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ARTCAT



David Kennedy Cutler

PICK

Derek Eller Gallery
615 West 27th Street, 212-206-6411
Chelsea
September 10 - October 30, 2009
Web Site


Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present the New York solo debut of David Kennedy Cutler.

For this exhibition, Kennedy Cutler fills the gallery with ethereal sculptures made from transparent plexiglass. Working with a standard 8×4 foot sheet of plexi and two heat guns, one in each hand, he begins to grapple with the pliable sheet, twisting it and making a physical impression with his body. Using his knees, arms, and shoulders, he pushes and stretches the material, creating an elegant sculptural form which simultaneously functions as a document of his physical performance. He writes:

“[These sculptures] are built out of my desire to do something that was not depicting anything, not illustrating anything, had no surface application, had no superficiality or mark-making, had no coat or skin, but was actually a coat or skin, its essence was exactly what it was, but also was no longer just a material, but a presence or an action, embodied…”

The sculptures evoke the swirling carved marble of the classical tradition as well as process-based work and minimalism from the 1960’s. Totemic and human-like, the sculptures are confrontational and fully present. At the same time, they possess a kind of vulnerability in their ghostly emptiness. Like Yves Klein’s concept of the immaterial, Kennedy Cutler’s sculptures are represented by the imprint of their absence.

When installed within the gallery context, these “invisible” sculptures also present a paradox of both emptying a space and filling it up, providing “the gesture of vacancy (considering current events), and one of thought-out labored-over works of ‘Sculpture’ that have all the gestures of being earnest and considered”. To that end, the installation may be viewed as both an act of trickery and a poetic meditation on art-making.

David Kennedy Cutler lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He has been featured in group exhibitions at D’Amelio Terras and Guild & Greyshkul in New York, and has had solo exhibitions at Nice & Fit in Berlin.

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