Marianne Boesky Gallery x Carpenters Workshop Gallery: Material Alchemy: Part II: Group Show

Marianne Boesky Gallery and Carpenters Workshop Gallery are pleased to announce the continuation of their collaborative summer exhibition series in Aspen, Colorado. Titled Material Alchemy, the two-part exhibition features a co-curated thematic selection of works from each gallery’s respective program of artists. The exhibition allows for unique artistic dialogues that extend across the realms of art and design, including artists who explore ideas of materiality and process in their work. Following Material Alchemy: Part I, on view June 30 – July 23, Material Alchemy: Part II will be on view August 2 – September 3 at a seasonal gallery location at 601 East Hyman Avenue.

​​Through this joint exhibition, the galleries will expand upon their shared commitment to fostering an ongoing engagement within Aspen’s vibrant art community. Carpenters Workshop Gallery first opened a seasonal space in the city in the summer of 2021 that featured rotating exhibitions and special projects.  Marianne Boesky Gallery launched its Aspen location in 2017 and has since transitioned its presence in Aspen to organize collaborative exhibitions as the gallery develops a new permanent space.

Material Alchemy: Part II explores the radical effect the Italian Arte Povera movement had on art and design, exhibiting artworks that reject material hierarchies, demonstrate a formal honesty, and generate a new hybrid natural-industrial language. Bridging a gap between the found and the made, exhibited artists use raw and unprocessed materials to forge an immediate connection between viewer and object. 

Marianne Boesky Gallery’s presentation will center around recent work by Pier Paolo Calzolari, who is recognized as one of the pioneering figures of the Arte Povera movement, alongside works by The Haas Brothers, Jay Heikes, and Suzanne McClelland. While Calzolari uses crude organic materials such as salt, shells, tempera, rose petals, and natural pigments, Suzanne McClelland wields sound and acoustics to create a visual language. Her large-scale paintings can include glitter, polymers, graphite, dry pigments, and chalk and are infused with social commentary, underscoring the way in which language itself is politicized by its context. While McClelland’s abstract onomatopoeic works experiment with the way sound is translated by our bodies, materializing the immaterial, Jay Heikes takes a more philosophical approach with his cosmic oil paintings that are borne out of his fascination with evolutionary processes such as regeneration, stasis, and corrosion. Working with sustainably-sourced furs and cast bronze, The Haas Brothers’s beasts explore aesthetic themes related to nature and science fiction. Embodying the Haas Brothers’s keen attention to biomorphic design, each peculiar and fantastical creature is first a hand-carved clay sculpture before being cast in bronze.

Carpenters Workshop Gallery will highlight works by Vincenzo De Cotiis, including several new works from his Interlude collection, featuring forms combining recycled fiberglass and stromatolite, an ancient stone. The Italian artist has a natural affinity with the principles of Arte Povera, elevating humble materials beyond their usual function. Additional artists exhibited include Maarten Baas, The Campana Brothers, Nacho Carbonell, Stuart Haygarth, Ika Kuenzel, Kostas Lambridis, Martin Laforet, Wonmin Park, Giacomo Ravagli, Atelier Van Lieshout, and Susannah Weaver.

 
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About Marianne Boesky Gallery

Since its inception in 1996, Marianne Boesky Gallery has represented and supported the work of emerging and established contemporary international artists of all media. In its first decade, the gallery was instrumental in launching the careers of major artists through an innovative exhibition program; and in 2016, the gallery expanded its flagship location to its adjacent space on West 24th Street. The gallery actively represents many significant international artists, including Ghada Amer, Sanford Biggers, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Donald Moffett, and Frank Stella. To learn more, visit marianneboeskygallery.com.

About Carpenters Workshop Gallery

From functional art to collectible design, Carpenters Workshop Gallery is the leading gallery for producing and exhibiting work by established artists, designers and architects who are free to push the boundaries of traditional expression. Carpenters Workshop Gallery is guided by emotion, artistic and historical relevance, and respected worldwide for breaking down the boundaries between art and design. Carpenters Workshop Gallery represents internationally cel­ebrated artists, in addition to sup­porting and nurturing the next generation of talent.

The gallery relies on the partnership of friends, Julien Lombrail and Loïc Le Gaillard. They opened their first space in London’s Chelsea in 2006 in a former carpenter’s workshop; nearly twenty years lat­er, they now operate galleries in London, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles, in addition to presenting temporary curated exhibitions in cit­ies around the world, including Aspen, Monterrey, Palm Beach and San Francisco, among others. In 2015, the gallery opened its own atelier, a unique 8,000 square meters space dedicated to artistic re­search and production in collaboration with over 50 elite artisans, en­gineers, and architects. For more information, please visit carpentersworkshopgallery.com