MATTHEW BRANNON
GENTLEMANS RELISH
EXHIBITION DATES: OCTOBER 27 DECEMBER 17, 2011
OPENING: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27 6:00-8:00PM
Casey Kaplan is extremely proud to present the gallerys first solo exhibition Gentlemans Relish with New York based
artist, Matthew Brannon. Utilizing our three separate gallery spaces, the project presents: new silkscreen and letterpress
prints, paintings, sculptures, and a series of collaborative artworks with the designer and artist, Carlo Brandelli. These
artworks suggest various props, personas, sets, dialogues, and scenarios of an unpublished noir mystery narrative
(written by Brannon) the plot of which involves a sexually frustrated private detective who is hired to investigate a
murder whose prime suspect is a sexually deviant dentist.
The exhibition is structured as three separate locales within the three rooms of the gallery. Sculptural doors with handpainted
signage written backwards: Adults Only, Powder Room, and Police Station displace the viewer into a
fictitious world. Silkscreen and letterpress text-based prints, labeled Act I, Act II, and Act III, imply events that may
yet happen or have already occurred.
The first gallery presents a sculptural bar housing innumerable hand-carved liquor bottles and glasses, alluding to
decadence and excess, and the room is charged with a sense of impending demise. In the second gallery, the suspense
heightens within two simultaneously occurring scenes an elaborate apartment party and the crowded lobby leading to
it where two characters run into each other, and someone is killed. A desk with a single letter resides in the third
gallery. On the wall, a text-based silkscreen begins, In his office. End of the night. Difficult Jazz Playing in the
Background. Sound of air conditioning. Sound of breaking pencils. Hitting the delete button
, and ends,
Hed been
hired to help someone but he knew the real job was murder. All your life you think youre this one person and then you
find out youre not and its only a moment before its over.
The plot is nearly revealed, however intrigue prevails, as the climax remains unseen. It is set in the bar of a London
central train station where a character, guilty of murder, is waiting for the police to arrest him. Brannons solo
presentation at Frieze Art Fair in London (October 12 16, 2011) has functioned both as the prologue and the finale of
this exhibition.
The adaptation of Brannons noir mystery attests to the crucial role of text and narrative within his practice. The exhibition
exemplifies the diversity of media within it; his trademark letterpress and silkscreen prints anchor the plot, and are aided
by sculptural elements and objects such as hand carved foam and wood works, larger installations, and floral and
collaged prop-like paintings. The disjunction of the narrative and its displaced presentation both spatially and
temporally emphasize the complexities of Brannons work, whose practice interweaves fiction and sublimated desires,
with reality and satire.
Date:
From 27-Oct-11 (All day) through 17-Dec-11 (All day)Location:
Casey Kaplan 525 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011Contact:
Visual ArtsInfo:
For further information regarding this event, please contact Visual Arts by sending email to visualarts@columbia.edu .Related
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Columbia University School of the Arts offers MFA degrees in Film, Theatre Arts, Visual Arts, and Writing, an MA degree in Film Studies, a joint JD/MFA degree in Theatre Management & Producing, and a PhD degree in Theatre History, Literature, and Theory.
Columbia University School of the Arts offers MFA degrees in Film, Theatre Arts, Visual Arts, and Writing, an MA degree in Film Studies, a joint JD/MFA degree in Theatre Management & Producing, and a PhD degree in Theatre History, Literature, and Theory.