 Untitled (White Series), 2004 chromogenic print, 30 x 44" Heidi Zumbrun Photographs & Video Stephen Wirtz Gallery announces an exhibition of a new series of photographs and video works by Heidi Zumbrun that explore the form, presence, and potential meanings of mysterious, large-scale, sculptural objects discovered by the artist. The images in the exhibition emphasize the lack of a fixed explanation for these perplexing white sculptural forms. They seem animal-like, with a profoundly visceral appearance and bizarre, skin-like texture that shines with an otherworldly glow in the outdoor light. Like an encampment of cloned pods, they seem alive and inhabit the landscape with an uncertain permanence while suggesting their own hidden, interior environment. Zumbrun creates an imagined narrative by documenting these objects in landscape in a way that is suggestive of a phenomenal event. The viewer may question whether these objects are commonplace and merely unrecognizable in the context of the presentation, or follow Zumbrun's suggestion by allowing their imagination to develop alternative possibilities. Zumbrun's act of appropriating these objects while resisting the definition of their intended purpose creates a situation of suspended interpretation and invites one to muse on the aesthetic value of an object in the artist's selfcreated world. "Photographs and Video" follows from Zumbrun's acclaimed "Post-Op" and "Anatomy" series of large-scale images of parts of disfigured stuffed animals and toys that function as surrogate vehicles for the comprehension of psychological complexities of medical uncertainty. In this new series Zumbrun expands on her preoccupation with the issues of appropriating and re-contextualizing images of anthropological interest in her conceptual art practice. Heidi Zumbrun lives and works in San Francisco and is an MFA graduate from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is included in the collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Logan Collection, the Denver Art Museum and the Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS. Exhibition: January 26 - February 26, 2005 Gallery hours: Tue-Fri 9:30 am - 5:30 pm, Sat 10:30 am - 5:30 pm Stephen Wirtz Gallery 49 Geary Street, 3rd Floor USA-San Francisco, CA 94108 Telephone +1 415 433-6879 Fax +1 415 433-1608 Email swg@wirtzgallery.com www.wirtzgallery.com |
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