Blake during a residency at the Chub Foundation in 2005, they are his first pieces after the death of his long time partner, Philip Horvitz. Created over the course of one month, the drawings are a day to day record of Blake's mourning and alienation.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a special reading will be held at the gallery on Saturday, February 9 at 6:00 pm. The readers include Nayland Blake, Rob Fitterman, Lynne Tillman, Jessica Arndt and David Levi Strauss.
"What the Whiskey Said, What the Sun is Saying"
Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Nayland Blake: What the Whiskey Said, What the Sun is Saying, the next exhibition in his gallery at 523 West 24th Street. This will be the artist’s eighth solo exhibition at the Matthew Marks Gallery.
The exhibition draws on Blake’s work from the past three years and will include sculptures, paintings, drawings and photographs. The ten new sculptures are representative of the artist’s subtler, more expansive working method. Most are made up of humble materials gathered on his daily walks, and taken together they constitute a diary of his obsessions and sensibility. In contrast to the drawings, which continue to explore a personal narrative imbued with caustic humor, these delicate, small-scaled constructions avoid the symbolic in favor of the abstract. Composed of wire, felt, beads, wood and plastic, they reveal Blake’s enthusiasm for such artists as Joseph Cornell, Ree Morton and David Ireland.
Among the drawings are a group of thirty entitled Dailies. Made by Blake during a residency at the Chub Foundation in 2005, they are his first pieces after the death of his long time partner, Philip Horvitz. Created over the course of one month, the drawings are a day to day record of Blake's mourning and alienation.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a special reading will be held at the gallery on Saturday, February 9 at 6:00 pm. The readers include Nayland Blake, Rob Fitterman, Lynne Tillman, Jessica Arndt and David Levi Strauss.