exhibitions - elsewhere
Joseph Dumbacher and John Dumbacher: elsewhere
September 9 - October 22, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 17
6:00 - 8 pm
Curator's Office is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Joseph Dumbacher and John Dumbacher, fraternal twins who live and collaborate bi-coastally in New York, Washington, DC and Los Angeles. The exhibition elsewhere includes commanding small-scale sculptures and works on paper, a new development in their greater œuvre that spans painting, sculpture and photography. Additionally, the Dumbachers are debuting a new outdoor sculpture entitled #286 at 1401 Q Street NW, Terrace 2, just one block north of the gallery.
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The abstract sculptures, reveal formalist concerns that address shadow, light, scale, and space. The sculptures traffic in nuances of perception. Light shifts subtly on their silky matte black surfaces, an aesthetic move away from the shiny dark chrome of earlier works that mirrored the outside world. These new pieces are interiorized nuggets that hold the wall like an array of philosopher's stones. Dense, dark, and jagged, they project a mesmerizing impenetrability, evoking nature rather than their factory-like production.
Arts writers describe the Dumbacher's artistic practice as both performative and corporate. Joseph Dumbacher lives in Pasadena, while John lives in Washington, DC, thus making their collaboration challenging and unique. They send rough foam and tape sculptural ideas and sketches across the country by mail, email and fax as each twin attempts to create an original raw form. Once one twin declares the model "done," it is then machined in their Pasadena studio. Precise machine surgery occurs on solid blocks of aluminum resulting in a meticulously fabricated sculpture devoid of either artist's hand or authorship. Finally, a coating of oxide in a rich, black matte covers the sculpture's surface, minimizing the metal's play of light.
By contrast, the works on paper lay bare the spatial thought processes and visual experiments that feed the sculptural work. Spare yet confident marker lines define simple shapes, spaces, and structure. These Zen-like works are graphically authoritative yet also disclose a pleasing off-kilter sense of placement that borders on the eccentric. Here the void plays as significant a role as the line, evoking space and structure. As a contrast to the machine-finished sculptures, the hand is evident here, but for the artists, it does not matter whose hand drew the line. The conceptual process of production effectively negates authorship.
The large-scale work, #286, measuring over thirteen feet in height, combines the freehand nature of the drawings with the machined aesthetic of the opaque sculptures. However, here the viewer is encouraged to pass through and around the black towering aluminum construction. Shadows, light and space shelter the viewer. Appointments can be made to see the sculpture.
Joseph Dumbacher and John Dumbacher have had solo exhibitions at The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; BackroomNY, New York, NY; Fusebox, Washington, DC: Patricia Faure Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Contemporary Art Center of Virginia (with Sheila Hicks), Virginia Beach, VA.
Their work has been presented in group exhibitions at The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS; Curator's Office, Washington, DC; Civilian Art Projects, Washington, DC; Fusebox, Washington, DC; California State University, Los Angeles, CA; Patricia Faure Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; The Brewery Project, Los Angeles, CA; Gallery Four, Baltimore, MD; 1708 Gallery, Richmond, VA; Domestic Setting, Los Angeles, CA; Studio la Citta, Art 32 Basel Art Fair and Arte Fiera, Bologna, Italy; SOFA, Park Avenue Armory, New York; Art-O-Matic, Washington, DC; and McLean Project for the Arts, McLean, VA.
Their work is in the collections of The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS; and in Zagreb, Croatia at the Embassy of the United States, part of the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies, Washington, DC.
http://dumbacherstudio.com
image above: Joseph Dumbacher and John Dumbacher, #286, 2011, anodized aluminum, steel screws, 13' 2" x 5' 10" x 4' 8" Photo Credit: David Evans