“Anthony Becker has kept tabs on recurrent small accidents that have large repercussions.” Jane Durrell

For Buckled Wings, Becker has created an interactive installation that confronts the viewer with the visual and tactile experience of the reality, and finality, of nature. By documenting the daily expiration of birds encountered on his regular trips through a typical suburban neighborhood, Becker has amassed an immense “dead records” file. He gives testament to life and loss, an intimate tribute to beautiful and exceptional beings.

The compassion and sensitivity of each of hundreds of drawings contrasts the often violent vehicular end to each bird’s existence. His installation shares years of experience with natural and unnatural laws of nature that have gone completely unnoticed until the viewer becomes engaged in the piece. The viewer must retrieve and hold each drawing/document from the horizontal file to observe each day’s record. The necessary hands-on interaction with each drawing compels us to bear witness to Becker’s intimate experience with each recorded small life, and death.

Since graduating from Yale in 1981, Anthony Becker has been challenging himself to truly “see things and causes” in the world around him. Working in a wide range of materials from rusty metal, wire, and wood, to oil paint and paper, he has made large, tetanus-inducing nests, ruined angels, and landscape paintings that almost coalesce into Edwin Dickinson’s notion of the “premier coup.” Becker has exhibited throughout the country, including notable shows at the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center, Spertus Museum in Chicago, Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, and Dayton Art Institute. Buckled Wings is his first, and long overdue, exhibition in New York City.

Hours: Oct 5 to 27, Wed & Thu, 6 to 8 pm, and by appointment Contact: 646.265.5508, [email protected], www.creongallery.com