John Beech, Reutlingen Factory Yard #2 (detail), 2010
Metallic tape on black and white photograph
June 18 – October 16, 2011
The mundane, the invisible, the discarded—all become grist for the often elegant and humorous sculptures of John Beech. Conflating sculpture, painting, and photography, the British-born Beech has established an international following for his post-minimalist works. The exhibition will feature three recent sculptures and large-scale photographs that have been altered with industrial tape and enamel. The works operate inside a universal language of abstraction, which suggests the reductive rigor of Donald Judd mated to the wit of Marcel Duchamp in its use of common industrial construction materials and found objects. Beech’s handcrafted works present reappropriated industrial objects transformed into absurdist mutations that dislocate the viewer’s expectations through his visual recycling of images and materials.
New York-based Beech has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s SECA Award, a Chinati Foundation Residency, and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award.
This exhibition is part of an ongoing series of contemporary art exhibitions organized by Bruce Guenther, curator of modern and contemporary art.
