Adam Marnie
Locus Rubric
September 9 - October 8, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, September 9, 6-8pm
Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present Locus Rubric, an exhibition of new work by Adam Marnie. For his first solo exhibition in New York, Marnie creates a total environment comprised of architectural interventions, site specific wall-works, framed collages, box-sculptures, and sheetrock punch-pieces.
For Marnie, each expanse of object and image is a surface awaiting rupture. Using sheetrock, picture frames, glass, wood, and photographs, he transforms the gallery into an arena of action, a performative site that traverses the boundaries of architecture, photography, sculpture, painting, and installation. The tension he has previously achieved between image and object in his photo collages and punch-pieces now reaches a higher pitch as he merges the white cube of the gallery and the picture plane with mutual incisions.
Marnie envisions Locus Rubric as a series of movements, interrelated but distinct. In a process he describes as “remixing,” he collages photographs directly onto the gallery wall then cuts out a sections of collaged wall, and either frames the removal or reinserts it elsewhere in the gallery. In another movement, he cuts through his framed photo collages and into the wall creating a continuous hole/wound/void that opens into the dark space behind the walls. This in and out, this merging of exteriority and interiority through rupture generates dynamic irregularities and emphasizes the corporeal vulnerability of his materials and the images (often flowers) he represents. He writes, "As an unbroken image, it is incomplete––a disturbance, a distortion, a fissure of some kind is crucial to open up the image into an activated space." Marnie's cutting, removing, remixing, and reinventing synergizes into a "volumetric hum" that resists categorization and the quiescence of resolution.
Adam Marnie's work has recently been seen in group exhibitions at Untitled, Andrea Rosen Gallery, James Fuentes LLC, and Night Gallery.