Fitzroy Gallery is pleased to announce Clyde Glenn Burns, an exhibition of new work by Colby Bird. This is the artist’s second show at the gallery.
The exhibition is comprised of a series of new photographic prints and sculptures in which Bird makes evident the actions and rules that serve to temper guilt.
Mediating actions: subject, camera, artist, developing of image, scanning of image, printing of image, staining of image, mounting, framing, painting.
Rules: consistent dimensions, accurate Kodak Color Control Patch colorways, precise professional framing, careful art handling, correct installation, proper contextualization, sale of work.
The Leisure prints are hand-toned photographic prints that are made sculptural with the addition of custom made, professionally painted frames. The 9 colors of these frames are based on the colors in the Kodak Color Control Patch, a guide used by professional photographers to obtain accurate color when re-photographing artwork. Alongside the prints are Bird’s Chair sculptures: Thonet-style bistro chairs stained, sawed, sanded, and reconfigured to become lithe, gestural, abstracted objects. The construction of the forms is limited/mediated by the original bends of the chair, and therefore the labor of the original craftsperson. Each of these sculptures has an entropic element (fruit, light, plant) that must be tended to during exhibition of the work.
The title of the exhibition is taken from the artist’s passing friendship with an elderly handyman in Valley Mills, Texas, and their brief, formative encounters.
Colby Bird (born 1978; Austin, Texas) received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2004. He has had a solo exhibition at University Galleries at Texas State University, and also recently exhibited at Aspen Art Museum, Arthouse, Austin, and Hagedorn Foundation, Atlanta. His work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Bird currently lives and works in Los Angeles and New York.