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May
1st - 4th,
2009
Opening preview: Thursday April 30th, 2009
dm contemporary is pleased to present new works by artists Eung
Ho Park, and
Frances
Richardson, at its booth at the invitational art fair, NEXT, in Chicago,
IL.
Eung Ho Park,
known for his large-scale installations made of common found objects, has
once again transformed the ordinary into extraordinary in two works created
specifically for this event. In “Sperm Spoons- New Life” (see detail),
a nine foot tall rectangular work, hundreds of spoons that have been bent
and shaped, shimmer and flow in an uninterrupted stream over three horizontal
stainless steel panels. Park challenges our perception of the spoon by changing
its context, literally, giving this common object a whole ‘new life’. The
second work, “I’m Looking at You - Prickly Gaze”, is composed of three square
panels each holding scores of individually painted bottle caps that look
like eyes peering oddly at the viewer. Part pop culture, part social commentary,
Park’s installations are meant to provoke debate about the human condition
and our social environment, but not without a touch of humor.
Eung
Ho Park was born in South Korea and lives and works in New York City. His
work has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally, and it is
in private as well as public collections, such as: The Queens Museum, Queens,
NY; The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and P.S. 270, Queens, N.Y.
Park’s work was recently featured in a book called, “Public Art for Public
Schools” by Michelle Cohen.
Frances Richardson ponders
the notion of gambling and risk in “The Transcendent Wager”, a drawing in four
parts depicting the four suits in a deck of cards. Since 1997 Richardson has
used the plus (+) and minus (-) signs to form her drawings using lead pencils
of varying density and applying alternating pressure on the paper to attain
the subtle gradation between light and dark. It is with that same simple ‘vocabulary’
that ideas of loss and gain, probability and infinity, doubt and belief, advantage
and disadvantage are expressed in these meticulously constructed drawings.
In a 2007 review of Richardson’s work in the LA Times, Leah Ollman wrote: “The
proposition seems absurd, really: to be able to express an infinite array of
information and emotion through the finite tools of binary code – switching
between on/off, zero/one, plus/minus. And yet all communication in this digital
era boils down to those fundamental building blocks…(Richardson) demonstrates
just how expansive those reductive tools can be.” Richardson adds in her own
words: “The chance of drawing all the aces in a hand of poker is in itself
a beautiful thing. Chance is beautiful. I wanted to appreciate that moment
as one of beauty which has its own reward.” This moment of beauty in the midst
of instability and transience is precisely what Richardson’s other drawing
in this exhibition reveals. “Almost at an Instant” (see detail), a twelve
part drawing, will have its first viewing worldwide at NEXT 09. Capturing the
point in time when a bubble bursts - that calamitous split second – Richardson
reconstructs an idea of what the eye cannot perceive and, in plus (+) and minus
(-) signs, proposes that beauty can be found in the extension of this fragment
of time.
Frances
Richardson, who lives and works in London, U.K., studied at the Royal College
of Art and was presented with the Conran award for best graduate exhibition
in 2006. She has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work
is in private as well as public collections, namely: The Victoria and Albert
Museum, London, U.K.; and The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas. Richardson’s
drawings are featured in “Vitamin D”, a major comprehensive international survey
on drawing today.
NEXT will be located at:
The Merchandise Mart, 222
Merchandise Mart Plaza, 7th
Floor, Chicago, IL 60654.
Directions can be
found on the NEXT
website.
The schedule is as follows:
NEXT 2009 Opening Preview takes place Thursday, April 30
Show Hours:
Friday, May 1, 11am - 7pm
Sunday, May 3, 11am - 6pm
Saturday, May 2, 11am - 7pm
Monday, May 4, 11am - 4pm
dm contemporary, Box 263 Mill Neck New York 11765 TEL: 516 922 3552 www.dmcontemporary.com. Contact person: Doris Mukabaa
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