Christina Forrer, Sepulcher (2021), via Luhring Augustine
On view this month in New York, artist Christina Forrer marks her second exhibition at Luhring Augustine, on view at the gallery’s Tribeca location, with a series of new weavings and drawings, continuing her expressive and enigmatic approach to the medium with a range of works that mix together powerful symbolisms with an animated and vibrant sense of energy.
Christina Forrer, Turnips Falling (2022), via Luhring Augustine
Featured in the exhibition will be a selection of new weavings, all produced within the past year, as well as Sepulcher, an enormous, Boschian woven tableau that was the keystone of Forrer’s recent solo MATRIX presentation at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, CT. Also on view will be a wide range of Forrer’s recent works on paper, presented in handmade table vitrines installed throughout the gallery. These works highlight the artist’s prodigious drawing output, it is a practice she performs every day and the resulting works vary greatly: some include notations and sketches, others are more resolved and discursive paintings on paper.
Christina Forrer, Elephant on Chair (2022), via Luhring Augustine
Animated by an interest in fables and folklore, Forrer’s vibrant weavings and electrifying works on paper explore the depths of human emotion. Depicted in her signature style of bold colors and rich patterning, her fantastical characters are rendered cartoonish with their exaggerated features and twisted, elongated forms. While many of her works portray moments of dramatic, explosive conflict, they also provide the viewer with glimpses into smaller, more personal terrors: private anxieties, internal tensions, and irrational fears. The work presented in the exhibition subtly revolves around issues of dependency and loss of control, a world in which figures (be they human, animal, or even vegetal) are faced with impossible choices. In one weaving, Gretel Gretel, the titular fairy tale character is shown sabotaging her future self, throwing the witch she will become into a fire.
Christina Forrer, Cohabitation (2022), via Luhring Augustine
Forrer’s work plays at a central and fascinating construct in the language of craft and fine art, both incorporated into a a striking conceptual operation. The pieces posses a strong understanding of the medium’s history and relationship to folk arts and vernacular production, but equally incorporates modern modes of experience and seeing, resulting in a body of work that negotiates time, history and practice in unique ways.
The show closes October 29th.
Christina Forrer, A is for Apple (2022), via Luhring Augustine
– C. Reinhardt
Read more:
Christina Forrer at Luhring Augustine [Exhibition Site]
