| (Los Angeles, CA) January 7, 2016—VENUS is pleased to present an exhibition of new sculptures by Marianne Vitale, marking the artist’s first solo show on the West Coast.
Vitale’s sculptures incorporate infrastructure staples (such as steel rail supports for an entire transport system and wooden beams for the base of a building’s framework) and interact with the gallery — a 14,500 square foot warehouse divided into two adjoining spaces.
The first space holds Thought Field (2016), composed of 90 unaltered factory-length sections of steel railroad track with a combined weight of over 60 tons. Situated horizontally and suspended slightly above the ground, the 40 by 40 foot ‘field’ of rail calls attention to the material’s density, demanding that viewers become aware of their own physicality while confronting the landscape’s multiform perspective.
In the second gallery space, the artist displays an assortment of nearly 140 eleven-foot tall white pine squared timbers that have been hand-painted, bashed and pummeled to loosely recall traffic barricades. The arrangements of beams vary, from Fort, Deconstructed, composed of vertical beams alluding to the entryway of a rudimentary fort, to Stacks, Walls and ‘Leaners’, in which the beams lean against the walls. Though white and OSHA-orange stripes abound, a broad color scheme and a varying level of destructive force are present throughout the collection. The beams retain their pseudo-functionality as urban ‘caution’ symbols while simultaneously functioning as contemporary totems.
Marianne Vitale (b. 1973) graduated from the School of Visual Arts, NYC (1996). Recent projects include a solo exhibition at Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (2015); Karma, New York (2015); The Contemporary Austin, Texas (2013); works featured on Chelsea’s High Line, New York (2014); and commissions for Frieze NY and Performa NY (2013). Her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, White Columns, the Brooklyn Museum, Anthology Film Archives, San Francisco Art Institute; and international venues including Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria; Le Confort Moderne, France; Tensta Konsthall, Sweden; UKS, Norway; and Contemporary Art Center of Vilnius, Lithuania. Recent publications include Oh, Don’t Ask Why, CFA, Berlin; These Things Are Hard To Say, Yogurt Boys Press, NY; Lost Marbles, Editions Lutanie, Paris; and Train Wreck, Kitto San, New York.
ABOUT VENUS
Founded in 2012 by Adam Lindemann, VENUS’ Manhattan space is dedicated to curated exhibitions both historic and contemporary, which seek to cast a unique and often iconoclastic view on the work of established artists or artists whose works have been somewhat overlooked. The gallery continues to collaborate with prominent artists, foundations, estates, and galleries. VENUS’ Los Angeles gallery opened in May of 2015 and features a primary program in its 14,500 square foot exhibition space in the Downtown Arts District.
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