Art in General is pleased to present Landmarks and Monuments, a series of new works by Letha Wilson from April 20 – June 29, 2013, in Art in General’s sixth floor galleries, 79 Walker Street, NY.
Letha Wilson’s new series of photo-based sculptures explore the magnetic pull of the American West, alluding to landscape’s intrinsic role in our own myths of reinvention, endless possibility, and inevitable promise. Photographs of expansive canyons, mountains, and vistas are tied physically to the gallery, in some cases embedded directly into the walls, floor, and ceiling, blurring the lines between image and object. Using architecture as both frame and armature, Wilson reclaims the photograph, exploring the medium’s inability to encompass the site it represents.
Landmarks and Monuments bends, punctures, and distorts images of an iconic American landscape, rendering the terrain’s vastness and raw potential into form. The pieces operate as monuments, evoking the legacies of the mythic American west while positing questions about what our landscape holds for the future. In the current climate, where the natural world has been overshadowed by the enormity of our capacity for industrialization, Wilson’s work captures the sublime power of nature.
Letha Wilson was born in Honolulu, raised in Colorado, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from Syracuse University, and her MFA from Hunter College. Her work has been shown at many venues including the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT; Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE; Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, NY; the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY; Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; ARKO Art Center, Seoul, South Korea; Essl Museum, Vienna, Austria; Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia, PA; and P.P.O.W, NY, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include, Letha Wilson, Higher Pictures, NY, NY (2013) and Punch the Sky, Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA (2011). Wilson was an artist in residence at The Corporation of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY (2012), The Farpath Foundation, Dijon, France (2012), Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE (2011); and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME (2009). Letha’s work has been reviewed in publications including Artforum, Art in America, the New York Times, the New Yorker and Time Out New York. In Fall 2013 Letha will be an artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, outside San Francisco, CA.
Images courtesy the artist and Art in General. Photography by Steven Probert.