Chelsea’s Agora Gallery announced they will unveil a three-part exhibition that is scheduled to run from October 27, 2009 through November 17, 2009, featuring work from Anti Liu in Elements of Abstraction.
Taiwanese, Long Island-based sculptor Anti Liu crafts enigmatic, darkly funny monuments to crisscrossing personal and public histories. Rarely painted or decorated, his bronze, ceramic, clay and terracotta figures and architectures foreground their raw materiality. Melding modern history, art history, American pop culture and imagery of terrorism and war, he demonstrates a Kafkaesque sensibility for the tragic, slumped forms of modernity’s overburdened subjects and its absurd buildings. Liu’s ironic, uneasy figures alternate between violence, humor, irony and gloom.
The very materiality of his sculptures gives them a delicacy that tempers the harshness of his subjects. Whether uncomfortable bodies, everyday objects, odd and unsettling characters or hard-edged buildings, Liu’s work gains in complexity by drawing attention to its fragile and malleable materials. Like the passages in Taiwanese history, American politics and global popular culture it comments on, Liu’s art is shaped by its audience. Alternately troubling, funny, quizzical, satirical and formally intriguing, his meticulous, charming objects point viewers in certain directions, but let our minds wander.
Elements of Abstraction presents audiences with a rich kaleidoscope of color, form, and texture that in conjunction breathes life into abstract artworks. Whether employing shimmering brushstrokes or bold fields of color, nonrepresentational art, with its lack of familiar forms, allows the work speak to us on an especially elemental level. Through their deeply personal forms of expression, these artists offer a stunning glimpse into contemporary abstract painting. Altered States of Reality provides a glimpse of the world as captured through the lens of a camera, technology, and through the artists own inner vision. The gifted artist’s participating in Altered States of Reality offer us a perception of the world, as seen, through a complex, enigmatic fusion of emotions and technical mastery. The old boundaries have come tumbling down and the new reality has been altered and is forever changing. This exciting exhibition allows us to challenge our ideas, parables and perceptions that constitute our own reality. Portals of Perception bridges the wide expanse of artistic possibilities, gathering together impressionist, realist, and abstract paintings. What we find, surprisingly, is not the differences but the similarities as these talented artists vocalize the inspirations of places, people, and feelings. While the particular visual language may differ, the spirit behind the works has many overlapping areas, because to be human is to realize ourselves within our mental and physical environs.
Exhibition Dates: October 27, 2009 – November 17, 2009
Reception: Thursday, October 29, 2009, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Gallery Location: 530 West 25th St, New York City
Gallery Hours: Tues – Sat, 11a.m. – 6 p.m.
Event URL: http://www.agora-gallery.com/artistpage/anti_liu.aspx
