Matt Johnson
10 Jan - 14 Feb 2009
MATT JOHNSON
“Super System”
January 10th through February 14th, 2009
Opening reception Saturday, January 10th, 6-8 pm
This is the first exhibition in our new location 123 East 12th Street between 3rd and 4th avenues
Super System is an exhibition of new sculptures by Matt Johnson, in which is contained a large Puzzleman, a sophisticated stash-box, a walnut within many walnuts, an ancient amber wave with rider, a chair that is also a reclining woman, and an endless Escher-like staircase seemingly chewed into an apple. Contrary to many of his previous works, these are not cast from precious metals but rather carved and constructed from various kinds of wood. Wood is an elemental thing, a living thing, a material that breathes, has grown, and been cultivated.
Johnson finds the power in quotidian forms, and melds them with a ceremonial gravity. He unmasks the incisive playfulness of the so-called primitive and the urgent usefulness of Modern absurdity. He manages to take things we all know and reroute them. You sense that what you’ve known is no longer useful, and so you end up leaning on the object, waiting for it to reveal itself, or its symbol. Found forms and concealed powers— how does one take the Surrealist strategy of subliminal suggestiveness and flip it yet again? Perhaps by starting over, by retracing ones steps, and elegantly presenting the answer as another riddle, a puzzle, and a rhyme.
“Super System”
January 10th through February 14th, 2009
Opening reception Saturday, January 10th, 6-8 pm
This is the first exhibition in our new location 123 East 12th Street between 3rd and 4th avenues
Super System is an exhibition of new sculptures by Matt Johnson, in which is contained a large Puzzleman, a sophisticated stash-box, a walnut within many walnuts, an ancient amber wave with rider, a chair that is also a reclining woman, and an endless Escher-like staircase seemingly chewed into an apple. Contrary to many of his previous works, these are not cast from precious metals but rather carved and constructed from various kinds of wood. Wood is an elemental thing, a living thing, a material that breathes, has grown, and been cultivated.
Johnson finds the power in quotidian forms, and melds them with a ceremonial gravity. He unmasks the incisive playfulness of the so-called primitive and the urgent usefulness of Modern absurdity. He manages to take things we all know and reroute them. You sense that what you’ve known is no longer useful, and so you end up leaning on the object, waiting for it to reveal itself, or its symbol. Found forms and concealed powers— how does one take the Surrealist strategy of subliminal suggestiveness and flip it yet again? Perhaps by starting over, by retracing ones steps, and elegantly presenting the answer as another riddle, a puzzle, and a rhyme.