Tom Marioni: Lucky Strike

Margarete Roeder Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of works by Tom Marioni entitled Lucky Strike - Drawings, from September 15-October 21, 2006. A reception for the artist will be held on Friday, September 15, from 6-8 PM. The exhibition will consist of a series of new drawings and a sculpture, Golden Rectangle.

Marioni's new drawings are made by striking a match against a sheet of sandpaper, these "tiny explosions," as Marioni terms them, are composites of the original materials (the sandpaper and the trace of the sulfur), the performance (the action of striking the match), and the image (the completed work of art). These drawings are from a continuously changing series of "performed" drawings that Marioni began in 1972 with Drawing a Line as Far as I Can Reach, and continued with Drum Brush Drawings and Flying with Friends.

The exhibition will include one sculpture, Golden Rectangle consisting of a sheet of polished copper hinged to the wall-"golden" referring to the Golden Section proportions of the metal sheet. The work comprises not simply the metal object, but also the light it reflects, its shadow, and the mark on the wall demonstrating that the metal was polished in place. What is most noticeable with the inclusion of this single object is not its differences, but rather its similarities and congruencies with the framed paper works: concept, materials, and action fusing to produce the final artwork.

Marioni's works over the past thirty-five years have utilized printmaking, sculpture, and drawing. Only nominally described by these terms, the works purposefully defy the limits of narrow definition by incorporating disparate elements such as performance and installation in their execution and exhibition. By hybridizing such an enormous range of media, procedures, and conceptual practices Marioni's art lightly negotiates its manufacture, display, and apprehension with a breadth of meaning that is not without its own humor.

A concurrent retrospective exhibition Tom Marioni: Beer, Art, and Philosophy, (The Exhibition), 1968 - 2006 is at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati through October 29, 2006 and is accompanied by a catalogue. More information can be found at www.contemporaryartscenter.org

Marioni (born, 1937, Cincinnati) lives in San Francisco. He has exhibited his work and performed at museums internationally, including Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; he was the founder of the Museum of Conceptual Art in 1970.

Pressetext

Tom Marioni
Lucky Strike
Drawings