Corey McCorkle
19 Nov 2009 - 09 Jan 2010
COREY McCORKLE
"Routine Ritual"
19.11.09 - 09.01.10
Please note that from 24 december 2009 until 6 January 2010, the gallery will only be open by appointment.
For his 2nd solo show at Stella Lohaus Gallery, Antwerp, Corey McCorkle will present two different types work. In 2008 McCorkle was selected for the Whitney Biennial of American Art, and was commissioned a new work. He made the film “March”, a film portraying the Knickerbocker Greys during their exercises and drills. This work is now presented in combination with “Seven Woods”, which alludes to a much less regimented meandering.
March is a 10 minute film shot in the Armory building at Park Avenue in New York, one of the oldest buildings of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is a military construction built soon after the end of the Civil War in 1880, with an ostentatious interior conceived by the designer Louis Tiffany, in a style between neo-gothic and proto-art nouveau.
McCorkle takes the drills of The Knickerbocker Greys as a point of departure. A para-militaly corps of children ages 6 through 14 was shadowed over the course of six months. The focus of their weekly meetings at the Park Avenue Armory building is to learn traditional armed forces marching and drill routines. Greys learn discipline and the habits of solidarity, empathy and orderliness, and from that they develop leadership capabilities. McCorkle’s documentary evokes a sensation of an orchestrated event, of a meticulous reconstruction, an improbable ritual initiation in a setting that achieves to constitute an anachronistic tableau vivant, impossible to assign a date to.
The Arts and Crafts era patterns of “Seven Woods” (a project initially conceived for the Lismore Castle Gardens, Ireland) echo much of the décor of “March”. The 23c Gold gilded sticks were used throughout the gardens in the Summer of 2009. The sticks, in tandem with the film, focus and split attention: routine actions are executed almost without thinking, without being there; while rituals are all about presence, conducted here with an awkward martial discipline or suggested by these totems out of time.
GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE ARTIST
Recent solo projects have been completed at: Maccarone, New York (2007); MCKunst, Los Angeles (2006); Stella Lohaus, Antwerp (2007); Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2005); Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (2002); and Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp (2003).
Upcoming solo projects include: The Desert, Frac Ile de France, Paris (March 2010)
Group exhibition venues include: The Louisiana Museum, Denmark (2009); Lismore Castle, Ireland (2009); The National Botanical Gardin of Mexico, Culaican (2009); The Drawing Center, New York (2009); The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2008); ShangArts, Shanghai (2008); Pompidou Center, Paris (2008); KW Berlin (2008); The Kitchen, New York (2007); The Ballroom, Marfa (2007); The Kunsternes Haus, Oslo (2006); Berlin Biennale (2006); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2005); Sculpture Center, New York (2005); MurrayGuy Gallery, New York (2005) P.S. 1, New York (2005); Creative Time, New York (2005); Bonner Kunstverein (2004); Triple Candie, New York (2003); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2001); The Arnolfini Museum, Bristol (2001); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2000); South London Gallery, London (1998); Apex Curatorial Program, New York (1998); Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (1997).
"Routine Ritual"
19.11.09 - 09.01.10
Please note that from 24 december 2009 until 6 January 2010, the gallery will only be open by appointment.
For his 2nd solo show at Stella Lohaus Gallery, Antwerp, Corey McCorkle will present two different types work. In 2008 McCorkle was selected for the Whitney Biennial of American Art, and was commissioned a new work. He made the film “March”, a film portraying the Knickerbocker Greys during their exercises and drills. This work is now presented in combination with “Seven Woods”, which alludes to a much less regimented meandering.
March is a 10 minute film shot in the Armory building at Park Avenue in New York, one of the oldest buildings of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is a military construction built soon after the end of the Civil War in 1880, with an ostentatious interior conceived by the designer Louis Tiffany, in a style between neo-gothic and proto-art nouveau.
McCorkle takes the drills of The Knickerbocker Greys as a point of departure. A para-militaly corps of children ages 6 through 14 was shadowed over the course of six months. The focus of their weekly meetings at the Park Avenue Armory building is to learn traditional armed forces marching and drill routines. Greys learn discipline and the habits of solidarity, empathy and orderliness, and from that they develop leadership capabilities. McCorkle’s documentary evokes a sensation of an orchestrated event, of a meticulous reconstruction, an improbable ritual initiation in a setting that achieves to constitute an anachronistic tableau vivant, impossible to assign a date to.
The Arts and Crafts era patterns of “Seven Woods” (a project initially conceived for the Lismore Castle Gardens, Ireland) echo much of the décor of “March”. The 23c Gold gilded sticks were used throughout the gardens in the Summer of 2009. The sticks, in tandem with the film, focus and split attention: routine actions are executed almost without thinking, without being there; while rituals are all about presence, conducted here with an awkward martial discipline or suggested by these totems out of time.
GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE ARTIST
Recent solo projects have been completed at: Maccarone, New York (2007); MCKunst, Los Angeles (2006); Stella Lohaus, Antwerp (2007); Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2005); Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (2002); and Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp (2003).
Upcoming solo projects include: The Desert, Frac Ile de France, Paris (March 2010)
Group exhibition venues include: The Louisiana Museum, Denmark (2009); Lismore Castle, Ireland (2009); The National Botanical Gardin of Mexico, Culaican (2009); The Drawing Center, New York (2009); The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2008); ShangArts, Shanghai (2008); Pompidou Center, Paris (2008); KW Berlin (2008); The Kitchen, New York (2007); The Ballroom, Marfa (2007); The Kunsternes Haus, Oslo (2006); Berlin Biennale (2006); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2005); Sculpture Center, New York (2005); MurrayGuy Gallery, New York (2005) P.S. 1, New York (2005); Creative Time, New York (2005); Bonner Kunstverein (2004); Triple Candie, New York (2003); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2001); The Arnolfini Museum, Bristol (2001); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2000); South London Gallery, London (1998); Apex Curatorial Program, New York (1998); Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (1997).