Hamptons, New York
Matt Johnson
19 Sculptures
The RanchTo make an appointment, please visit: bit.ly/3v5i15d The Ranch is pleased to present the second component of Matt Johnson's survey exhibition 19 Sculptures. Providing an overview of Johnson's signature motifs and materials, the show comprises a broad selection of the artist's practice. Now presenting five large outdoor sculptures sited on the grounds, the exhibition explores his masterful handling of scale and transformation of images from the familiar world into objects of aesthetic delectation. Matt Johnson’s sculptural lexicon grasps objects and ideas that hover beneath our noses. Often rummaging through the proverbial kitchen sink or borrowing from the heap of objects conscribed to the “common” or “taken for granted,” Johnson lodges these objects into alternate frameworks both conceptual and emotional––the art historical and subcultural, the comical and nostalgic. In the indoor gallery presentation, trompe l’oeil sculptures prick at the imagination, overturning items through incisive gestures like recombination, impossible arrangements, and symbolic resonances. In some works, Johnson builds out figurative or abstract forms by joining objects of divergent dispositions only to reveal their fundamental affinities and combinative force. In each case, Johnson resists the inescapable corrosion of matter by recreating objects in more durable materials. His ascension to a paradigm of eternal permanence is undertaken with a healthy dose of skepticism––such object endurance he admits is, ultimately, “a trivial pursuit.” Nevertheless, the artist’s endeavor to work in wood, stone, and metal aspires to the historiographic condition of sculpture. Take, for example, the two large, luscious pink marble blocks that become a pair of popsicles laying on their sides with comic bites taken from their topsides in Large Creamsicle I and Large Creamsicle II sited in the field. Their fifteen-foot length and ten-ton weight dissipates easily into soft, frothy ice cream leaving one to ponder how this dense structure could transform into a substance that melts in your mouth. Johnson gives perpetuity to a dessert that if not rapidly consumed (its own kind of energy transference), literally disappears. Considering evanescence there arises an uneasy categorical ambiguity: the sculptures propose a parodic monument to any manner of passing pleasure. Other large-scale sculptures on view circle around these eschatological conundrums with similarly disarming subject matter. Two ten-foot bronze sculptures painted matte white depict an abnormally large frog and swan. Made from seashells, familiar to the trinkets found in seaside tourist traps, these animals were constructed by the artist from found shells and enlarged to become deities or sentries of the terrestrial world. In 19 Picnic table stack (plus 3), nineteen picnic tables are arranged into an hourglass shaped poltergeist stack that reaches 17.5 feet. Three additional tables are scattered at the base of the tower allowing spectators to sit within the work. Interacting with the item from which the sculpture is made––in its original form and intended use––adds a new dimension of heightened contemplation. A self-reflexive gesture, the sculpture reifies the way Johnson’s art routinely gathers concepts and objects and places them within circles of understanding. Like self-replicating machines that mimic life’s evolutionary track, these works test, adopt, experiment, mutate, and fail. In the end, Johnson exhumes a sculptural mode that borrows from systems and processes of the ancient and modern––achieving an organic elegance that is undergirded by an enduring sense of object intelligence. Matt Johnson (b. 1978, New York, NY) received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles, CA. His work has been celebrated in recent group exhibitions such as The Artist is Present, curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China (2018); 99 Cents or Less, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI (2017); Wanderlust, High Line Art, New York, NY (2016); Funny, Flag Art Foundation, New York, NY (2012); Lifelike, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; traveled to New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, TX (2012); 11th Triennale Kleinplastik, Fellbach, Germany (2010); and Second Nature, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2009); among many others. His works are held in public collections worldwide including the Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway; Ekebergparken Sculpture Park, Oslo, Norway; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Johnson's work is permanently on view as part of the collection at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA.