Gabriel Kuri
Recent Works
April 26 - June 8, 2002
Sara Meltzer Gallery
516 West 20th Street
NY, NY 10011
Gabriel Kuri, Untitled, 2000/2002.
Opening: Friday, April 26, 6 8pm.
Sara Meltzer Gallery is pleased to present, Gabriel Kuri: Recent Works. This is Mexican artist Gabriel Kuri’s first solo exhibition in the United States. Born and based in Mexico City, Kuri sets up an intertwined dialogue of many tropes including cultural identity, economic structures, class issues, history, and temporality.
Gabriel Kuri poetically calls into question the manner by which we, as a culture, so automatically define that which we are presented with everyday. Kuri uses commonplace materials for their physical properties as well as their semantic implications. In one work, a utilitarian object combined with an icon for celebrating commerce creates a critical spoof on capitalistic culture. Another piece includes a working industrial refrigerator. An appliance used to slow down the natural process of decomposition by cooling is disrupted before the viewers eyes by the very bright momentary pulse of the words “START” “NOW” and END. For Leaflet, Kuri enlarged a daily coupon page of the local newspaper to a twelve by eight foot (approx) tapestry. The temporary nature or fleeting moment of time, the clearly stated expiration date of the actual coupon, is now rendered permanent. Hand-woven and oversized, what was once the result of mass production now evokes the passion and painstaking! c! ! are of a labor of love. Context becomes everything.
Accompanying the sculptural works, Kuri has created a series of impromptu drawings that exist as juxtapositions of unrelated common objects, showing a continued insight into the artists process. At once carefree and tense, their nonsensical exploration of material and meaning further exemplify his theoretical framework. Kuris work lies between the sacred and profane, quotidian and ephemeral, and conceptual and concrete.
Gabriel Kuri received his MA from Goldsmiths College in London and has exhibited extensively around the world. He has had solo exhibitions at Sala 7 Museo Rufino Tamayo (Mexico City), Museo de las Artes de Guadalajara, Le Magasin Centre National dArt Contemporain de Grenoble, where he presented a collaborative project with Liam Gillick. Kuri has also been included in group exhibitions including LACMA, MCA Chicago, Sonsbeek 2001, Galerie Chantal Crousel (Paris), MAK Galerie (Vienna), and the Tirana Biennial 2001.
Room 02: Roger Andersson: New Damage
Video Wall: Michael Goedecke and Eric Saks Dust.
For full information please contact Adria Marquez: adriasmg@hotmail.com
