|
Thornton Dial
Freedom Cloth, 2005
cloth,
coat hangers, steel, wire, artificial plants and flowers,
enamel, and spray paint
86 x 68
x 57 Inches
Courtesy
of Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York
THORNTON
DIAL
March
19, 2011 - April 30, 2011
Andrew Edlin Gallery is proud to
announce the opening of Thornton Dial, its
first exhibition of work by the renowned, Alabama-based,
self-taught master of contemporary mixed-media-painting and
assemblage sculpture, whose art the gallery now exclusively
represents.
This showing of Dial's work, the artist's first solo
exhibition in New York in more than a decade, will coincide
with the presentation of "Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton
Dial" at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (through
September 18, 2011). Highlighting the ways in which Dial's
work addresses some of the most urgent issues of our time—war,
racism and bigotry, poverty, the affirmation of personal
dignity in the face of oppression—this museum exhibition is
the most comprehensive survey ever mounted of the artist's
work in various media.
Similarly, the gallery's "Thornton Dial" exhibition
will offer a focused selection of works that touch upon the
artist's enduring themes and that showcase the variety,
richness and complexity of his art-making techniques. Dial,
who was born in 1928, worked in and around Bessemer, Alabama,
as a bricklayer, carpenter, and later as a welder in a
railway-carriage factory. He also made steel furniture in a
family-owned business and went on to produce mixed-media
constructions in the Southern, African-American tradition of
homemade yard art, which later evolved into the large,
abstract assemblages and wall-mounted, three-dimensional
paintings for which he is now internationally
known.
Among
other emblematic works, Thornton Dial will feature such
wall-mounted, mixed-media paintings as We All Live Under
the Same Old Flag (2010), Dial's multi-textured take on
Old Glory made of cloth, wood, bones, wire, canvas and other
materials, all painted red, white and blue, and Master of
Space (2004), a picture of a noble eagle with spread-open
wings made of painted neckties, set against a gridded
background, that exudes a haunting, funereal air. Freedom
Cloth (2005) is a free-standing piece made up of
numerous, paint-colored swatches of fabric tied to a metal
frame and little bird forms made of similar scraps of cloth.
Also made with coat hangers, artificial flowers and spray
paint, this sculptural work, at once enigmatic and charming,
has the strange allure of a large-scale talisman.
As
Joanne Cubbs, the IMA's curator of "Hard Truths," writes in
the exhibition's catalog: "While inspiring our humanity,
Dial's art also stirs the imagination....There is an
unexpected and beguiling beauty in Dial's compositions of
crumbling castaway materials, a dark poetry that turns the
world's detritus into a medium for dreaming its highest
aspirations."
"Hard
Truths" will travel to the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Mint
Museum of Art, Charlotte, and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta,
through 2013.
Dial's work began to attract art-world attention in the
1980s. In 1993, it was the subject of a large exhibition that
was presented simultaneously at the New Museum of Contemporary
Art and the American Folk Art Museum in New York. In 2000, the
artist's work was included in the Whitney Biennial, and in
2005-2006, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presented a major
exhibition titled "Thornton Dial in the 21st Century." Dial's
works can be found in many notable public and private
collections, including those of, among other institutions, the
High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston;
the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the
Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Andrew Edlin Gallery
134
Tenth Avenue
New
York, NY 10011
T +1
212-206-9723
|
