PAST EXHIBITIONS:

TYLERDROSDECK

Opening Reception, Thursday, October 19, 6 – 8 pm

Newman Popiashvili Gallery is pleased to present Sitting Pretty, the first solo exhibition of Tyler Drosdeck. Drosdeck’s exhibition encompasses new sculptures of everyday objects including a motorcycle helmet, a chain link fence, soda can, unlabeled paint cans and two sheets of plywood. Drosdeck cast these sculptures in plastic and aluminum foil. The title, Sitting Pretty, refers to the sculptures as objects in their natural setting in the gallery space as opposed to the actual items which are often seen as unwanted waste and refuse.

Sitting Pretty also refers to the colloquial meaning, as in someone being in a position of advantage. The idea of a vantage point is important when viewing Tyler Drosdeck’s sculptures because almost all of them are looked at from above, peering down onto them as a whole. His Bleached Sunkist Can, Helmet, TV & Film, Foil Cans make sense together because they feel like they are from the same mundane world, something the artist has put together either intuitively or intentionally. Drosdeck’s sculptures gain meaning simply from sitting next to one another.

The sculptures also have the obvious quality of existing as a kind of detritus, fragments of larger wholes. In Chain Link, the fence seems to have fallen, it is on its side embedded with holes, the Helmet has no apparent owner, Bleached Sunkist Can is discarded and dented, Foil Cans appear used, but shiny like new. Although they have the illusion of being real life objects gathered together by the artist from the street or his studio and then randomly placed in gallery, the artist’s hand is quite obviously called into questions because it is clear the objects have been created and altered in a specific way. The mundane intersects with an aesthetic sensibility which again refers to the title, the way in which you might ‘pretty’ something up.

Tyler Drosdeck graduated from Bard College. He was part of the PS1’s Greater New York in 2005.