What? Where? When? Why? How? Works by Bradley Hart
Exhibition: March 6 - 29 at gallery nine5
gallery nine5 is pleased to announce What? Where? When? Why? How?, Bradley Hart’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibit converges on Hart’s unique creation process of his current body of work, “Assemblages.” What? Where? When? Why? How? will be in the gallery from March 6 - 29, 2013, while a few of Hart’s works will be on display concurrently at SCOPE NY from March 6 - 10, 2013 in the iconic Moynihan Station. “Bradley Hart’s work uses paint yet he’s not a painter. He injects it, peels it and assembles it, but he never actually paints. Although on a material level paint is his medium most of the time, his conceptual methods are as much his medium as the paint object. Hart may be best understood as a conceptual materialist as distinct from how conceptual artists tend to lack concern with the formal aspects of an art object. Anyone seeing Hart’s work would no doubt consider them paintings. But in reality, they are something entirely different, something deeper and more difficult to define. The different bodies of Hart’s work...create a cycle of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. Understanding Hart’s ever-evolving system requires a global overview of the very distinct bodies of work he creates and their ultimate connection to each other. The Wasted Paint is, as Hart puts it, ‘authentic’, by which he means it is a naturally generated byproduct of all his processes. It is literally the paint that spills over from the injections and drippings from the created waste that end up on the drop sheet. Hart peels these pieces off the drop sheet and considers each piece as precious visual material for use in subsequent three-dimensional assemblages, which, like Rauschenberg, question the very nature of what a painting or sculpture is. Sometimes even just a single large piece of wasted paint stands on its own as an artwork. This harkens back to Duchamp’s ready-mades. The Created Waste series is a way Hart takes control of waste production, by ‘inauthentically’ (i.e. deliberately) dripping paint in order to produce the droppings on the floor for his abstract sculptural ‘paintings’. Hart
mimics and exaggerates what happens naturally and accidentally into a deliberate, calculated process of waste creation. Although a viewer’s eyes would not be able to distinguish between a wasted paint and a created waste painting, the extent to which Hart is truly a conceptual artist lies in the importance he gives to the fundamental difference in method, regardless that the outcomes appear the same. The processes are diametrically opposed, one the result of control, the other the product of surrender. [Hart is] much like a sculptor with a talent for mechanical engineering, who artistically builds his ideas in such a way that he devises rather complex processes and methods that lead to the creation of an open-ended cycle of art-making. The ‘Wasted Paint’ and ‘Created Waste’ series visually remind one of cross between Chamberlain and Pollock. They are colorful abstract constructs, assembled by Hart in a variety of sizes like sculptural paint on the picture plane. They don’t bear any resemblance to the photorealist injection paintings or the Richteresque impressions, these are rather in line with the tradition of abstract expressionism and action painting. While assembling these pieces of ‘waste’, Hart is impulsively responding to the material on an emotional level rather than controlling their creation with a logical or calculated plan. Wasted paint is where all roads lead. In every series produced by Hart, wasted paint is an inevitable byproduct. And no matter how much art he manages to create out of his seemingly self-contained sustainable system, there will always be waste to be recycled into evermore art.” --Excerpt from “The Madness to Bradley Hart’s Method: Technique Becomes Technology and Art Spawns Art” by Deborah Zafman, Ph.D*. *Deborah Zafman earned her Ph.D. in the history of art from UC Berkeley. A former Paris gallerist, independent curator and art critic, Deborah, in 2011, left Paris to co-found Zafman-Greenberg Art Advisory in New York City.
Injections | Jeremy Acrylic paint injected in bubble wrap 54 x 44 1/4 in | 137.2 x 112.4 cm
Impressions | Jeremy Acrylic paint on wood 68 1/2 x 47 3/4 in | 174 x 121.3 cm
Created Waste - Untitled #18 Acrylic paint on canvas 48 x 60 in | 121.9 x 152.4 cm
Created Waste - Untitled #15 Acrylic paint on canvas 60 x 48 in | 152.4 x 121.9 cm
Wasted Paint - Untitled #12 Acrylic paint on wood 40 x 30 in | 101.6 x 76.2 cm
Wasted Paint - Untitled #15 Acrylic paint on wood 48 x 24 1/8 in | 122 x 61.3 cm
Created Waste - Untitled #17 Acrylic paint on canvas 36 x 60 in | 91.5 x 152.4 cm
Injections | Canvas Acrylic paint injected in bubble wrap 40 x 40 in | 102 x 102 cm
Created Waste - Untitled #16 Acrylic paint on canvas 60 x 48 in | 152.4 x 122 cm
Wasted Paint - Untitled #17 Acrylic paint on canvas 36 x 60 in | 91.4 x 152.4 cm
Created Waste - Untitled #3 Acrylic paint on canvas 24 x 48 in | 61 x 122 cm
Created Waste - Untitled #6 Acrylic paint on canvas 40 x 30 in | 101.6 x 76.2 cm
Wasted Paint - Untitled #7 Acrylic paint on canvas 48 x 60 in | 122 x 152.4 cm
Created Waste - Untitled #14 Acrylic paint on canvas 80 x 60 in | 203.2 x 152.4 cm
Created Waste - Untitled #4 Acrylic paint on canvas 30 x 40 in | 76.2 x 101.6 cm
Wasted Paint - Untitled #16 Acrylic and injected bubble wrap on canvas 84 x 60 in | 213.3 x 152.4 cm
Created Waste - Untitled #8 Acrylic paint on canvas 45 x 84 in | 114.3 x 213.4 cm
(detail) Created Waste & Wasted Paint
(detail) Injections | Jeremy
24 spring st. new york, ny, 10012 | 212.965.9995 | info@gallerynine5.com