re-construction:
the action or process of reconstructing or being reconstructed;
a thing that has been rebuilt after being damaged or destroyed;
an impression, model, or re-enactment of a past event…
McClain Gallery is pleased to present re:construction, a group exhibition that explores and encourages the dialogues between form and function, art and design, abstraction, extraction and representation by bringing together three-dimensional works by Donna Green, Sheila Hicks, Bo Joseph, Julia Kunin and Thaddeus Wolfe; paintings and works on paper by Ruth Asawa, Nicolas Carone, Claire Falkenstein, Leon Polk Smith, André Lanskoy and Julian Stanczak; with furniture by Marcel Gascoin.
Through various mediums and perspectives, these artists and artisans have a preoccupation with the methods of building form, whether intended to serve a function or result in a non-traditional object. The exhibition energizes the visual and textural dialogue between these fields, and in turn extends our understanding and appreciation of these formal and intuitive relationships.
re:construction opens Saturday, January 27, 2018 with a reception from 1 - 4pm, and will run until March 31, 2018.
Bo Joseph’s bronzes, Julia Kunin’s ceramics, and Thaddeus Wolfe’s glass works address the intuition of the creator to re-contextualize and build on historical, ritualistic and contemporary objects and portraits. Donna Green, Nicolas Carone, André Lanskoy, Leon Polk Smith and Julian Stanczak create line through gestural abstraction and optical illusion, challenging our perceptions of dimension, space, and form. Ruth Asawa, Claire Falkenstein and Sheila Hicks are consistent participants in contemporary discussions that place increasingly equal emphasis and dedication to craftsmanship and further attend to the important relationship between art and design.
Marcel Gascoin, a member of the UAM (L’Union des Artistes Moderne), worked as an architect and designer with the French Ministry of Reconstruction and Urbanism to design and build homes and the furniture to fill them during the post-war housing crisis in France. Created out of necessity and with precisely refined details, the pieces demonstrate a streamlined presentation that bridges art and industry and presents a definitive aesthetic in mid twentieth-century design.
re:construction is curated by Erin Dorn of McClain Gallery and Simone Joseph of SGJ Fine Art (New York) in collaboration with designer Malcolm James Kutner.