Thomas Scheibitz: Maus Appetit Dezember.: Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is pleased to present its third solo exhibition of work by Thomas Scheibitz, ‘Maus Appetit Dezember.’ The show primarily features a large-scale installation comprised of several juxtaposed sculptural elements that explore a dynamic range of form, texture and palette. The exhibition will also feature works on paper, including a large four-part piece presented in the second gallery space.
The main installation is comprised of seven distinct sculptural elements set upon a multi-level pedestal. The forms and structures within the composition are culled from the collective vocabulary of images Scheibitz continues to delve for inspiration and use; forms recognizable yet obscured, accessible yet transcendent. There is a church, a dog, a tree and U. F. O., all presented together to construct an abstract landscape of common and mediated images.
The title of the show is explicitly used as an element in one of the large works on paper. But more significantly, Scheibitz draws the phrase from an ongoing international research project on the relationship between form and meaning. In this experiment, simple and familiar words are presented to subjects around the world for their interpretation and cultural association.
The answers are assembled so as to construct the image of some universal collective consciousness. Similarly, Thomas Scheibitz makes paintings, sculptures and works on paper to address this goal, seeking meaning beyond simple definitions and signs. Dissembling and reconstructing form and color, Scheibitz uses a unique palette and exquisite brushwork to fuse abstraction and representation. At times, the landscape is used as a point of departure. But architectural structures, advertisements, and figures are put to use as the basis for structural forms to be taken apart and put back together, obscured and revealed, constructed and then dismantled.
In the past year, Scheibitz has had solo exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Kunstmuseum Winterthur; Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig; Matrix, UCal, Berkeley; and ArtPace, San Antonio. Recent group shows include Artists Imagine Architecture at the ICA, Boston; Premio Regione Piemonte, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Per L’Arte, Torino, Italy. Next year, Scheibitz will be featured in Painting Pictures, Kuntmuseum Wolfsburg.
