Wallpaper LAB
September 7, 2006- October 14, 2006
Reception: September 7, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
514 W 25th St
Lennon, Weinberg will present an exhibition of the inaugural
collection of Wallpaper LAB from September 7 to October 14,
2006 - the debut of a new project for a new exhibition season.
Wallpaper LAB collaborates with contemporary artists to
produce limited edition wallpaper.
Curator Ron Keyson conceived Wallpaper LAB a year ago. His
experience with exhibition preparation, installation methods
and materials persuaded him that the tremendous potential for
artists to generate ideas and images to be realized in the
medium of short-run digitally generated wallpaper presented
him with an equally exciting opportunity. “I want to radicalize
the design world by introducing content into a medium
normally devoid of meaning.”
Historically, mediums of fresco and mural painting have
anchored art on the wall, and wallpaper was a decorative
medium rooted in ideals of taste and class. In today’s art
practice, artists and curators produce installations realized by
fabricators, the lines between original and reproduction are
extremely dynamic and production methods are gestating new
forms. Ron Keyson’s Wallpaper LAB has offered both
established and emerging artists opportunities to make new
work in a medium that has its own traditions and relies on
certain conventions and structures.
It has been analyzed that there are seventeen basic structures
for the repeat patterns of conventional wallpaper and that every
conceivable pattern can be distilled to a mathematical formula.
The artists working with Wallpaper LAB have imagined a
much wider range of possibilities. They have conceived of
forms and content that relate visually and conceptually to their
works in their primary medium. They have looked at the
medium of thirty-six inch wide rolls of paper as an opportunity
to make a single large-scale image with a top, bottom and
sides, a flexible structure with the potential to cover large
expanses of architectural space, or the intensity to activate one
small wall, to define a space as powerfully as any medium of
artistic expression. This is a digital medium, short-run, ondemand.
It is permanent, disposable, replaceable.
The show will present the wallpaper works in an ensemble
installation. The gallery will be wallpapered from floor to
ceiling from front to back in a contiguous wrap.
Art Reviews of Wallpaper LAB
New York Times October 6, 2006 | | Roberta Smith | | "Proving that we have come a long way since Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings were derisively likened to apocalyptic wallpaper, this lively exhibition features 15 artists trying their hands at designing real wallpaper. It unveils the first collection of Wallpaper LAB, a company founded last year by Ron Keyson, a former art dealer. The results are mixed, and the digital nature of the printing doesn’t suit everyone. Still, it is interesting to see artists transfer their ideas to another medium, especially one with a decorative function...." |
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show| Location | map | | Gallery | Lennon, Weinberg, Inc. | | Address | 514 W 25th St New York (Chelsea) NY, 10001 United States | | Phone | 212-941-0012 | | Fax | 212-929-3265 | | Hours | Tue-Sat 10-6 | |
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