One Wall, One Work: Cary Leibowitz

On a mug from 2012 Cary writes, “If this mug breaks it’s sculpture.” I’m not sure it isn’t sculpture anyway.

—Kay Rosen

Krakow Witkin Gallery announces the release of the “Official Candyass Muggery Drinking Vessels 1990 – 2023 Catalogue Raisonné by Cary Leibowitz,” with an essay by Kay Rosen, and edited by Andrew Witkin and I.M. Pooperson. 240 pages. (available for $20)

In conjunction with the catalogue raisonné, Leibowitz has made a new work (in an edition of 36) that serves as both the final entries in the book (as the index) and as 12 actual coffee mugs. The suite of 12 is on view at the gallery as the latest in the gallery’s ongoing series, “One Wall, One Work.” (available for $500)

Since the late 1980’s, Cary Leibowitz’s work has been included in approximately 150 group exhibitions and has had nearly 50 solo shows on multiple continents. His work consistently utilizes compassion, deep knowledge, subtly layered juxtapositions, anxieties, neuroses, humor, and self-awareness to explore the human condition. His materials and processes appear simple (his husband has commented that Leibowitz is often working hardest when he is standing in a room, alone and thinking) and yet, with patience and an open mind, the work he makes is heart-wrenchingly profound in aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual ways.