Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

On View: Chris Jones at Marc Straus Gallery

Chris Jones's large-scale sculptural work looks fragile even though his subject matter often focuses on objects we presume to be tough, stable — even nearly unbreakable. In his current show at Mark Straus Gallery in New York City, a sports car melts and unravels before our eyes. A motorcycle tempts us to scratch and peel away its layers. Houses disintegrate into heaps of deteriorating objects. Jones works with abandoned and disused materials — old magazines, books, encyclopedias, paper ephemera and even trash — to create papier mache pieces that destabilize our view of the world around us. We create our environments through the accumulation of objects and materials. Jones's latest body of work pulls us back, reminding us how ephemeral and artificial these things are. It's a bleak reminder that material objects and the world we've built will not stand the test of time.

Chris Jones’s large-scale sculptural work looks fragile even though his subject matter often focuses on objects we presume to be tough, stable — even nearly unbreakable. In his current show at Mark Straus Gallery in New York City, a sports car melts and unravels before our eyes. A motorcycle tempts us to scratch and peel away its layers. Houses disintegrate into heaps of deteriorating objects. Jones works with abandoned and disused materials — old magazines, books, encyclopedias, paper ephemera and even trash — to create papier mache pieces that destabilize our view of the world around us. We create our environments through the accumulation of objects and materials. Jones’s latest body of work pulls us back, reminding us how ephemeral and artificial these things are. It’s a bleak reminder that material objects and the world we’ve built will not stand the test of time.

Chris Jones’s solo show is on view through June 22. Images courtesy of Marc Straus Gallery.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Murielle Belin’s dark-surrealist polyptychs are striking blends of oil painting, sculpture, woodworking, and other disciplines. "Calendrier Perpetual," in particular, shows the artist's abilities in taxidermy and building, with different corners of the piece offering surprises.
While Kris Kuksi's baroque assemblages (first covered in HF Vol. 19) have an ornate aesthetic suited for marble or gilded bronze, his work is composed of carefully-chosen collections of commonplace, throwaway objects. Kuksi assembles dolls, jewelry, model parts and various consumerist debris into monumental dioramas. Within them, his characters are embroiled in a chaotic drama of violence and sex, which Kuksi carefully contains into symmetrical, harmonious compositions that appear deceptively decorative at a first glance. The Kansas-based artist will be showing his new body of work for his solo show, "Antiquity in the Faux," opening at Mark Moore Gallery in Los Angeles on November 15.
Using painted resin, wood, and metal, New York-based artist Jiannan Wu’s recent relief sculptures feature scenes ripped from urban environments. The artist often plays with perspective whether it’s his distorted “Selfie” series or a visit to the city’s subway backdrops. A statement says that Wu is always considering multiple dimensions in his work.
Fernando Rosas conjures surreal figures out of wood and other natural materials, faces and forms packed with drama emerging. Using varying types of wood with clay and metal adds to the disconcerting nature to the works, their anguish and peril seemingly organic in nature.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List