Undone: Tom Holmes, Tony Matelli, Eileen Quinlan, and Heather Rowe

Sept 20, 2007–Jan 29, 2008

Green plants grow out of the floor in a white gallery.
Green plants grow out of the floor in a white gallery.

Tony Matelli, Abandon, 2005. Bronze, brass, stainless steel, and paint, dimensions variable. Collection of Mark Vanmoerkerke. Courtesy Leo Koenig Inc., New York, and Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm

In Undone, presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, the perceived completeness of form, space, or identity is defined by its own fragmented, unfinished, or unraveling condition. The works, commissioned for this exhibition, reference and subvert viewers' expectations about medium and exhibition space. Tony Matelli's hyperrealistic bronze weeds "overgrow" the Gallery, undoing their white box environment. Heather Rowe has created an architectural screen that at once uses and deconstructs the corporate surroundings of the Sculpture Court. Eileen Quinlan's photographs of smoke reflected in broken mirrors offer an unusually literal disclosure of process that's contradicted by their own aesthetic opacity. Tom Holmes constructs photosculptural works that mishandle and transmute the medium as a metaphor for the fracturing of identity as a contemporary condition.

This exhibition is made possible, in part, by Altria Group, Inc.


On the Hour

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Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

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