Michael Brown
13 Feb - 27 Mar 2010
MICHAEL BROWN
February 13 - March 27, 2010
Yvon Lambert Paris is pleased to announce Michael Brown’s first solo exhibition in Europe. The show will feature new work by the American artist and will run concurrently with an exhibition of work by Ian Wallace. Both exhibitions will open on Saturday, February 13, 2010 and will be on view until March 27, 2010.
Reinvention is vital to Michael Brown’s work. In this exhibition, Brown (b.1982) addresses the conspicuous consumption that commonly plagues the Western world. Inspired by the rapid depletion of the earth’s resources and the commonality of discarding objects after singular or minimal use, Brown presents traditionally mundane objects reworked as conceptual representations of this issue. Lawn chairs, aluminum cans, steel and plastic “mirrors”, and pornographic images inhabit the gallery, with each work possessing a poignant history and message referring to mankind’s abuse and abundant consummation of materials. The artist’s subtle transformations of these items have roots in both minimalism and Duchamp’s readymades.
The explicit sexual imagery is the artist’s favorite book turned into magazine centerfolds through a complicated and precise process of transformation: the book is shredded, the pulp strained, pressed, dried, and then printed with the pornography. Brown creates raw images that reference the intended fleeting use and subsequent disposal of porn magazines. The book, the base material of the work, is symbolic of the sharing of ideas and stories throughout history and also cross-culturally. Its transformation into the pornography highlights the artist’s perceived lack of acknowledgement between individuals and their own history, and also comments on the selfish, pleasure-driven actions that pervade today’s society.
The classic design of the lawn chair is synonymous with American small-town leisure, and the chair is an inexpensive and ubiquitously accessible item.
Brown uses found objects—the actual metal frames from lawn chairs—and creates the colored webbing from hand-cut aluminum and enamel. The installation of lawn chairs surrounded by highly polished tin cans alludes to the widespread accessibility of leisure and indulgence in modern society.
The featured body of work resembling mirrors are crafted from hand-cut stainless steel, polished until reflective, and inlaid with plastic. The steel is artificially broken by Brown to resemble cracks in a mirror. The artist’s use of steel and plastic, two highly durable and efficient industrial materials that neither wear nor biodegrade, comments further on the issues of consumption and depletion of resources.
Michael Brown’s work has been featured in two solo exhibitions at Yvon Lambert, New York, as well as group exhibitions at venues including: the Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH; Yvon Lambert, Paris; Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, NY; Zwirner and Wirth, New York, NY; Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY; Yellow Bird Gallery, Newburgh, NY; Dorsky Center for Curatorial Studies, New York, NY.
February 13 - March 27, 2010
Yvon Lambert Paris is pleased to announce Michael Brown’s first solo exhibition in Europe. The show will feature new work by the American artist and will run concurrently with an exhibition of work by Ian Wallace. Both exhibitions will open on Saturday, February 13, 2010 and will be on view until March 27, 2010.
Reinvention is vital to Michael Brown’s work. In this exhibition, Brown (b.1982) addresses the conspicuous consumption that commonly plagues the Western world. Inspired by the rapid depletion of the earth’s resources and the commonality of discarding objects after singular or minimal use, Brown presents traditionally mundane objects reworked as conceptual representations of this issue. Lawn chairs, aluminum cans, steel and plastic “mirrors”, and pornographic images inhabit the gallery, with each work possessing a poignant history and message referring to mankind’s abuse and abundant consummation of materials. The artist’s subtle transformations of these items have roots in both minimalism and Duchamp’s readymades.
The explicit sexual imagery is the artist’s favorite book turned into magazine centerfolds through a complicated and precise process of transformation: the book is shredded, the pulp strained, pressed, dried, and then printed with the pornography. Brown creates raw images that reference the intended fleeting use and subsequent disposal of porn magazines. The book, the base material of the work, is symbolic of the sharing of ideas and stories throughout history and also cross-culturally. Its transformation into the pornography highlights the artist’s perceived lack of acknowledgement between individuals and their own history, and also comments on the selfish, pleasure-driven actions that pervade today’s society.
The classic design of the lawn chair is synonymous with American small-town leisure, and the chair is an inexpensive and ubiquitously accessible item.
Brown uses found objects—the actual metal frames from lawn chairs—and creates the colored webbing from hand-cut aluminum and enamel. The installation of lawn chairs surrounded by highly polished tin cans alludes to the widespread accessibility of leisure and indulgence in modern society.
The featured body of work resembling mirrors are crafted from hand-cut stainless steel, polished until reflective, and inlaid with plastic. The steel is artificially broken by Brown to resemble cracks in a mirror. The artist’s use of steel and plastic, two highly durable and efficient industrial materials that neither wear nor biodegrade, comments further on the issues of consumption and depletion of resources.
Michael Brown’s work has been featured in two solo exhibitions at Yvon Lambert, New York, as well as group exhibitions at venues including: the Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH; Yvon Lambert, Paris; Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, NY; Zwirner and Wirth, New York, NY; Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY; Yellow Bird Gallery, Newburgh, NY; Dorsky Center for Curatorial Studies, New York, NY.