SIRIANNI/LANE // new works by MATTHEW LANE and MICHAEL SIRIANNI

SIRIANNI/LANE

new works by MATTHEW LANE and MICHAEL SIRIANNI

March 16 - April 6, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday, March 16, 7-10pm

Open Hours: by appointment

New Capital

3114 W. Carrol Ave. Chicago, 60612

SIRIANNI/LANE

The content of Matthew Lane’s exhibition at NEW CAPITAL develops from the domestic settings where social pleasantries are exchanged, his dry-walled alcoves, familiar to a foyer, become reliquaries for the banal and artificial. He includes in the exhibition objects made by other artists, created within loose parameters given by Lane, so that each object will be unique while remaining theoretically interchangeable. He will also create several carved sculptures of undomesticated animals in their caricatured form, seemingly cast reproductions, but each upon close inspection, unique.

The context that Michael Sirianni works in is equally as domestic, but moves from the front and dining room to the bedroom and basement. Mediation exists not in the formalized social interaction of our parlors, but rather on the internet, via live video chat, where Sirianni manipulates a different kind of unassuming audience, the casual and anonymous cyber fuck buddy. While depicting these ghosts of his own experience, his work deals in myth, metaphor and iconography ranging from the ancient Greeks to contemporary sex clubs.

These two seemingly divergent practices find similar commonalities. Both artists question art’s role as object and support. They elaborate on the history of institutional critique and social practice while continuing to create discreet objects. Abstraction lies dormant, exploiting kitsch, albeit in quotations and manifesting itself in the guise of vernacular.

MATTHEW LANE lives and works in Chicago, IL. He received his MFA from Massachusetts College Of Art in 2006. His work is a response to the idea of language as a triadic event and how that influences the way in which one experiences and interprets the objects displayed within gallery and museum spaces. Lately that response has been influenced by static but functional objects and how the aesthetics of the function of those objects might be used to direct the viewer in his or her interpretation of the overall body of work.

More information about Matthew Lane can be found at matthewlanesculpture.com

MICHAEL SIRIANNI was born in upstate New York and earned an MFA from the University of Illinois, Chicago in 2010. He has exhibited at Johalla Projects (Chicago), the CUE Art Foundation (New York), Iceberg Projects (Chicago), Los Caminos (St. Louis), Gallery 400 (Chicago), the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art (Grand Rapids), the Antimatter Film Festival (Vancouver), Fleisher/Ollman Gallery (Philadelphia) and the Hyde Park Arts Center (Chicago). A 2010 recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant, Sirianni currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

More information about Michael Sirianni can be found at www.michaelsirianni.com

NEW CAPITAL is a split-level exhibition space located in Chicago's East Garfield Park, along an industrial corridor. It is run by artists Chelsea Culp and Ben Foch. Its mission is to create a space where artists can present ambitious and uncompromising works (to audiences that prefer an uncompromising atmosphere). During each show one artist uses the white cube space upstairs, and another uses the raw space downstairs. Programming for each exhibit includes a closing event with a performance and an international media work. The closings occur in the loading dock of the warehouse.

More information about New Capital can be found at newcapitalprojects.com