ART CITIES: N.York -Jason Gringler
In a practice centered on industrial materials, Jason Gringler forges new territory for Abstraction. Working with Plexiglas, aluminum tape, acrylic, mirrored glass, spray paint, epoxy, and wood, the Canadian artist constructs layered works that reference the history of abstract painting, although the materials themselves stand in for the painterly gesture.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Solivagant* Archive
Jason Gringler is also known to allow frames, stretchers, and supports to intrude into his compositions, and he frequently cuts up photographs of his creations into new collages that serve as studies for future works. “The source and the result simultaneously become the same and not the same”, he has said of this latter tendency. “The original becomes lost as the language moves in a cyclical fashion”. Solivagant* is an Art Project Space measuring exactly 7,34sq.m, as a platform for experimentation and contemporary practices, it invites artists to work site-specifically, through public interactions, community involvement, installations and performances. Jason Gringler’s multi-dimensional work explores modernist painting tradition through the use of unexpected materials. In his exhibition “Screens” at Solivagant* , which is part of his ongoing investigation about what constitutes a screen and how it relates to contemporary culture, the artist engages the architecture and idea of place by replacing the glass facade of the gallery with two doors of expanded and mirror-polished steel through which a blue screen painting is revealed. The reflective material pushes the viewers’ awareness into the present towards their own act of looking, offering a shift of perception. In many ways, Gringler’s work is exclusionary, temporarily blocking access to the interior space, yet the exterior doors are simultaneously inclusive because of the reflective materials. Naturally, viewers will then find themselves contained within the installation when standing in front of the space. With each movement pedestrians, traffic and the shifting daylight are continuously projected against the gallery facade. The “blue screen painting” consists of multiple layers of shattered glass, acrylic glass, epoxy, detritus, collaged posters and other eclectic materials. This work literally references the history of video editing and production while nodding toward the slippage between traditional roles of background, foreground and subject within studied painting practice. Each destructive gesture is contained within a steel framework and is suggestive of the artist’s hand or painted mark.
Info: Solivagant*, Contemporary Art Projects, 53 Orchard Street, New York, New York, Duration: 5/2-6/3/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 9:00-19:00, www.solivagantnyc.com
