Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Justin Lieberman - In Honor of the Occupation of Wall Street

212GALLERY

Justin Lieberman, Valentine fur die kleine frau (red property line with gold easement and multi-tool), 2011, mixed media, 63x76x3”
Justin Lieberman | In Honor of the Occupation of Wall Street
Opening Reception: January 12 from 6 to 8pm
December 30-February 2, 2012

212GALLERY is pleased to present In Honor Of The Occupation of Wall Street featuring nine new works which incorporate the poetry of Bertolt Brecht and macaroni collage, in some cases, through their conspicuous absence.

As is the case with almost every living artist today, Lieberman’s oeuvre is composed of an eclectic mix of mediums, formats and techniques, including collages, sculptures, paintings, installations, and videos. Lieberman is an artist rooted in pagan Germanic mythology, whose exhibition résumé reads like chapters in an ongoing investigation in search for meaning in a world driven by value judgments and contradictions – be they cultural, commercial, artistic or hierarchical. He has a tendency towards Wagnerian epics, particularly in representations of his everyday existence.

His 2005 show Time and Money dealt with topics ranging from art and advertisement, time, memory and premonition, the cult of authenticity, to teenage counterfeiters and the popular cartoonist Gary Larson, while his 2006 Agency: Open House show attempted to find some sort of middle ground between the commodity circus of Koons or Murakami against the reactive refusal to submit to commercial trends. 

When asked what his work was about several years ago, Lieberman replied, “Exhibition Structures, Regional Traditions, Commercial Display, Mass Culture, Junk Sculpture, Authorship, Perversion.” When confronted with this in an e-mail I wrote him on the 8th of December, he insisted that this was a total lie and he had been misquoted. Lieberman has an obsessive affinity for the character Porygon.

In this show, his piece Valentine Für Die Kleine Frau (Red Property Line with Gold Easement and Multi-Tool) incorporates a book, a skillet, and a shower head, among other things. Price $12,000.

Upper Case Violenceis a wooden assemblage screwed directly into the wall and exhibiting a pair of plastic teeth. The teeth were originally part of another work, Theory of Voice-Over which was  destroyed after being shown in Paris. The actual meaning of the piece is far too complicated to develop on here.

“Every 'piece' is basically a fragment of something larger, meanings, materials, and ideas are carried over,” Lieberman said.  “Sometimes, I have more control, sometimes I have less. I like when works are added to, or taken away from, or destroyed, defaced, or preserved."

BIO
Lieberman was born in 1977 in Miami. He received his BFA, at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MA); his MFA at Yale University in New Haven (CT) in sculpture. He has exhibited in galleries in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Los Angeles and New York.

Gallery Hours are daily from 10AM-6PM.

212GALLERY | 525 East Cooper Avenue, next to Ralph Lauren

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