Blair Thurman / Justin Adian 1 June—21 July 2018
Views
![]() |
![]() |
mixed media (oil enamel on ester foam + canvas, metal, acrylic on canvas on wood, plexiglass, light bulbs), 92.7 × 121.9 × 21.6 cm
![]() |
![]() |
acrylic on canvas on wood, 61 × -361 × 8 cm
![]() |
oil enamel on ester foam + canvas, 61 × 13 × 10 cm
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
oil enamel on ester foam + canvas, 68.5 × 28 × 10 cm
-
Exhibition view
-
Fosse Bear, 2017
-
Exhibition view
-
Pinky Ring, 2018
-
Pinky Swear, 2018
-
Exhibition view
Text
Galerie lange + pult is pleased to present the exhibition of Justin Adian and Blair Thurman in Zurich.
The two American artists, who share a close friendship, have created a series of new works in which motifs from American culture are transformed into a new iconography through an unmistakable language.
The starting point of the exhibition is “Fosse bear”, a work which they have created together and which helps us better understand their relationship while uniting their creative processes. Starting from influences of the art pioneers of the 20th century such as Carl André, Frank Stella, Dan Flavin or Robert Morris as well as representatives of Pop and Op Art, the luminous relief with inclusion of personal and historical associations renews abstract geometric art. Through a sophisticated play with various industrial materials, the two artists question the creation of the pictorial background, while transforming the banal motif of the well-known American neon signage into extremely reduced pictorial elements that are morphing into a real sculpture.
As we take a closer look at the other works of Justin Adian, we’ll see that the unusual constructions in vivid colour palettes allow the boundaries between painting and sculpture to oscillate completely through
Galerie lange + pult is pleased to present the exhibition of Justin Adian and Blair Thurman in Zurich.
The two American artists, who share a close friendship, have created a series of new works in which motifs from American culture are transformed into a new iconography through an unmistakable language.
The starting point of the exhibition is “Fosse bear”, a work which they have created together and which helps us better understand their relationship while uniting their creative processes. Starting from influences of the art pioneers of the 20th century such as Carl André, Frank Stella, Dan Flavin or Robert Morris as well as representatives of Pop and Op Art, the luminous relief with inclusion of personal and historical associations renews abstract geometric art. Through a sophisticated play with various industrial materials, the two artists question the creation of the pictorial background, while transforming the banal motif of the well-known American neon signage into extremely reduced pictorial elements that are morphing into a real sculpture.
As we take a closer look at the other works of Justin Adian, we’ll see that the unusual constructions in vivid colour palettes allow the boundaries between painting and sculpture to oscillate completely through ingenious abstract reliefs. His use of misleadingly soft shapes, made of foam cushions that are pressed into the wooden frame and then covered with a stretched canvas, end in abstract, crackling, almost ceramic planes, which reveal a certain tension and direction within their composition. In fact, the artist first composes, recomposes, constructs and deconstructs the forms on paper in order to form an overall picture of the structure in order to be able to assemble them freely and apply them to the canvases as coloured surfaces. The results are three-dimensional detached forms that become free-standing objects – the invisible space between the objects (reminiscent of Malevitsch’s work) can now tell its very own story, enhanced by titles such as “Trailing”, “Bell Catcher”, “Pinky Swear” or “Chicklit”.
This questioning of the relationship between surfaces and depths, painting and object is also very important in Blair Thurman’s works. With his vivid colour applications and formed canvases, he opens the space for a reflection on the visible, on reality, on painting, on what it is and is capable of achieving. In his work, an iconography appears that is connected with streets and paths, especially since they are depicted in the rather formalized world of toys, miniature streets and motorways, as seen in works such as “Jacko Lantern”, “Crazy 8” or “Druid Mechanics”. When Thurman makes the wall behind his shaped canvases the subject itself, he not only crosses the boundaries of picture and wall, but puts painting on a new level: he constitutes a radically new understanding of it and thus questions our perspectives. In many of Thurman’s works, the canvas directly covers the structure of the frame and reveals the “mechanics” of the object, which is normally hidden. The field of view, which is robbed of its center, turns inward and changes its direction, while the subject also turns inward towards the hole. In contrast to the center of a traditional painting, which is visually located within the painted surface, the center of these canvases lie in the physical reality of the exhibition hall.
Accordingly the images in this exhibition assert their function as a transition from one reality to another without denying its tangible existence as an independent object. For Justin Adian and Blair Thurman, painting is a moment of seeing: the movement of our gaze across the painted surface. Oscillating between figuration and abstraction, the works provide no information about the content. Humorously they strive for sublime levels of reality and illusion, raising the question of figurative models and metaphorical icons.
Blair Thurman was born in 1961 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He received his BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Canada in 1984 and his MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1988. Since 1991 Thurman’s works have been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world and are represented in important collections, including the Centre national des arts plastique, Paris; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Le Consortium, Dijon; Fonds régional d’art contemporain (FMAC), Paris and the Syz Collection, Switzerland. His work was included in the 46th Venice Biennale in 1995.
Justin Adian was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1976. He graduated with a BFA from the University of North Texas in 2000 and an MFA from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of Art in 2003. Since the late 1990s he has regularly shown his works in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and institutions.
Adian and Thurman currently live and work in New York.
Michèle Meyer