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Altman Siegel Gallery

February 19 - March 28, 2010

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49 Geary Street 4th Floor San Francisco, CA 94108
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Garth Weiser Garth Weiser, KUKQ, 2009 Mixed media on canvas
Opening reception: February 19th, 6:00-8:00pm Altman Siegel is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by New York artist Garth Weiser. This will be Garth Weiser's first exhibition on the West Coast. Garth Weiser's practice explores material, color and space by combining ordered elements with texture and spontaneous gesture. He mixes art-historical tropes with pop culture as he conflates several media, including modeling paste, gold leaf, air brush, graphite and acrylic, to create multi-layered canvases with highly varied textures, surfaces and influences. In some works Weiser builds predetermined textures and then paints on top of them, in others he uses a photograph of a previous painting as the base image for the next. His compositions often superimpose two styles of painting or mark making, creating a flicker or slippage within the picture. These processes create a synthetic plasticity or a purposeful awkwardness. This shifts his practice away from the immediacy of abstract expressionism towards a more mediated method of painting. Weiser's work speaks readily to the influences of 20th Century abstraction, referring to constructivist sculpture of Moholy Nagy and the lead relief surfaces of Jasper Johns. But his work also incorporates pop history and graphic design, integrating technological logos like Sony Beta, and the diverse aesthetics of commercial illustration from the past thirty years. Pop imagery haunts the subtext of the compositions, which begin with modernism as a starting point. The result is both disorienting and nostalgic. Weiser masterfully re-orients this ubiquitous imagery, jogging the collective memory and creating unique works that feel both evocative and completely new. Garth Weiser's recent exhibitions include a solo show at Casey Kaplan, New York, "One loses one's classics," White Flag Projects, St. Louis, Missouri, "Changing light bulbs in thin air," Hessel Museum of Art & CCS Galleries, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 2009, "Recent Acquisitions," Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, 2008; "Not So Subtle Subtitle," Casey Kaplan, New York, 2008; "Destroying Athens," The Athens Biennial, Greece, 2007; "Greater New York," PS1 MoMA, Long Island City, New York, 2005. Forthcoming exhibitions include "Abstract America 2: New Painting from the US," at the Saatchi Gallery, London, England.