 Rock Stud, 2005 Oil on bristol board, 15 x 22 inches Carmine Iannaccone Re - Public Works New Sculpture Carmine Iannaccone's first solo show at SolwayJones presents three polychromed sculptures in wood that link contemporary concerns about America's influence in the world to the historical issues of empire and nationalism in art. The work builds off the artist's longstanding interest in questions that arise at the intersection of landscape and sculpture. Using the mountain as a central icon, his representations create a correspondence between the specific woodworking techniques he employs - lamination and direct carving - and geological processes like uplift and erosion. The conspicuous use of patterns in each piece allies their sense of design to analogous principles of design in nature, just as the engineering of each object "stylizes" (and stabilizes) a dynamic physical force. Iannaccone uses these symmetries to experiment with the rhetorical functions of landscape, the way it can serve as a vehicle for politics and ideals. The central triptych in the show, "Nation Building", looks specifically to the precedent of Thomas Cole's monumental cycle "The Course of Empire". Like other painters of the Hudson River School, Cole homed in on the problem of a republic that also wanted to behave like an empire - a split identity that continues to resonate in current geopolitical affairs. Attracted to their 19th century Beaux-Art aesthetic, Iannaccone is also fascinated with how these painters automatically ennobled the discussion. His laboriously constructed objects pursue this same rhetoric of sublimation, but from the more literal and physicalized angle of the sculptor. "Re-Public Works" is about locating the tangible point where materiality becomes representation, and then following the chain reaction from there. Land becomes landscape, landscape becomes landmark, landmark becomes symbol, insignia, emblem, any of the signs we use to make space iconic - and socially charged. Exhibition: June 3 - July 2, 2006 Gallery hours: Tues-Sat 11 am - 6 pm SolwayJones 5377 Wilshire Boulevard USA-Los Angeles, CA 90036 Telephone +1 323 937 7354 Email solwayjones@sbcglobal.net www.solwayjonesgallery.com |
 |