SAATCHI GALLERY
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SELECTED WORKS BY Gedi Sibony



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Gedi Sibony

Untitled

2008
Carpet, tape

305 x 107 cm

Gedi Sibony’s constructions draw from the traditions of minimalism in their pared down aesthetics and conception of sculpture as selfcontained conceptual objects. Unlike the highly polished works of artists such as Donald Judd or Ad Reinhardt, Sibony’s objects adopt an impoverished style and are often made from found materials such as cardboard, plastic sheeting, and wood. Through these media, which are associated with both construction and debris, Sibony’s work elevates the humble qualities of everyday ‘stuff’ to create instances of poetic beauty. In Untitled, Sibony presents a strip of carpet mounted on the wall as a ready-made ‘painting’ picturing a geometric composition made from tape; through its delicate arrangement and tactile surface, Untitled seduces invested contemplation of its precarious form and physicality.


Gedi Sibony

That's Tall's Tale

2005
Plastic, tape

152.5 x 152.5 cm

In That’s Tall's Tale, Sibony configures a ‘painting’ from plastic sheeting and packing tape, with the irregular shape of the ‘canvas’ drawing reference to artists such as Ellsworth Kelley and Frank Stella. By exposing exactly how the work was made, Sibony instigates a performative role for the artistic process, focusing attention on the subtle tensions within the composition and its very considered and sophisticated balance of form, materiality, and space. Through this intense scrutiny, Sibony affirms the authenticity of artistic integrity, positing a refined connoisseurship of, and heightened sensitivity to, visual tradition as an intrinsic and enduring value.


Gedi Sibony

Side Show, Side Show

2008
Wood

241 x 151 x 20 cm

In addition to minimalism, Sibony also cites inspiration from Robert Rauschenberg’s combines and Richard Tuttle’s post-minimalism in his synthesis of disparate media, and the arte povera movement in its approach to experimentation and mystical conception of the natural quality of materials. Side Show, Side Show is a deceptively simple arrangement of two wooden frames leaned against the wall, establishing a contingent relationship to both each other and the surrounding gallery architecture. Delineating empty space as a comparable field by which to measure the sculpture’s existence, Side Show, Side Show wittily hovers between ‘being’ and ‘nothingness’, exuding a quiet spiritual aura in its delicate self-assertion. Presented with understated elegance, the frames operate as both a form and its shadow, action and onsequence, a receptacle and echo of viewer perception.


Gedi Sibony

Untitled

2009
Plastic sheet, packing tape, ink

290 x 183 cm

Sibony’s Untitled is a monumental assemblage of plastic wrapping and packing tape. Its overwhelming scale magnifies its fragile physicality, making its precarious presence simultaneously awesome and embarrassed. At first glance Sibony’s piece seems happenstance, as if the packaging of a work had been hung, rather than the work itself. The brown tape however, forms a rough image of a canvas on an easel; sketched out on the clear tarpaulin, Sibony’s witty conceptual game challenges expectations of perception and demythologises the processes behind art production – from the laborious work in the studio to final exhibition - making the creative methodology quite literally transparent.


Gedi Sibony

Untitled

2009
Diptych, carpet, wood door painted in white

Carpet : 220 x 170 cm Door : 203 x 76 cm Overall dimensions : 220 x 270 cm

Juxtaposing a sheet of carpet and an unfitted door, Sibony’s Untitled dissembles ideas of both architectural space and the selfconscious flatness of colour-field painting. Recontextualised as formal devices, his common household furnishings are made alien and seductive, elevated from their functional familiarity to the status of pure aesthetic. As ‘readymade paintings’ they form a strange diptych, their cheap purpose-built textures become oddly possessing through their assertion of autonomy, creating a sense of the sublime through the ordinary fixtures of everyday life.



ARTIST INFORMATION




Gedi Sibony's BIOGRAPHY






1973
Born in New York

Lives and works in New York


SOLO EXHIBITIONS


2008
Greene Naftali Gallery, New York
Galleria Zero, Milan
If Surrounded by Foxes, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims

2007
If Surrounded by Foxes, Kunsthalle St. Gallen
The Science of Imaginary Solutions, Midway Contemporary Art,
Minneapolis

2006
Galerie Art:Concept, Paris

2005
The Wrong Gallery, New York

2004
The Qualities Depend Upon Other Qualities, CANADA, New York


GROUP EXHIBITIONS


2008
Aspen Art Museum, Aspen

2007
Genesis I’m Sorry, Greene Naftali, New York
Unmonumental, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New
York
About the possibilities of a sculpture, Gallery Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart

2006
The Fortitude and Subtlety Of, Rowley Kennerk, Chicago
A Broken Arm, 303 Gallery, New York
Fundstü̈cke und Transit, Johnen+Schöttle, Cologne
Gedi Sibony / Josh Smith, Harris Lieberman, New York
Day for Night, Whitney Biennial 2006, Whitney Museum of Art,
New York
Delete/How to Make a Perfect Ghost, Anton Kern Gallery, New
York
Awards Show, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
Three Cities, Anna Catharina Gebbers, Berlin
Poetry from the Backyard, Art:Concept, Paris

2005
Make It Now, The Sculpture Center, Long Island City, New York
Greater New York 2005, PS1, Long Island City
Jack, Cuchifritos, New York
Greener Pastures, Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada
Walls 'n Things, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York

2004
Floorplay, The Brooklyn War Memorial, Brooklyn, New York
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The Project, New York
Summer Selections, The Drawing Center, New York
Colony, Hudson Clearing, New York

2003
Breaking Ground, White Columns, New York,
One Fine Day, Block Gallery, Sydney, Australia

2002
Linger, Artemis Greenberg Van Doren, New York
View, Socrates Sculpture Park, L.I.C., New York
Tuckernuck, CANADA, New York

2001
Strangers/Etrengers, PS1 Studio Program Exhibition, The Clocktower Gallery, New York

1999
Wight Biennial, The New Wight Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles

 


Other artists in ABSTRACT AMERICA: NEW PAINTING AND SCULPTURE

Carter | Eric and Heather ChanSchatz | Kristin Baker | John Bauer | Mark Bradford | Joe Bradley | Tom Burr | Jedediah Caesar | Peter Coffin | Guerra de la Paz | Francesca DiMattio | Bart Exposito | Stephen G. Rhodes | Mark Grotjahn | Rachel Harrison | Jacob Hashimoto | Patrick Hill | Matt Johnson | Ryan Johnson | Paul Lee | Chris Martin | Elizabeth Neel | Baker Overstreet | Amanda Ross-Ho | Sterling Ruby | Gedi Sibony | Amy Sillman | Agathe Snow | Kirsten Stoltmann | Dan Walsh | Jonas Wood | Aaron Young
 

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