Peter Downsbrough

Exhibition View

Peter Downsbrough’s first solo exhibition with Barbara Krakow Gallery took place in 2009.  In the 7 years between then and now, he has had 34 solo shows around the world (15 of which are museum shows on 4 continents).  He has had published 16 new artist books, 5 new video works and has been included in over 100 group shows.  More than half of these group shows have been curated at museums, kunsthalles and the like (including at MACBA – Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Museum of Modern Art, New York and Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid).  His intervention at the Fundacio Mies van der Rohe in Barcelona just finished last week; a wall work is included in the Sol LeWitt Collection show currently at the Drawing Center in New York, and two works are in a new group show at the Renaissance Society in Chicago.  Amazing that all of this is just the activity from the past seven years.  Barbara Krakow Gallery is very honored to have a second solo exhibition of Downsbrough’s work, especially a new body specifically made for its eccentric space.

While the exhibition, in one sense, consists of discrete works (five photographs, two sculptural wall works, two flat wall works and a floor-to-ceiling work), Downsbrough makes clear via juxtapositions, arrangements and selections that each work speaks for, to and with the other works in the show and thus creates an overall experience that can be read collectively and individually.  The art offers a reflection on the importance of the position taken: that of sculpture within its content, that of the viewer vis-a-vis the work, and that of the artist within the surrounding world.  Within these complex structures, the position of each element plays a decisive role.  This goes for language as well as architecture.  Downsbrough uses lines and words to mark, question or underline the architecture of a space, as well as the viewer’s experience in the architecture.  The visual movements and explorations offer openings into the environment and towards interpretation.  Prefixes and conjunctions articulate relationships that shift the visitor’s gaze in a different way to read the place, the context and the work itself.

For a full explanation/description/textual walk-through of the show, click HERE.