REFERENCE - SUBTRACTION

Subtraction - New Work by Jesse Robinson
June 4th-30th 2010

Subtraction: New Work by Jesse Robinson

June 4th-30th 2010

www.jesserobinson.net

REFERENCE Art Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by Los Angeles artist Jesse Robinson. By reinterpreting commonplace objects and structures as platforms, alternative propositions of use and function are presented. Through sculpture, photography, video, and painting Jesse’s work exhibits that the use and misuse of objects can be a highly charged gap filled with both friction and possibility.

Subtraction: the act of decreasing or reducing something.

In terms of sculpture, a ‘subtractive’ process is the removal of material to reveal form. This idea is a way to frame the following collection of two-dimensional and three-dimensional works. The difference, however, is that here the material ‘subtracted’ is amplified through (conspicuous) absence revealing the form of the negative space.

In the untitled video, what appears to be a still image subtly changes as the clouds move in real time and the highlights on the chairs appear and disappear. The two folding chairs upholstered in green screen fabric are, in the video, replaced with the ethereal hypnotic movements of the clouds. The ubiquitous structure of the folding chair becomes a frame or container, collapsing the space between product photography and fantasy and between static and active.

In the Simple Pleasure of Organization the shirt is “worn” by an aluminum sculpture, allying the corporal satisfaction of scratching with a more cerebral formal structure. The t-shirt is a novelty back scratching t-shirt that has a grid printed on it, so as to help facilitate the precise location of an itch. The t-shirt becomes an intersection of two seemingly disparate ideas: structure and pleasure.

- Jesse Robinson

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