~PETER COFFIN
. . . last week to see:
PETER COFFIN – ‘You Are Me’
MARCH 22 – APRIL 26, 2008
ANDREW KREPS GALLERY – 525 WEST 22ND STREET – CHELSEA
“Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to present Peter Coffin’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. Coffin’s practice playfully suggests that our inability to explain phenomena is perhaps more liberating than restrictive. The show include a kinetic sculpture/installation, a video wall, sound works, and a suite of prints on display in the gallery’s front office.
At the center of the exhibition is a large, industrial conveyor that carries a cluster of balloons through the gallery space. At the end of each day the balloons will be carried to the street .. and released. . .
In the back room of the gallery is a video wall of 30 monitors each displaying separate video montages of animals at play. The footage, collected primarily from animal behavior researchers, shows animals acting on their curiosity, engaging in play and aesthetic activity.
On view in the office space… is a suite of prints, ‘Untitled (Designs for Colby Poster Co.)’. These original works invoke iconic advertisements called “show prints” which traditionally incorporate letterpress text atop a tri-colored gradient of fantastic colors, a ubiquitous medium for promoting rock concerts, touring carnivals, school board candidates, boxing events, rodeos, union strikes, revivals, picnics, and dances. The artists chooses not to embellish the prints with letterpress text, instead highlighting the 80 designs he has created with hisown aplette for Colby Poster Co., Los Angeles. ”
– press release.
the card/poster for the show was an 8-1/2 x 11 ins. “MAD FOLD-IN” designed by the famous AL JAFFEE, himself. The gallery even inserted it – as a full page ad – for the show – into ARTFORUM.
some pix from the installation:
PETER COFFIN, at the JOHN CONNELLY PRESENTS OPENING/’A New High in Getting Low’,
FEB 23, 2008
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH