Christian Holstad
23 Mar - 23 Apr 2005
CHRISTIAN HOLSTAD
Beautiful Lies You Could Live In
23 March - 23 April 2005
In the project space, Victoria Miro Gallery presents a new installation by New York-based artist Christian Holstad, titled Beautiful Lies You Could Live In. This installation foregrounds a mode of art making Holstad developed and is continually engaged with: clipping images from newspapers and first rubbing areas out, leaving in their place blank, haunting suggestions of forms. To these Holstad adds drawn elements, poetically emphasizing or dramatizing human features both imagined and real. Holstad's technique destabilizes our experience of media imagery, transforming everyday pictures into insightful and highly personal commentaries which are at times somber, at times celebratory. Together with the works on paper is a hand-sewn soft sculpture of two intertwined snakes - a male and a female - decadently dressed, offering a wry statement on the privileged social systems media imagery exploits.
Born in 1972 in Anaheim, California, Christian Holstad lives and works in New York. In the last year, he was featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, presented a solo show at Kunsthalle Zurich, and had a Project Room show at P.S.1 Center for Contemporary Art, Long Island City, New York. Holstad has also had recent solo exhibitions at Hiromi Yoshii, Toyko, Daniel Reich Gallery, New York, Galeria Massimo de Carlo, Milan and has performed in various venues as a member of the Black Leotard Front.
© Image: Christian Holstad
Defending Decisions, 2005
pencil on newspaper
13 x 18 cm (unframed)
Beautiful Lies You Could Live In
23 March - 23 April 2005
In the project space, Victoria Miro Gallery presents a new installation by New York-based artist Christian Holstad, titled Beautiful Lies You Could Live In. This installation foregrounds a mode of art making Holstad developed and is continually engaged with: clipping images from newspapers and first rubbing areas out, leaving in their place blank, haunting suggestions of forms. To these Holstad adds drawn elements, poetically emphasizing or dramatizing human features both imagined and real. Holstad's technique destabilizes our experience of media imagery, transforming everyday pictures into insightful and highly personal commentaries which are at times somber, at times celebratory. Together with the works on paper is a hand-sewn soft sculpture of two intertwined snakes - a male and a female - decadently dressed, offering a wry statement on the privileged social systems media imagery exploits.
Born in 1972 in Anaheim, California, Christian Holstad lives and works in New York. In the last year, he was featured in the 2004 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, presented a solo show at Kunsthalle Zurich, and had a Project Room show at P.S.1 Center for Contemporary Art, Long Island City, New York. Holstad has also had recent solo exhibitions at Hiromi Yoshii, Toyko, Daniel Reich Gallery, New York, Galeria Massimo de Carlo, Milan and has performed in various venues as a member of the Black Leotard Front.
© Image: Christian Holstad
Defending Decisions, 2005
pencil on newspaper
13 x 18 cm (unframed)