Untitled (Nightflight to Venus) (detail), 2014, agate, coal, bismuth, chrysophase, electroplated gold thread, and embroidery floss on velvet, 23 3/8 x 23 3/8 x 3/14 inches (59.4 x 59.4 x 8.3 cm)
Gagosian is pleased to present new work by Piotr Uklański at Independent Projects 2014.
Since the mid-1990s, Uklański’s diverse body of work has included large-scale paper reliefs, tie-dye paintings, textile sculptures, photography, performance, and a feature-length film, Summer Love: The First Polish Western (2006).
This presentation marks the debut of a new body of work that builds upon Uklański’s belief in the curative powers of art. These new paintings draw upon the therapeutic and spiritual properties of crystals, and as such, they could easily be unified under the title New Age paintings.
Expanding upon Uklański’s ongoing “meta-painting” practice, these works deploy embroidery and the application of various crystals, minerals, rocks, gemstones, fossils, meteorites, agates, shells, and other metaphysical stones to fields of velvet or fabric. The pictorial arrangements of these elements often take an illusionistic form that conjures parallel universes or mystical landscapes. Just as the New Age movement itself has embraced alternative approaches to traditional Western culture–by foregrounding spirituality, mysticism, and holistic practices–Uklański’s New Age paintings are invested in art’s potential to stimulate human energies and its ability to channel healing powers.
Piotr Uklański was born in in Warsaw, Poland in 1968, and lives and works in Warsaw and New York. His work has been collected and exhibited by museums worldwide, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Britain, London; François Pinault Foundation, Venice; and Kunsthalle Basel. In 2006, Uklański debuted his first feature-length film, Summer Love: The First Polish Western. Recent museum exhibitions include “Piotr Uklański: A Retrospective,” Wiener Secession, Vienna (2007); “The Joy of Photography,” Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg (2007-08); “Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection,” Punta della Dogana and Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2009-11); “2010: Whitney Biennial” (2010); “Piotr Uklański: Forty and Four,” Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2012-13); and “Piotr Uklański: ESL,” Bass Museum of Art, Miami (2013-14). A solo exhibition of Uklański’s work will open at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in spring of 2015.
Uklański lives and works in New York and Warsaw.
ABOUT PROJECTS
This new initiative from New York’s Independent will take place at Center548, the iconic galleries of the former DIA building in the heart of New York’s Chelsea district. Coinciding with New York’s auction season, Independent Projects will feature a sequence of monographic exhibitions by international galleries. Independent Projects will transform after the initial weekend from an art fair format with exhibitors onsite, to an exhibition space where the visitor can walk through a series of successive shows. Simultaneously an art fair, an exhibition, and a curatorial platform, Independent Projects will explore a dialogue between historical, established, and emerging practices, as well as folk and outsider art. Working closely with Independent’s architectural collaborators, the exhibition spaces will be shaped around the artistic vision of exhibiting artists, providing an opportunity to explore each artist’s project in depth.
ABOUT INDEPENDENT
Independent 2014 was conceived by Elizabeth Dee and Darren Flook and developed in conjunction with creative advisor Matthew Higgs and director Laura Mitterrand.
The architectural design of the exhibition spaces, which reflects the spatial and curatorial concerns of the galleries and institutions, is developed by Jonathan Caplan, Project-Space.
WHEN AND WHERE
Independent
548 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011
VERNISSAGE: Thursday, November 6, 6-8pm
ART FAIR: Friday, November 7-Saturday, November 8, 12-7pm; Sunday, November 9, 12-6pm
EXHIBITION: Monday, November 10-Saturday, November 15, 12-7pm
