VAN HORN PRESENTS KATIE HOLTEN

Photo © Katie Holten, studio, 2010

VAN HORN PRESENTS KATIE HOLTEN

2010

JUNE 11 - JULY 17, 2010

Opening June 11, 7pm

We are very pleased to announce our third solo exhibition with Katie Holten, which will be her first in the new VAN HORN space.

At the root of Katie Holten’s practice is a love of drawing. In 2010 Holten presents a series of new drawings that deepen her curiosity for the conditions by which specific natural materials, such as twigs, stones and fossils, both emerge from and return to culture.

The gallery walls are painted the ‘average color of the universe’ (as calculated by astrophysicists at Johns Hopkins). The first and ‘incorrect’ version is popularly called Cosmic Turquoise. The painted walls serve as the ‘ground’ on which the drawing installation takes form. 2010 grows out of Holten’s recent discussions with historians, economists, geophysicists, musicians, botanists, ecologists, teachers, and architects during her exploration of the ecosystem in the South Bronx, NY for her acclaimed Tree Museum (2009-2010).

In these new works Holten takes pages from The Golden Bough (Frazer, 1953), On Aggression (Lorenz, 1963) and Civilized Man’s Eight Deadly Sins (Lorenz, 1973) and uses them as both a surface for drawing on and as material for making drawn sculptures. Holten uses these seminal texts as ‘readymade’ narratives - the printed words on the pages tell the story of man’s fascination with, control of, and domination over nature – while Holten’s drawings depict man-made objects, from pre-historic stone tools to Cumulus clouds created from smog and contrails. These drawings continue Holten’s ongoing meditation on the inextricable link between man and nature in the age of the Anthropocene. The ecological is now entwined with the economical. 2010 explores where we are coming from, where we are at now and where we are going, or could be going.

"The basis of the work of Katie Holten is the relationship between nature, social construction and memory. The poetics of the Irish artist prompts reflection on the perception of the life systems and organic processes that surround us, with the aim of revealing spaces that are often overlooked. In the recent work The Golden Bough the artist comes to terms with the relativity of science, showing us ‘Cosmic Latte’ and ‘Cosmic Turquoise’, the average color of the universe. Imagination, science and nature intertwine in a dialogue intended to reactivate dulled senses." Ilaria Gianni, 2010

Katie Holten was born in 1975 in Dublin and represented Ireland at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. Recent solo museum exhibitions include The Hugh Lane, Dublin (2010), The Bronx Museum, New York (2009), Nevada Museum of Art (2008), Villa Merkel, Esslingen (2008) and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2007).

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