Curated by Felicity Hogan Curator and Artists’ Talk: Thursday, July 9, 7-8 PM

Structured Simplicity will present a group of artists, Mai Braun, Hilary Harnischfeger, Elana Herzog, Fabienne Lasserre, and Amy Yoes, who work in sculpture and site-specific installation. From a formalist and abstract perspective, the exhibition will investigate aspects of simplicity, taking purification as a point of departure i.e. making things simpler through structure, be they confined or chaotic. In bringing this group together, the curator, Felicity Hogan, seeks to explore varying manifestations of this concept and how structures are formed and conveyed through diversity of approach and use of materials.

The exhibition debuts new site-specific works by Mai Braun, Elana Herzog and Amy Yoes as well as previously unseen new works by Fabienne Lasserre and Hilary Harnischfeger. Fabienne Lasserre’s humorously crafted and sensual sculptures, striking a bold intelligent balance between the logical and illogical, are positioned alongside Mai Braun’s mischievously formed shredded NY Times-mâché piece: Your Emotions Make You a Monster. Mai Braun’s stacked cardboard boxes parallel and echo Amy Yoes’ mechanical hard-edged installation. Hilary Harnischfeger’s deftly sliced and angular sculptures complement Elana Herzog’s de-constructed garments and bed linens, patched aggressively with compulsively tacked staples. Additional connections will be reinforced through proximity. An influence of rudimentary materials is common to all artists with processes that revel in tension and release. In the art of Amy Yoes, Hilary Harnischfeger and Mai Braun, the subtle use of planes and angles form associations that display contrasting use of a comparable visual language. Manipulation and the distortion of architectural form further connect works by Amy Yoes and Elana Herzog.

Structured Simplicity was developed in response to the distinctive architecture and characteristics of the DAC gallery. While sculpture and installation are the primary focus, the exhibition also includes bas-reliefs by Hilary Harnischfeger and works on paper by Mai Braun as well as a new video by Amy Yoes created especially for Structured Simplicity.

Mai Braun was born in Berlin and is now based in Frankfurt after formerly residing in New York, NY and London, UK, where she received her MA at the Royal College of Art (1997). Exhibitions include a solo show Recent Object at Feature Inc, 2008, Exercises, a two-person exhibition at Cuchifritos, New York, curated by Simone Subal, 2007, and more object, her New York solo debut at Brooklyn Fire Proof, Brooklyn, NY, 2006. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Margaret Thatcher Projects, the Bronx Museum of Art, and in Texas at institutions such as The Locker Plant – Chinati Foundation, the Arlington Museum of Art, and DiverseWorks. Braun was artist-in-residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, TX in 2005, and has been the recipient of several fellowships and prizes from major institutions such as the Bronx Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX.

Hilary Harnischfeger was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1972 and now lives and works in New York, NY. She received her MFA from Columbia University. Harnischfeger’s solo exhibition at Rachel Uffner Gallery, NY is on display through June 21. Her work was included in The Line of Time, And the Plane of Now, Harris Lieberman and Wallspace Gallery, New York, NY, You Are Here, Ballroom, Marfa, TX, Hunch & Flail, Artists Space, New York, NY and Pertaining to Painting, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX.

Elana Herzog works in Brooklyn, lives in New York and is represented by LMAK Projects, New York, NY where she had a two-person show Making Traces, with Lieven DeBoeck in 2007. Herzog is currently a participant at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Residency and at the Workspace Program at Dieu Donné. Other exhibitions include Plaid, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, W(e)ave, a collaboration with Michael Schumacher, Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut, and Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting, Museum of Art and Design, NY, traveling exhibition. Herzog’s artwork has been reviewed extensively in publications including the New York Times, the New Yorker magazine, Time Out New York, New York Sun and Art in America.

Fabienne Lasserre was born in Montreal, is now based in Brooklyn, New York. Recent projects include The Split Wall, a two-person exhibition at South First, Brooklyn with Hilary Harnischfeger and others, her debut New York solo exhibition at Virgil de Voldere Gallery, New York, 2006. Group exhibitions include Welcome to My World, curated by Matthew Day Jackson and Amy Davila, Alexandre Pollazzon Gallery, London, UK, The Line of Time, And the Plane of Now, Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York and Possibly Being, Fabienne Lasserre, Will Villalongo, Larry Bamburg at Esso Gallery, New York. Lasserre was awarded the Special Editions Residency at the Lower East Side Printshop in 2007 and the Emerging Artists Fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY in 2006.

Amy Yoes is based in Manhattan, New York and is represented by Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York where her solo exhibition Rear-view mirror in 2007 was reviewed by the New York Times, Village Voice, and Art in America. A former Pollock-Krasner grant recipient and NYFA Art Foundation Fellowship, her sculptural installations have been exhibited in A sculpture for L.I.C., NYC Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY, Out of Bounds at Wave Hill, New York, Zip at Artspace, New Haven, Carriage House Project at Islip Art Museum, Islip, NY, and Solitude and Focus, Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield Connecticut, curated by Richard Klein. Recent projects include a private commission in Manhattan, producing an interactive sculptural kitchen and Street Level, a site-specific installation at Art in General. Through the Percent for Arts program, she is working on a wall-based sculpture commission for a new high school in the Bronx.

Felicity Hogan is Executive Director at Artists Alliance, Inc, an artist centered non – profit with a residency program and project space, Cuchifritos, both based on the Lower East Side, New York. Working independently, she recently participated as guest curator at the Free Store, organized by Double A Projects (Athena Robles and Anna Stein) with All is one, One is all, that featured performances and artwork by Miwa Koizumi, Min Oh and Tattfoo Tan. She is curator of the final exhibition of Juana Valdes, Workspace Resident, at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Jamaica, Queens, June 2009. Hogan has been guest curator at the D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® in 2007 with performances by Duron Jackson and Rashaad Newsome and in 2006 with performances by Mary Coble and Chad Stayrook and site-specific installation by Jose Ruiz.