CARL HAMMER GALLERY
740 North Wells Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610 312.266.8512 fax 312.266.8510
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CARL HAMMER GALLERY 740 North Wells Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610 312.266.8512 fax 312.266.8510
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Gallery News Page/Press Releases
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JERRY SMITH
New Paintings and Works on Paper May 28 - July 2, 1999
In this his second one-person Chicago show appearance, Jerry Smith continues his evocative exploration and metaphorical discovery of contemporary technological mythologies. The surreal edge contained in these new paintings is produced by the artist’s juxtaposition of performing artists (yoga practitioners) with wrecked machinery (cars, trucks, trains, airplanes, television screens, computers, etc.). They symbolize a concern over the way two very different life orders have difficulty meshing in this complex and diverse age. On the one hand, he presents us the scientific and industrial/technological component, forever in a state of conflict and self-demolition. Landscapes are strewn with the by-product corpses of twentieth century technology. Cars are smashed into trees, trucks are twisted and over-turned by boulders or natural disasters, TV monitors lie piled up in vast junkyards of machine obsolescence. On the other hand Smith, with autobiographical deftness, portrays the artist in a quandary, simultaneously celebrating and despairing the excesses of urban sprawl, and never exactly fitting into the context of its perpetual motion. The contortionists in each of these paintings accurately recreate various yoga positions used in meditative transcendental exercising. The artist here carefully practices a self-maintained distance from that which he eagerly sits in vigil, as if from the surrounding chaos, he is about to garner some beautiful sound or understanding. Smith’s paintings are richly painted, tightly constructed, and more importantly, their essence hints at the need for reform without one being hit in the face by it. We are proud to welcome Jerry Smith back in residence here at the Carl Hammer Gallery during these next five weeks. |
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