Locks Gallery is pleased to present IN COG NITO, a solo show of Rob Wynne featuring new glass sculptures together with early works from the ‘70s on. The exhibition will be on view September 1 through October 8, 2011. There will be a reception for the artist Friday, September 9, 2011 from 5:30 - 7:30 pm.
This second exhibition of Wynne’s work at the gallery presents new mirrored-glass words and revisits early mixed-media pieces that contextualize his long-standing interest in, and engagement with text. The early framed pieces on display include embroideries, candle-smoke drawings, photographs and photograms, “typewriter pieces”, collages, and cutouts. Wynne’s early pieces unfold what would become a long-lasting exploration of words, connotations, metaphors and the relationship between text and its visual rendering.
The first glass sculpture that Wynne created lies on a strip of sand; the transparent three-dimensional letters read INVISIBLE (1992). Recent poured-mirrored-glass letters spell out AFTER ALL, BE FOR LONG, FOR EVER, IN TU ITION, IN COG NITO… Wynne choreographs the glimmering letters on the wall, giving them a “theatrical form.” In the artist's words, “I pick words or phrases from anywhere I find them –from existing poetry (from Charles Baudelaire to Gertrude Stein, and Wallace Stevens), from things that pop into my mind, snippets of conversation overheard, to obsessive rhythmic reference to words that resonate in my mind.”
A fully illustrated catalog of the exhibition includes a conversation with Alice Quinn, director of the Poetry Society of America and former poetry editor of The New Yorker, that elucidates the back-stories and the processes of Wynne’s art.
Rob Wynne (b. 1948) has had numerous solo gallery exhibitions, including JGM Galerie, Paris; Galerie Edward Mitterand, Geneva; and Holly Solomon Gallery, New York. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at the McNay Art Museum, TX; P.S.1 Institute for Contemporary Art, NY; Long Beach Museum of Art, CA; The Drawing Center, NY; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. Wynne’s work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; Fondation d’art Contemporain Guerlain, France; and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.
