Joe Bradley: Canton Rose

Galerie Eva Presenhuber announces its third solo show of American artist Joe Bradley entitled “Canton Rose“.
Joe Bradley will present nine new paintings and six new sculptures. In Joe Bradley’s sculptural work, there seem to exist two opposing ways that, in terms of their effect on the viewer, couldn’t be more different from each other and yet give the impression that they unite two imminent art-historical standpoints: On the one hand, there are open-form, figurative bronze sculptures on pedestals, like they were on view in his first solo exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in New York. In their form and manner, these works can be perceived as both following and continuing Bradley’s early paintings in an archaic-cartoonish style (Schmagoos).

On the other hand, there are closed-form minimalist sculptures, which are to be classified as part of the tradition of his “Modular” Paintings. These cubic, larger-than-life sculptures, some monochrome, others bicolored, are primarily characterized by their significant and emblematic presence. Similar to the black monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), Bradley’s colored monoliths seem to repress the surrounding space and powerfully face the viewer.

The comparison of both types of sculpture in Bradley’s work appears exemplary of the development of sculpture since the modern age in general. His bronze sculptures breathe the spirit of both primitive and modern art. In contrast, the here exhibited aluminum and Plexiglas sculptures formulate the constructivist alternative. The narrative titles of these woks don’t appear to have a direct connection to the works themselves and point to a sculpture’s character as an intellectual projection surface. The sculptures can be presented both in- and
outdoors. Parallel to this exhibition, Joe Bradley will present a new outdoor-sculpture on the Cycladic island of Antiparos in Greece.

What is formally separated in Bradley’s sculptural work is unified in his painterly work. Thus, it forms an arc of suspense between sculpture and painting. Joe Bradley’s versatile painterly oeuvre is based on a complex visual
language. His groups of works vary between primitive iconology, gestural abstraction and a radical, hard-edge attitude. The nine large-sized paintings of the exhibition are part of this tradition and unite elements of the previously separated groups of works.

Joe Bradley was born in 1975 in Kittery, Maine. He received his B.F.A. in 1999 from Rhode Island School of Design. Bradley’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including ConTEMPorary, New York, United States (2003); P.S.1 Contemporary Art, Long Island City, New York, United States (2006); and Le Consortium, Dijon, France (2014). Recent group exhibitions include “Silicone Valley,” P.S.1 Contemporary Art, Long Island, New York, United States (2007); “ab-strac-tion-al,” Museum 52, New York, United States (2009); “New York Minute,” MACRO Foundation, Rome, Italy (2009); “EXPO 1: NEW YORK (curated by Klaus Biesenbach)”, P.S.1 Contemporary Art, Long Island, New York, United States (2013); “The Inevitable Figuration,” Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi
Pecci, Prato, Italy (2013); “The Forever Now: Contemporary Paintings in an Atemporal World (curated by Laura Hoptman),” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States (2014–15); and “New York Painting,” Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2015). Bradley’s work was also included in the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, United States (2008). In fall 2017 Bradley will have a solo show in the US at the Albright Know Museum in Buffalo, United States. The exhibition is accompanied by his first comprehensive monograph. Bradley currently lives and works in New York.

Special opening times during the Zurich Art Weekend: June 11/12, 10 to 8 and during Art Basel: June 13 – 19, 10 to 6 and by appointment