MARY ELLEN BARTLEY – PAPERBACKS

Posted on 2014-09-22

Utilizing the materiality of paperback books, Bartley’s spare, minimalist compositions quietly oscillate between abstraction, sculptural assemblage, and color field study. The soft light and muted palette of the photographs recall and are homage to the still-life paintings of Giorgio Morandi. And like Morandi’s demure bottle still-lifes, the subtle shifting tones of Bartley’s book compositions are imbued with a hushed tranquility. In these compositions, the books are symbols untethered from their signifiers, reimagined as sequenced variations within a tonal poem. The careful calibration of light, shadow, and depth of focus further decontextualize the objects, pushing the compositions closer to abstraction.

As the artist describes: “This series is about muting – pressing a mute button and creating a quiet, circumscribed project. I work with books, containers, and symbols of stories, information, knowledge, and meaning, but I deliberately hide any clues to the books’ contents, rendering them anonymous and wordless… The calm palette [of] fog grays and tooth colored whites further tranquillizes the clamor of narratives, characters, and action that must be contained within their pages.”

Opposite – Untitled 2, from the series Paperbacks, 2009

Exhibition runs through to October 18th, 2014

Yancey Richardson
525 West 22nd Street
New York
NY 10011

www.yanceyrichardson.com

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ZACKARY DRUCKER & RHYS ERNST – POST/ RELATIONSHIP/ X

Posted on 2014-09-22

Relationship chronicles Drucker and Ernst’s private moments as an opposite-oriented transgender couple, during which time Ernst transitioned from female to male and Drucker transitioned from male to female. Described by Drucker as “pure diary”, Relationship positions the document as a malleable tool for producing narrative and counternarrative form, through snapshots that depict the artists in various states of attachment and moments of solitude. “My life with Rhys was perplexing and captivating, and I wanted to remember it,” she says.

This exhibition includes images presented at the Whitney and the AGO along with many others that are part of the original series but have not yet been shown. Perhaps the complexity of this iteration lies in how stages of detachment and intimacy are signified through differences of mood and tone as opposed to chronology; whereas Relationship’s previous presentations cultivated a more celebratory and sentimental portal into the artists’ life together, this broader range of material speaks to Drucker and Ernst’s more recent stage of individuation as they initiate a separation of their romantic partnership while continuing their creative collaboration.

Throughout the series, Drucker and Ernst portray each other and themselves as both whole and fragmented subjects – figures and bodies obscured by objects or reflected in mirrors, and situated within environments ranging from domestic interiors to lush, outdoor settings. The processes of performing and documenting, which are more in the service of “making worlds” than evidence-gathering, suggest a dysfunctionality to these documents which fail a clinical expectation.

Opposite – Relationship, #59, 2008-14

Exhibition runs through to November 1st, 2014

Luis De Jesus Los Angeles
2635 S. La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles
CA 90034

www.luisdejesus.com

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