anton stoianov april 25 – june 21, 2014

private view april 25, 2014  6 – 9 pm

In his second solo exhibition at the gallery, Anton Stoianov expands literal notions of contemporary palladiums and relics (from Latin reliquiae, “remaining”), with a quasi-animist perspective on objects. This re-sublimation of the artwork – or fetishization – tends to place discourse and process in the background and let the intrinsic quality of the picture speaks for itself.

Colliding his interest in the history and recent developments of painting with an anthropological fascination for proletarian stylistic idiosyncrasy, the artist wraps selected items with a custom made carbon fiber vinyl usually applied on car exteriors.  The assisted response of the chosen objects, their weight and volume, with the adhesive material creates and defines peculiar shapes, strokes and textures alluding to painterly gestures and effects.

Though it is not in the reproducible fabrication process but in the precise choice of encased objects, all issued from the most intimate paraphernalia of the artist, that resides the emotional charge of the work. It operates a separation or axiological opposition that puts these trivial commodities outside the realm of banal or common usage in the profane world, evoquing a sense of sacred through their inaccessibility.

An essential characteristic of cultural history and a paradox holding its place in the three great revelations-based religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam – it is only by covering something up that our gaze is directed to what is hidden, making it visible.