Opening reception: December 10, 6–8pm
Blum & Poe is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by British artist Anya Gallaccio. This will mark Gallaccio’s third solo exhibition at Blum & Poe.
Anya Gallaccio’s sculpture has used such materials as actual trees, grass, flowers, fruit, and ice, enhancing their pure essence through sculptural form. Gallaccio’s sculptures are not created to capture one moment; instead she invites the viewer to witness the fluidity and impermanence of nature. The delicate and illusory appearance of her work encourages us to embrace the state and process of entropy, as the outcome of Gallaccio’s sculptures remains unforeseen, often even to the artist herself. She has extended this idea into the traditional process of bronze casting, by taking direct casts from organic matter and making unique objects which replace the original.
For this exhibition, Gallaccio will present a pair of bronze wild rosehips, a recently felled California Pine, and a bronze cast from a farmed apple tree strung with ceramic apples. The surface of the trunk is marked with rows of systematically placed holes, not the mark of the artist’s hand, but the result of a woodpecker’s activity. Gallaccio’s fascination is with the relevance of nature as both industry and ideal, and the dialectic of landscape.
Gallaccio suggests true preservation only really occurs in our memory. Her work offers all the various stages of existence by emulating the renewal and degeneration of life. Yet, we are not meant to reminisce, but rather see beginnings and endings fuse together into a cycle that is forever changing and becoming.
Anya Gallaccio was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2003. Gallaccio had solo-exhibits at the Tate Britain and Ikon Gallery, England in 2003. In 2004 she had a solo-exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York. This year Gallaccio has been the subject of solo-exhibitions Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, Scotland and Palazzo delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy. Her work is featured in such collections at Tate Gallery, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Gallaccio lives and works in London.