Chuck Close at Adamson Gallery

New Work

September 15th - October 20th, 2007
Opening Reception: September 15th, 6:30 - 8:30 pm

Adamson Gallery announces the opening of the fall gallery season with an exhibition of new works by Chuck Close. The always-innovative Close is unafraid to experiment with both subject and medium: Close's work forces the viewer to pay attention to not only the pieces themselves, but also their very process of creation. Close references the daguerreotypes of nineteenth century portraiture, the tapestries of classical craft, and finally his own photorealistic works. As tropes of process and of representation are referenced and inverted, the resulting images are striking, modern, and beautiful.

Close's newest works are breathtaking tapestry pieces. Daguerrotype images of artists Cindy Sherman and Lorna Simpson, supermodel Kate Moss and Close himself are translated into large- scale jacquard tapestries using a customized "digital" loom: using 17,800 warp threads and repeating groups of eight colors. The enormous tapestry pieces appear to be photographs, it is only upon closer inspection that the viewer sees their true form. As the tapestry becomes mechanized, the photograph is realized as thread, image is deconstructed into craft.

Also featured is a new portfolio from Adamson Editions: a series of flower prints originally commissioned by Vogue magazine. Like the tapestry images, these are originally daguerreotypes, but are rendered as pigment prints. Close turns his photographic eye on flowers: a calla lily, hydrangea and a sunflower. Likening his photographs to a "mug shot", the flowers are both humanized, and perversely, reduced to ethereal shapes, forms, and light.

Finally, a new photograph of the artist Kara Walker is rendered in the silhouette style of her own works. The portrait is not only of Walker, but of Walker's accomplishments, done in the artist's own style. While Walker's own works are monochromatic, the silhouette here is backed by a soft gradation of color. Again, Close examines the roles of portraiture and even photography itself in fine art.

For more information please contact Laurie Adamson or Erin Boland at (202) 237-0707.

ADAMSON GALLERY
1515 Fourteenth Street NW
Washington DC 20005
email: erin@adamsongallery.com

http://www.adamsongallery.com