Andres Serrano
America
17/01/2003 - 28/02/2003
Chac Mool Gallery
8920 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, 90069
Phone 310.550.6792
Fax 310.550.6872
Chacmool@earthlink.net
http://artnet.com/ChacMool.html
Andres Serrano, America (Chloe Sevigny), 2002, Edition 1/7
ARTIST’S RECEPTION: Friday, January 17, 2003 6-9PM
Chac Mool Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of thirteen works
from Andres Serrano’s latest series, AMERICA. The exhibition
opens
Friday, January 17 and runs through February 28, 2003. The artist will
be
present at the opening on Friday evening from 6:00-9:00 in the evening.
Born in 1950 in New York, Serrano, who during the last two decades, has
jarred and continues to awaken a collective public and intellectual
consciousness with his photographs, may well be remembered for his
Piss
Christ, which created a controversy about federal funding of works
of art
and about the role of censorship and the right of artistic expression.
But the work produced during the last twenty years -searing and incisive
in its direct confrontation with contemporary reality- is evidence in
itself that this artist’s primary purpose is simply to photograph
people,
to reclaim their humanity. Thus, controversy is a necessary and
sometimes
unwelcome by-product of the work itself. Serrano seeks the aesthetic
distance of the photograph, which allows his subjects a new space and
dimension. Simultaneously, they become symbols of our time, icons to be
reinterpreted by the viewer. AMERICA is a case in point.
Focusing, as Serrano has, on the “unseen,” overlooked and bypassed by
the
ordinary gaze, these thirteen works (Cibachrome, silicone, Plexiglas,
wood
frame) embody a fresh commentary on the significance of AMERICA.
A
response to 9/11, to the question of who we are as Americans and what we
are, the series celebrates an AMERICA of equality and diversity.
Thus,
William Nelson, Heroin Addict is as “American” as Chloe
Sevigny, Actress,
as Snoop Dog and as Firefighter, Darrell Dunbar. Larger than
life, in
quasi heroic stances and dimensions (45 1/4 x 37 5/8 in.) they stand
next
to Thomas Buda, Hazmat Chemical Biological Weapons Response Team,
Lucas
Suarez, Homeless, and Jill Hardy, Powhatan Renape Nation, who
represents a
recurring theme in Serrano’s work and also, the “real” origin of
AMERICA.
The Gallery is located at 8920 Melrose Avenue (at Almont Drive), West
Hollywood. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday from 10:00 A.M. to
6:00 P.M., Saturdays 11:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. and by appointment. For
further information, photographs, and interviews, please call the
Gallery
at 310-550-6792.
