Christian Schwarzwald
ANTECHAMBER
September 9- October 9, 2004
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 9, 6 - 8 pm
Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present ANTECHAMBER, a new installation of drawings by Christian Schwarzwald.
The images in Christian Schwarzwald’s ANTECHAMBER are structured like musical notation: many notes which
may look chaotic on the page, but when “played” together, make sense. The base work, drawings of a faux marble structure that cover the lower half of the gallery walls, is classical and creates the weight of history. On top of this are a multitude of drawings, glued, taped, stapled, and nailed to the walls. Borrowing from many sources, they function as symbols of contemporary culture, and represent lightness, speed, and experimentation. The images range from high contrast realism, to the sort of scribbles one makes in bars to relay information. These ways of communicating and their subjects, from commonplace to personal, elegant to gritty, are gathered in a mass which looks like a storm ready to break. Schwarzwald’s ANTECHAMBER is a meeting place of styles, a room where pictures from disparate contexts are forced to spend a bit of time together. His combinations, cancellations, and overlaps, show that there are old pictures to be remade and new pictures to be made.
Of this installation Schwarzwald says, “There is the fight between the weight of history and the speedy deluge of contemporary images, which make up in quantity what the lack in permanence. I want this battle situated in a place that really has the feeling of a waiting room...a place where a patient waits for his diagnosis, for care or treatment, but also a sort of prison (one wall has a structure like a chain link fence) for cases that have yet to be cleared...waiting for trial, or like gladiators waiting to be sent into the arena to do battle.”
As a composer and arranger of images, Schwarzwald has a wealth of influences to draw from. He was born in Austria, lives in Berlin, and is currently doing a residency in the Villa Romana in Florence. This will be his first solo show in New York.
Derek Eller Gallery is located at 526 West 25th Street, 2nd floor. Hours are Tuesday - Saturday from 11am - 6pm. For further information or visuals, please contact the gallery at 212.206.6411 or visit www.derekeller.com.